Iran

From RationalWiki
(Difference between revisions)
Jump to: navigation, search
(Political intrigue)
Line 12: Line 12:
 
}}
 
}}
  
'''Iran''', known as "'''Persia'''" until it came to encompass more cultures than just Persians, is a large country that is on the border between the [[Middle East]] and Central [[Asia]].  
+
'''Iran''', known as "'''Persia'''" by the West until Iran had to politely ask them to stop, is a large country that is on the border between the [[Middle East]] and Central [[Asia]].  
  
 
As a non-Arabic country in a region dominated by [[Arab]]s, it has traditionally been viewed with suspicion by its neighbors. (Its neighbors are, of course, on fantastic terms with each other, because they are brother Arabs.) Like some other Middle Eastern countries, it has large [[oil]] reserves beneath its territory.
 
As a non-Arabic country in a region dominated by [[Arab]]s, it has traditionally been viewed with suspicion by its neighbors. (Its neighbors are, of course, on fantastic terms with each other, because they are brother Arabs.) Like some other Middle Eastern countries, it has large [[oil]] reserves beneath its territory.

Revision as of 17:28, 2 December 2013

Iran, known as "Persia" by the West until Iran had to politely ask them to stop, is a large country that is on the border between the Middle East and Central Asia.

As a non-Arabic country in a region dominated by Arabs, it has traditionally been viewed with suspicion by its neighbors. (Its neighbors are, of course, on fantastic terms with each other, because they are brother Arabs.) Like some other Middle Eastern countries, it has large oil reserves beneath its territory.

Contents

Another version

This version has Iran being bordered by Arabs on one side, a couple of different former Soviet types on another side or two, Afghans elsewhere and Pakistanis somewhere else. Most of those are not Arabs, but many people (mostly Americans) have a difficult time with all of this. Yet another good reason to bomb them off the map?

Nazi influence over naming Iran

In 1935 the Iranian government requested those countries which it had diplomatic relations with, to call Persia "Iran," which is the name of the country in Persian. The suggestion for the change is said to have come from the Iranian ambassador to Germany, who came under the influence of the Nazis.[1] At the time Germany was in the grip of racial fever and cultivated good relations with nations of "Aryan" blood. It is said that some German friends of the ambassador persuaded him that, as with the advent of Reza Shah, Persia had turned a new leaf in its history and had freed itself from the pernicious influences of Britain and Russia, whose interventions in Persian affairs had practically crippled the country under the Qajars, it was only fitting that the country be called by its own name, "Iran." This would not only signal a new beginning and bring home to the world the new era in Iranian history, but would also signify the Aryan race of its population, as "Iran" is a cognate of "Aryan" and derived from it. The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent out a circular to all foreign embassies in Tehran, requesting that the country thenceforth be called "Iran." Diplomatic courtesy obliged, and the name "Iran" began to appear in official correspondence and news items.

Islamic Republic of Iran

Iran is an "Islamic republic," having a theocratic government based on Twelver Shi'a Islam - the fact that the symbol on the Iranian flag looks a lot like the religious symbol of Sikhism therefore looks a bit suspicious. This government was founded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after he deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1978-9. It is well-known for its particularly brutal treatment of homosexuals.[2]

Iran's previous president was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who drew condemnation (particularly from non-Muslim countries and the sane) for his promotion of Holocaust denial. While he is the most visible part of the Iranian government, the president isn't the guy in charge over there. The "Supreme Leader," who pretty much has the power to do what he wants, is Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It's also worth mentioning that there's a twelve-man Guardian Council between Supreme Leader Khamenei and the president. Effectively he's the Nick Clegg of Iran.

This is the same Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who, according to Al Jazeera, caused some amusement by making the bizarre claim that: "In Iran we do don't have homosexuals like in your country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon."[3] This might have something to do with hanging them from boom lifts.

Hostage crisis

In 1979 a group of militant Iranian students stormed and took over the US Embassy in Tehran, holding 52 of the former occupants hostage for 444 days. This led to a proliferation of "Nuke Tehran" bumper stickers, and to difficulties for President Jimmy Carter in his bid for re-election in 1980. In a totally innocent coincidence, the hostages were released minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President. Later, he repaid the favor by illegally selling arms to Iran in order to funnel the profits to the Contras in Nicaragua. We say "allegedly" because such anti-American nefarious behavior is obviously outside the realm of possibility for such a "great" American president.

2009 Elections

In Summer 2009 Iran held some rather remarkable "elections," in which a couple of facts have led people to wonder about the validity of the results.

  • Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared Ahmadinejad the winner of the presidential election before the polls had even closed.[4]
  • It has been expected that it would take several days to hand count the 40 million votes. In fact, the "result" was released in two hours.
  • Some constituencies reported turnout of well over 100%.

Post-election protests

After the election results were announced, there were mass protests in Tehran and other Iranian cities, which ended in heavy crackdowns by the government. These protests were called the "Twitter Revolution," since it was claimed that the social media tool was being used by the Iranian protesters to communicate, but statistics by Sysomos later revealed that less than 20,000 Twitter accounts were based in the Islamic Republic as of June 2009.[5] The protests were a very big story in Western media... at least until Michael Jackson died.

2013 Elections

In 2013 Ahmadinejad was term limited out of the running. New candidates were trotted out and vetted by the Guardian Council, who had the official task of making sure that the person running for office was sufficiently religious (contrasted with the United States, where even though such a thing is forbidden by law, the process is still carried out though much less formal). After a couple of the candidates dropped out, the stage was set for the election to decide which conservative the people of Iran wanted running their country.

Unexpectedly, many of the stricter conservatives split the vote between themselves, paving the way for the only "moderate" with a modicum of a reform agenda to sweep the election and bag slightly more than half the votes in the first round. Praising it as the "triumph of moderation over extremism" the new president-elect Hassan Rouhanni has called for releasing political prisoners at home, defending freedom of the press and a return to dialogue with the West.[6] Whether any of that will actually happen remains to be seen, but he has opened dialogue with the US, acknowledged the Holocaust and declared his wish for total nuclear disarmament.

Political intrigue

As a country with a lot of oil, Iran has the eye of multinational oil companies looking to further their monopolies on it. This is why Republicans keep calling for direct action against Iran, while claiming (with little to no evidence) that Iran poses a threat to the US (we saw how "well" that turned out last time). One could say that, by "threat to our nation," they mean "threat to my wallet." [7]

Nevertheless, there's still a lot of tension due to the rumor of war. Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister (and a secular one, for fuck's sake) was deposed in a CIA-backed coup after he nationalized Iran's oil industry. They installed the Shah, who brought back foreign oil firms into Iranian soil. The Shah was overthrown in a revolution that saw the country falling under control of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who caused the same hostage crisis that indirectly led to the Iran-Contra affair. Since then, Iran has been funding terrorist organizations to antagonize American military operations (including the time they killed 300 American soldiers in Lebanon during the 80s, which forced Ronald Reagan to cut and run).[8]

Its animosity towards Israel goes straight towards the reign of Ruhollah Khomeini, who prosecuted Jews in Iran [9]. As a result, Israel vehemently believes that a nuclear Iran would threaten their very existence, while Iran believes that Israel is an illegitimate state. This has led to something of a proxy conflict between the two, as Iran funds Hezbollah in Lebanon (whose founders were followers of Khomeini) and Hamas in Gaza to annoy the Israelis. Further allies of Iran include Algeria, Sudan, Syria, China and Russia. Qatar, another oil giant, once supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, so they've been an economic rival for decades, but they're a lot more cordial than most might assume. In fact, Iran is actually willing to work with Qatar to boost gas outputs. A notable enemy is Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Arab state which considers Shia Muslims, like the ones in Iran, Heresy. It doesn't help that the House of Saud is another oil tycoon in the region. Iraq, once a bitter enemy, is starting to improve its relations since the death of Saddam Hussein.

During late 2013, there was talk US military action taken against Bashar al-Assad in Syria due to chemical weapons being used to gas people in its civil war. China and Russia, allies of Syria as well as Iran, vetoed the 2012 resolution that would've gotten NATO and the United Nations involved. Add that to how Iran vowed to attack Israel if America attacked Syria, along with how very few of the Americans wanted war, and it was a volatile situation that many felt shouldn't happen. When the United Kingdom voted not to get involved (despite David Cameron vehemently wanting as much), Washington reeled from the shock, leaving Barack Obama to request Congress to vote on a military strike on Iran, so he could save face. Right as the vote was about to take place, the United States - inadvertently - discovered a way to calm things down; when prompted by reporter Margaret Brennan, John Kerry accidentally suggested that Assad to dismantle his chemical weapons caches in exchange for no military action by America. Assad immediately jumped on that agreement, and the United Nations is now working to disable or limit the capabilities of Syria's chemical weapons, leaving many to breathe a sigh of relief, not at the civil war still going on, but how it didn't end up as bad as everyone thought it would. Saudi Arabia was so pissed at the deal that they're now working alongside the Syrian rebels against Assad, without much success so far.

In more recent times, Iranian oil is craved in European markets starved for more investment, but the international sanctions, conducted by America, have crippled its economy, blocked its ability to export oil and diminished the value of the rial, their home-grown money. Sure, the mere existence of China and Russia is enough to... discourage the prospect of a war with Iran, whether you're in America, Israel or Saudi Arabia, but the sanctions have caused so much turmoil that relative moderate Hassan Rouhani (who offered the aforementioned rejected deal to Cheney) was elected to get the sanctions lifted. To achieve this, the Supreme Leader granted Rouhani full authority over negotiations with the Americans in order to achieve a deal within a year.

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. Persia, Iran, and the Persian Gulf: A Brief History of Names
  2. Human Rights watch on Iran's homosexuals
  3. No homosexuals in Iran!
  4. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6605062.ece
  5. http://blog.sysomos.com/2009/06/21/a-look-at-twitter-in-iran/
  6. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22922131
  7. Here's why there should be no military action taken against Iran. It has a nuclear program, but it is not technically making nukes yet (in contrast to North Korea), so there's reason number one on not to attack it. Two, it is backed by China and Russia, and we all know what happened last time the West went against the East. Three, Iran is four times the size of Iraq; it's downright suicidal to wage war there.
  8. To be fair, Iran was actually willing to end its funding of Hezbollah, cooperate against Al-Qaeda and end its nuclear program shortly after Saddam was deposed. Dick Cheney, in one of his most asshole moves ever, said "We don't negotiate with evil" and told Iran to piss off.
  9. Things have calmed down considerably on that end, however, as Iran has the second largest non-Israeli Jewish population outside of America, and they even have a member in the Iranian parliament. True to form, Iranian Jews don't like Israel, but mainly due to perceptions that the Knesset is crooked
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support