Scott Walker, meet Noam Chomsky: Here’s the real Iran history Republicans need to learn
"For years, Washington and the news media have portrayed Iran as the most dangerous national power on the planet. That opinion is not widely shared by the global community, however, which by a significant margin places the United States at the top of a list of the biggest threats to world peace. Despite the abundance of negative public opinion on Iran in the U.S., the question of what exactly makes the country such a threat is rarely meaningfully explored.
A brief history of U.S.-Iranian relations reveals everything about who should be distrustful of whom.
In 1953, the CIA overthrew Iran’s democratically elected government and installed the Shah, a brutal dictator who proceeded to establish one of the worst human rights records of the era. Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which deposed the Shah, Washington turned its favor to another brutal dictator in the region: Saddam Hussein, who received U.S. aid throughout the Iran-Iraq War. Ever since the revolution, the U.S. has imposed various sanctions on Iran. And most recently, we launched major military operations in two of Iran’s neighboring states, further destabilizing the region and threatening Iran’s own safety.
But in the eyes of U.S. commentary, Iran remains the supreme evil. It’s instructive, for instance, that without any irony or self-awareness we charge Iran with interfering in the Iraq War – a war we instigated from the other side of the world, against massive international protest, on Iran’s doorstep. Actually, Iran’s involvement in the Iraq conflict has necessarily increased with the growing threat of ISIS, a group that only exists because of the immense power vacuum and destabilization caused by the U.S. invasion.
With all the trouble Washington causes in and around Iranian borders, it’s a wonder Tehran has as much restraint as it does. Iran has launched zero invasions in modern history."
