US terminates ‘treaty of amity’ with Iran.....

Discussion in 'United States' started by MMC, Oct 3, 2018.

  1. MMC

    MMC Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2012
    Messages:
    41,793
    Likes Received:
    14,697
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Last edited: May 10, 2019
  2. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    3,741
    Likes Received:
    1,748
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    The question is NOT "Is the current regime in Iran a bad regime?"

    Rather, the question is -- or should be -- "How will this regime be replaced with a modern, democratic regime -- one in which the Persian people can once again flourish and take their rightful place among the leading nations of humanity?" (Anyone who knows history knows that the Persians were one of the great founding civilizations, widely admired among civilized peoples in ancient times.)

    Japan and Germany waged aggressive wars of conquest, were utterly defeated, and occupied. The occuplying powers then imposed upon these nations regimes congruent to their own: in the case of the part of Germany occupied by the USSR, a communist dictatorship. In the case of Japan and that part of Germany occupied by the democratic Allies, a capitalist democracy. While there was fear of guerilla resistance in both countries, it did not happen: the Japanese people obeyed their Emperor, and the German people either reluctantly accepted military reality, or, in the case of many of them, were happy to be rid of the Nazis.

    If Iran engaged in an aggressive war of conquest, trying to conquer, say, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabai, and was comprehensively defeated by a coaltion of states who then occupied Iran, the case would be similar, although guerilla resistance -- as in Iraq -- would undoubtedly be a problem.

    But this is not the case.

    The Iranian regime will have to be transformed -- not necessarily overthrown -- from within, by Iranians. How this will happen is not possible to predict. We have many examples of dictatorships -- which Iran is not -- being transfromed, relatively peacefully, through the pressure of internal public opinion. Examples are : Greece, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile. (All American-supported dictatorships, admittedly.)

    I don't know enough about Iran to comment, but I suspect there are great internal contradictions within the ruling power -- roughly, between the True Believers, buttressed by those who are doing well, via corruption, from the current arrangements, on the one hand -- and those Iranians who want Iran to become a modern country, buttressed by those who suffer from the current corruption and believe they would do better under a less corrupt system.

    Iran is NOT a Muslim North Korea. (And there are probably contradictions we don't see even within that regime.) It is not a backward country like Afghanistan, or even like Pakistan. Anyone who has met Iranians in the Iranian diaspora knows they are intelligent, vigorous, educated people. Iran will be another China -- moving from backwardness to modernity swiftly, in historic terms. (Not long ago, an Iranian woman won the Fields Medal, the equivalent in Mathematics of the Nobel Prize.)

    American pressure and threats just bolster the current regime, by allowing it to play the card of National Pride, a very potent force of which few Americans have any understanding at all.

    We should have no quarrel with Iran. It has done nothing to us. It has not overthrown a democratically-elected American President and installed a puppet dictator in his place. It hasn't shot down a civilian American airliner. Any injuries we have had at its hands have been a result of our meddling in the Middle East, where we will necessarily suffer injury from resentful locals.

    We should treat Iran, at a minimum, like we treat Communist China: recognize it, trade with it, encourage its students to study in the US (and send our students there). In short, do everything we can to encourage social development, the growth of an urban, educated middle class, who want to be part of modern humanity.

    And then let history take its course.
     

Share This Page