How did this place manage to be the most based and advanced...

>be an American who always thought Iran was just another backwards Islamic country that supported violent dogmatic ideologies
>start actually studying Iranian history and all the contributions it has made to the world
>see that it's actually one of the more reasonable countries in the middle east right now

wtf I love Iran now

They're shit, they're just better at burying their shit than other countries.

URLdump inbound.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/iran-responsible-for-1998-us-embassy-bombings/2011/12/08/gIQAuEAAfO_story.html?utm_term=.aab0a37b6aa1

dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2014/Feb-07/246688-us-targets-key-iran-based-al-qaeda-facilitator.ashx

blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2012/10/18/treasury-places-sanctions-on-al-qaeda-operative-in-iran/

washingtonpost.com/local/crime/judge-orders-sudan-iran-to-pay-75-million-to-family-of-uss-cole-victim/2015/03/31/a2105dd8-d7b8-11e4-ba28-f2a685dc7f89_story.html

dailycaller.com/2011/12/16/federal-judge-iran-shares-responsibility-for-911-terror-attacks/#ixzz26yuUm99b

>been a world power
Yeah sure, the URSS and UK will allow any nation in MENA to be powerful enough to be independent without nukes

So, are you CIA or FBI?

>will
My bad

Ah yes, just ignore how the Soviets did the same exact fucking thing.

I hate Iranian shills on my Veeky Forums.

They are Muslims.

Muslims suck.

There are no exceptions.

Name three large scale Shia jihad groups. Ones that attack outside of their country of origin.

All the governments disposed by the Soviets either lost wars to them, or already had enough problems for a large-scale communist revolution and were merely being funded. The US literally assassinated some world leaders for threatening Fruit companies.

>All the governments disposed by the Soviets either lost wars to them, or already had enough problems for a large-scale communist revolution and were merely being funded.

>lost wars to them
bait?
most of their puppets they got by kicking Germans out of their countries during WW2

read this:
redmoonrising.com/Ikhwan/Clash.htm
the Brits were at it long before the Yanks got their grubby mitts stuck in

Hezbollah and its many splinter cells

If I'm honest, I ran out after Quds Force and Hezbollah.

The Soviets weren't all that left wing, even Lenin ran a mixed economy (which Stalin destroyed.) The rest of the USSRs history is basically right wing imperialism after Stalin converted the leader of the party into a new Czarist position the USSR was essentially just the Russian Empire reborn.

Indeed. Arbenz in particular was another major shot in the foot. All this instability coming from Central America started there and then. Over a bunch of banana farms.

>literally falling for the "Persian civilization" meme

It was a backwater of Mesopotamia until the 1500s and got civilization from the Assyrians and Babylon. Sure, they have culture, but they weren't hugely more advanced than the M. E. just because they're 'Aryans' or whatever.

Yeah, and they are based.

Of course they did, what you think Persia was a cradle of civilization.

Next you're going to say Roman civilization is invalid since they derived it from the Etruscans/Greeks.

even during the time of the Shah it was very backwards outside of the cities, after the revolution there were many elements that opposed the theocracy but they all lined up behind the ayatollah after Iraq invaded

the ayatollah then used that opportunity to line them all up against a wall

Actually comparing Persia and Mesopotamia with Rome and Greece is surprisingly adequate, what with the region formerly known as the Eastern Roman Empire being the real center of civilization except for a couple of centuries when Rome was actually relevant.

>This is basically the 20th century in a shell
as if it ended
wonkette.com/227054/we-actually-won-the-iraq-war-hooray

Do you actually believe that Iran, a Shia theocracy, supports Al-Qaeda, an organization literally dedicated to killing all Shia Muslims?

> Iran is far more advanced than the rest of MEN-

Israel is an Anglo American colony.

Islam and mongols(and other step people) I guess.They kinda fucked the place up.

oh god, Iranians are the we wuz kangz of asia. I say this as an Iranian who really really despises modern Iranian culture. Also Iran didn't go from advanced to backwater. It is a far more capable country today than it was 30 years ago when the shah horded half the nation's wealth to throw parties.

Only IS has a problem with Shiites, Al Qaeda doesn't. Under Bin Laden he stressed that AQ in Iraq leave them alone but Zarqawi the then leader of AQ in Iraq didnt listen.

Anonymouse bitcoin debitcard!

I found it !

btc-debitcard.com

It's not we wuz if it's real, either way I rather Iranians embrace their preislamic heritage than whatever your Shia cleric leaders doing right now

more israelis are fluent in russian than english

Two words: United States.

>shah horded half the nation's wealth to throw parties

it was one hell of a party though, the 2500 year celebration

>It's OK that we did it, because the evil commies did it too

Geograhical location, experience in warfare (that area was in constant war with its neighbourz and when they united they took their wars to the rest of the world) and the invention of the warchariot to top it off.

The eternal debate. Why they just unite and stop being cocks to each other?

Because there were a lot of jews that moved from Russia to Israel and there are still a lot there

Shouldn't Europe be green too?

>oman
>sunni

>what is Israel
>what is UAE

epin maymay

Nah, your Kurdish brothers are the biggest wewuzzers

Bolche-Jew theory confirmed?

>what is Israel
Le american proxy meme
>what is UAE
Le neo-cities state of arabia being somewhat relevant

Try hard saudi

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Mesopotamia also Aryan?

>implying Kurds wuz not

look at whats happening in sweden now for the answer

Almost as if it isn't an ANglo-American colony.

You are a super retard.

>but dammit it coulda been a world power if it didn't let the Islam drug go to far

Islam was the devised cure for the sickness that was the imposed westernisation. Western mentality and values was accepted by the leaders, but not the masses, and it reduced the country to a semi-colonial backwater that exported its only wealth (oil) with no gain for the people, and then imported all the products made from it at a loss. It was totally dependent on the West.

The Iranian intellectuals were inspired by the German Conservative Revolution, and Heidegger's work in particular. They sought to turn to a more authentic mode of being that would return them to agency as a people. They found it in the form of Islam, particularly the Shi'a Islam that supposedly always stood by the oppressed and against the oppressors, and that supposedly was the true expression of the Iranian spirit.

You might say that islamization, which was largely a grassroots movement, helped Iranians regain their agency internationally. On the other hand it's not accepted by the people nowadays, so in that sense it failed. But you must remember that the demographical changes, especially the increase in education that caused this change of sentiment were a conscious effort of the Islamic government. There's some interesting articles on how it was the islamization, not secularism that helped women's rights and education - the statistical data certainly supports it. So you might as well say that the islamic democracy was a needed step on the road to liberal democracy.

As to why it chose that path, from the beginning of the XXth century it was clear that Iran would be a republic. That much was evident from its history and culture, especially two centuries of useless and ineffectual monarchs, and the Shi'a theology that always gave the secular ruler only a very conditional mandate to rule, and was always quick to denounce him. After all, the true sovereign was always the Hidden Imam.

>cont

>Al Qaeda doesn't.
They do.

Despite being a theocracy, Iran is quite advanced, certainly more so then the rest of the Levant with exception of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and they are on par with all three. Especially ironically "socially" considering how oppressive Arabia is to foreigners, non-Sunni Muslims, women, non-Muslims, etc...

Elam was the biggest influence on Iranic cultures and nations when the Indo-Iranics came to the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia. After the rise of the Medes and Persians, then the Iranians were hugely influenced by the Neo-Babylonians and Assyrians as well as Phoenicians and Egyptians when it came to art work, high culture, architecture, and writing.

You'll note that Ctesiphon is basically Babylon. So is Baghdad.

Most of Iran is steppes and sparsely populated. Iranians were a warrior people that primarily valued truth and boldness in battle. When they controlled Mesopotamia they were learned and advanced. When they didn't, they were somewhat backwards.

I don't know if this is what's happening now, but war makes for strange bedfellows and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking the people at the top of these organizations are actually drinking the Kool Aid. All that ideology is for mobilizing the plebs.

>implying Al Qaeda doesn't hate Shiites
>Al-Zarqawi purportedly declared an all-out war on Shiites while claiming responsibility for Shiite mosque bombings (in Iraq).

Ctesiphon was built on the outskirts outside of Babylon, same with Selecuia eventually being incorporated INTO Ctesiphon since it expanded so much that its urban centers were directly incorporated into the Persian capital's districts.

more the opposite, jews emigrated from the USSR because they were unwanted and were more inspired by the cause of strengthening/defending Israel than they were by strengthening communism

Oppressed by the English and the Russians for the entire XIXth century, the Iranian intellectuals have since turned to two countries for inspiration - France and Germany. Those were the ones that were respectable enough, had no conflicts of interests with Iran, and frequently opposed England and Russia politically.

Those two countries had of course varying definitions of what it means to be a nation, what is democracy and what is republicanism. So Iran from the beginning had two possibilities - to choose a French model, with liberal democracy, and the German model, supposedly more organic and spiritual.

The liberal democracy was tried a few times - in 1906 it ended with the Russian cossacks storming the parliament and the Brits bombarding it in 1908. Then it was re-established, but devolved into anarchy that was ended by Reza Khan's coup. In 1953 it ended with the CIA anti-Mossadeq coup.
So the German way was chosen, first by Reza Khan as nationalism, which didn't stick around largely because it was a top-down movement, but also because in Iran only 50-60% people were actual Persians. So a different approach was chosen, a religious identity. This could work because the powers that be have largely ignored the clergy and concentrated on other enemies - liberals, communists etc instead, so the clergy could appropriate their postulates.

This of course is just an interpretation, so feel free to critique.

>one of two nations that can tell America to go to hell
>"collapsed"

But muh gay wedding cakes...

Al Qaeda has always had a problem with Shi'ites. They have collaborated with Shia groups for purely practical and strategic reasons (best to prioritize fighting the "far enemy" in the West), as well as the amount of respect Bin Laden had for the efficacy of the Islamic Revolution and shia groups like the Basij during the Iran-Iraq war. But Al Qaeda's theology has always considered shia to be idolaters.

>WE

interesting analysis desu senpai

good post.
you might find this book interesting.

>collapsed
>literally beats the entire world in the iran-iraq war

I didnt disagree with that idiot, i said the main AQ leadership didnt have a problem with shiites. Zarqawi was just a franchise commander at the time

You could also look at it like this.

>populist leader mismanaged foreign interests and destroyed his country

It's a matter of perspective. Why's the US evil for protecting its interests?

>Why's the US evil for protecting its interests?
It's not.
But don't be throwing a chimp out and cry for war when the sand nigs decided that they don't want put up with your shit anymore.

>I recognize the Islamic golden age
Stopped there