

Tehran’s Promise: The revolution’s midlife crisis and the nuclear deal - Thevet
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/tehrans-promise

======
steve19
> The hostile rhetoric hasn’t changed. At Friday prayers, as

> on previous visits, I heard thousands chanting “Death to

> America.” This year, twenty times.

> ....

> “ ‘Death to America’? This is politics and not related to

> people’s thinking,”

Or in other words Iran is a country where large portions of the population
hold very different conflicting beliefs, like many other countries including
the USA.

What I find interesting is that Kerry's willingness to gamble that the future
generation/future ruling class will be pro-American (or become pro-America
because of this deal).

~~~
IkmoIkmo
> What I find interesting is that Kerry's willingness to gamble that the
> future generation/future ruling class will be pro-American (or become pro-
> America because of this deal).

It definitely is interesting, but not entirely surprising. If you look at what
Iran has endured at the hands of the US, yet look at westernisation within
Iran, the significant pockets of western-leaning young people, and an Iran
which is militarily structured to fight defensive wars, it looks like Iran's
anti-US rhetoric is just that, rhetoric, a political coping mechanism to unify
the country through hard times, but not intrinsically the soul of a culture
that's thousands of years old, that anti-US rhetoric could, then, start to
dissipate when said hard times and foreign pressure would end. And this
diplomatic deal is the first step on exactly that path.

I mean, look at it from Iran's perspective, let's reverse it. It's a bit silly
but bear with me.

Imagine the UK had some business conflict over oil in the US. Iran then helped
overthrow Harry Truman, and installed a pro-iranian dictator who spread
Iranian culture in the US, to improve this business relationship. That alone
would be insane and ample fuel for anti-Iranian rhetoric for decades to come.

The dictator's rule (a pretty shitty one) went on for decades until he was
overthrown and a new leader emerged in the US, directly followed by Iran
funding Canada and arming it, which attacks the US and starts a bloody war of
almost 8 years, all during our lifetime. When Canada appears to lose Iran
backs it even more, and when Canada uses chemical weapons killing an
equivalence of more than half a million Americans, both military and
civilians, Iran tells Canada exactly where US soldiers are located, and was
later found indeed having shipped chemical and biological weapons to Canada.
And when a civilian US airplane flies above US territory and gets shot down by
an Iranian cruiser, killing 290 innocent people, Iran never apologises and
there are zero consequences, as if it never happened, to give you a sense of
the relations.

When the war eventually ends, Iran invades various countries neighbouring the
US, like Canada and Mexico, that just years earlier had been allies. Not just
that but under false pretences, deemed an illegal invasion by the United
Nations and abhorred by virtually the entire world population. (makes the US
wonder, if Iran attacks a former ally, resulting in the death of hundreds of
thousands, tortures and a ruined, failed state, based on forged-evidence...
there's perhaps only 1 thing that can deter Iran from attacking you. The
ultimate deterrence, a Nuclear weapon, only ever used by Iran by the way,
twice). Not just that but Iran keeps backing other countries like, China (read
Saudi Arabia), who is a bit further away and who is a huge rival in the
region. This is followed by Iranian politicians and media left and right
calling to bomb the US, invade the country, hell even with a presidential
nominee in Iran joking 'bomb, bomb, bomb, bom the US', referencing the Iranian
Beach Boys classic Barbara US (this analogy is getting stretched pretttty thin
by now, I know).

Followed by Iran leading the world into sanctioning the US (furthering
existing sanctions that had been on the US for decades) which causes deep
issues, and when someone from Iran finally wants a diplomatic solution, hawks
in Iran invite the president of China over to give a speech about the US's
danger to the world, a speech laden with lies contradicting China and Iran's
own intelligence on the US.

But throughout all this, the US becomes more Iranian every day, anti-Iran
hardliners in the US aren't representative of the larger country, the US
doesn't invade or attack other countries and seeks diplomatic solutions, it
structures its military to fight defensive, not offensive wars, and throughout
it all Americans on the whole stay pretty sane and normal people.

It'd be no surprise then that someone in Kerry's position, Iran's state
secretary, would think that easing up on all of the above could lead to a more
pro-Iranian US. Now flip the whole story and it may make a lot of sense. Or
you may have lost me in this silly comparison :) Of course it's a lot less
black and white than this, but the notion that Iran's relationship with
westernisation isn't zero (or close to zero) given their experiences with the
west, sparks a lot of hope. And beyond that it's important to consider that
while diplomacy isn't perfect, I can scarcely imagine the alternative, and
haven't heard any sensible proposals either.

~~~
1971genocide
Thank you for that !

The sad part is US has been a force against democratic govt for the last 50
years.

India, Bangladesh ( my own people ), Iran, Nicaragua, Vietnam.

Meanwhile arming pakistan while it was military dictatorship, Saudi, etc.

The US is like any other country - its out for its own interest and securing
resources for itself.

I cringe whenever americans take a high ground.

Its just a lot of propaganda, It took me a while to do my own research since
no one directly provides the information. But its all there !

I find the fact that people in hacker news who consider themselves to be the
more educated crowd do not keep tabs on it. What chance does the rest of the
country have ?

The hardline Iranians were part of a generation that was deeply humiliated by
the US. They are not the most educated bunch but they did what they had to do
and everyone should respect them for it.

I think things would have been much worse by now if it wasn't for the rapid
rise of china which went under the radar of american policy makers.

China hopefully provides the balance that is needed to prevent either America
or China itself for doing terrible things to other countries.

------
Jun8
The reactions to the Islamist Revolution and the resulting disillusionment are
complex. Two interesting/random points of entry could be: (1) Foucoult's
widely derided (in France, not many translated to English) writings, with
strong Orientalist tendencies, strongly supporting the Revolution, based on
his many visits to Iran and interviews with key players (e.g. see
[http://newpol.org/content/revisiting-foucault-and-iranian-
re...](http://newpol.org/content/revisiting-foucault-and-iranian-revolution)
or
[http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3534884...](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3534884.html)
for a book on the subject) and (2) _Persepolis_
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_\(comics\))).

~~~
guard-of-terra
From the outside it seems that the revolution is the ultimate end of
habitability of Iran, end-of-world, barbarians-take-over-Rome quality.

Let's stop progress, abolish human rights and heed to words written thousand
years ago and interpreted by corrupt barbarians.

Foucoult can write whatever nonsense sitting in warm Paris with all the
freedoms and comfort readily available.

I'm more scared by "Iran - then and now" series of pictures.

~~~
mistursinistur
"Iran - then and now" series are often misleading. They cherry-pick extreme
examples from non-representative slices of the population.

We've all seen photos of the stylish, 1970s Iranian 1%, but not of pervasive
poverty and disenfranchisement that their brand of progress perpetuated on the
other 99%. The Shah's elite may have looked American but this doesn't mean
that they presided over progress or gave much thought to human rights.

~~~
x5n1
The Muslim world has never known how to do democracy right because of a number
of reasons including tribalism, nepotism, elitism. They have never understood
what it means to be a liberal democracy. Add to that the colonials wanting to
continue this tradition because corruption is easier to exploit and we have
the precarious situation in the Middle East which has now deteriorated to an
unfixable point.

------
Animats
One can hope, but remember the Arab Spring and its collapse.

Iran is a theocracy, and theocracies can't lighten up too much or they lose
first their reason for being, then their power.

------
cletus
What makes me sad is just what complete disarray the GOP is in. I'm sure at
some point the GOP actually stood for something. Now? It just seems to have
been completely co-opted by religious conservatives. Presidential candidates
are cut from that cloth or, worse, they're just puppets for particular private
interests (eg Scott Walker is nothing more than an empty vessel for the Koch
brothers).

Compounding this is the huge political power that Israel has in US politics.
Whatever your opinion about Israel, I think it's fair to say that Israel has
been disastrous for US foreign policy in the Middle East for every country's
relationship to the US other than Israel.

Earlier this week I was reading that the Obama administration may hasten the
release of Israeli spy Jonathon Pollard in an effort to appease Israel. Israel
has found unlikely allies in the Jewish lobby (who tend to lean left) and
religious conservatives.

Iran is a problem the US made by repeatedly and disastrously screwing with the
region. The support of the Shah fomenting the Iranian Revolution, using Saddam
Hussein as a proxy to fight Iran (killing hundreds of thousands on both sides)
and invading Iraq a decade ago.

The invasion in particular was the last straw. The lesson the "axis of evil"
could take away from this was that having nuclear weapons (like North Korea)
was the only guarantee of survival. So of course Iran wants the bomb. Whose
fault is that?

Yet the GOP in particular seems ready to sacrifice everything for a policy
that isn't working just to appease Israel. Well, Israel is just going to have
to learn to live in that region because someone there getting nuclear weapons
is a question of if not when.

We've come a long way since Eisenhower could (and did) tell Israel to get out
of Sinai. The fact that Obama is even trying to stand up to Israel is amazing
to me. I honestly hope he succeeds because I think engagement with Iran is the
only sustainable course forward.

~~~
tsotha
I'm not sure why you think the GOP is in disarray. The Republicans don't trust
Iran not to build a bomb. To think the Iranians _won 't_ is naive to a
childish degree. We went down this road with the North Koreans. Are memories
that short?

And what happened with Democrats and anti-Semitism? When did it become okay to
see Evil Jews behind every problem?

~~~
amirmansour
Comparing Iran to North Korea is quite a stretch, and frankly doing so reveals
that you are severely misinformed about the Iranian people, culture,
government, and history. It's OK, majority of people are, and I would be more
than happy to clear up any questions you might have regarding the matter.

~~~
tsotha
It's not a stretch at all when it comes to nuclear weapons. The Iranians are
doing _exactly_ what the North Koreans did. The "people, culture, government,
and history" are relevant only to the extent to which they played into the
government's decision to acquire nuclear weapons.

~~~
Gibbon1
For me a big difference between North Korea and Iran is the balance of soft vs
hard power in those countries. In Iran the ordinary people tend to push back
in a lot of ways and the government gives ground if grudgingly and slowly. And
there is a lot of politics going on between factions with real power.

Given that I'm willing to be very patient. Seriously, the generals of the Red
Army ran the soviet union for 35 years after Stalin died and then they passed
on. So too will the Iranian revolutionaries.

------
1971genocide
Iran's problem is a completely US manufactured crisis.

I do not understand how people are so myopic to history.

FACT:

# Iran had a democratic secular government in 1950.

# However this govt was not friendly to a British oil company ( BP ).

# The British requested american help to protect the interest of British
multinationals.

# The grandson of Theodore Roosevelt personally helped overthrow this
democratically legitimate government.

# The hated shan was put in power whom the iranian people really did not like.
The shan went back to trading oil for weapons with the Americans/UK.

# From the perceptive of an iranian it must suck to know that your government
was overthrown by some foreign entity just for the sake of a oil company. The
iranian/persian who are among the oldest of civilizations ( 5,000 years ).

# Of-course this leads to a revolution and a anti-american ayatollah is put in
power.

# Americans are nothing but vindictive when it comes to geo-politics and arm
Saddam to his teeth giving him chemical weapons.

# Saddam Invades Iraq just while the Iranian are recovering from a revolution
to now have to face against a terrible dictator who wants to invade their
country.

# Iran had to indure a 8 year war in the 1980s, a war that took a huge toll.
The battles fought looked like something out of WW2.

# Next america invades the country to their left and their right and puts a
huge amount of ground troops in the south and allies with all of Iran's
neighbour. Most of whom hate the Iranians just because they are not the SAME
wahhabi muslims as them.

# Iran ofcourse wants a nuclear weapon to stabilize the huge power imbalance
they face. They never interfered or invaded a neighbour for 1000s of years and
now suddenly they are treated like the scum of the earth.

# The biggest loser in all of this has been the Iranian and poor sunnis
civilians who are having to deal with the blunt of ISIS and the likes.

~~~
adventured
> They never interfered or invaded a neighbour for 1000s of years

No, instead Iran has used proxies like Hezbollah to do their interfering. They
use a cowardly approach because they know their actions are despicable, it
provides deniability. They want something to occur, but they don't want to
take responsibility for it, which tells you all you need to know about the
actions in question.

And before you say: well but America has done x y z - that's already
understood. We're talking about Iran. Iran doesn't get excused from its
misdeeds because America has done something bad too.

~~~
1971genocide
Hezbollah was not a aggressive militia group. It was an resistance to illegal
Isreali Occupation In Lebanon.

If you consider this to be a cowardly act, then its no more different than the
cowardly act of the French resistance against the Nazis.

If the Iranian are cowards then so are the Americans, Pakistanis, Russians,
Israeli, Chinese and British.

This is why the Iranian are more than well justified to own a nuclear weapon -
since everyone tries to covertly try to overthrow their government, and they
do not have a useful deterrent against superpower nations.

~~~
smallhands
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyWFa5xbHKg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyWFa5xbHKg)

