Can’t be a surprise to anyone that is even superficially familiar with Iran-US relationships, prior to the Ayatollah’s return in the 70s

So when you ask the IRGC and the ayatollahs why they hate the US, Israel, and the West, they say it's because of history from 1957? I'm thinking it has more to do with their interpretation of their religion.

You remember Qasim Solemani? The guy Trump bragged on national television about how he blew up?

That guy collaborated with US forces, led a 2001 uprising against the Taliban in Herat, effectively liberating the town before US army had to make contact with the enemy. Do you understand what leading a local uprising against the Taliban in 2001 meant?

Iran was the first ME country to sympathize and hold candle vigils after the fucking Saudi’s (the guys Trump rolls out the red carpet for, btw) blew up the towers, things were ready to normalize - and then Bush says they are part of the axis of evil with Iraq (which Iranians had a war shortly before that) and North Korea.

Iraquís started chanting “death to America” after we murdered 1 million of their fellow citizens.

They hate us not only because they are religious freaks, but also because we fuck with their country non-stop. We just go around blowing shit up, or enforcing regime change (Iran-Contra?). It’s unsurprising lots of them hate our guts - I would too.

Ps. LATAM is the same, btw - we fucked with their governments non-stop, the only ones that like us are the rich fucks that want to use the military to further amass fortunes.

If they were serious they could have you know actually done something to the US all this time. Like closing this straight. Or at the very least extorting it.

Saying things and even spending to try to make it happen doesn't mean they were even close to being able to actually do it. Under Obama we had an agreement which had rigorous inspection details to prevent them developing nuclear weapons. Trump tore that all up in his first term.

They were violating the agreement. That is why it was torn up.

Why is the burden on us to disprove what they tell us they want to do and are taking actions to accomplish? When someone says they're trying to kill you and is actively working to make that happen, it is prudent to believe them.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

As an aside: Iran is one of the youngest nations on earth. The government threatening is one thing. Most of the younger Iranians were sympathetic to the West. It was only a matter of time before the regime would be gone or at least soften. But when you bomb a country that generally tends to cause a rally-round-the flag effect (see Britain in WWII, for example). So we've probably blown our chance at rapprochement for quite a while. The regime can tell it's citizens "see, we warned you about America, the Great Satan! "

This talk of the "rally-round-the-flag" effect is uninformed speculation since very little is exiting the country. Would they also have rallied around the flag if these same actions were taken when the initial protests occurred? It's not at all clear that the Iranians would ever be able to throw off their tyrannical government without outside help.

There is no rapprochement with people whose goal is to kill you and who don't mind so much if they die while trying.

Well, there certainly isn't any chance if you assume that everyone in Iran wants to kill you. But when you realize that it's only a small minority of people who were saying this then you start to ask: what about the majority of the people who were either sympathetic to the West or even just apathetic? Their government saying "Death to America" is like Trump saying "We're going to bomb them back to the stone age!" - most of us don't agree with Trump and we don't want any part of "bombing them back to the stone age". Same in Iran: most Iranians didn't agree with "death to America". But when you give them reason to agree with that sentiment it makes it harder for anything to actually change.

> Their government saying "Death to America" is like Trump saying "We're going to bomb them back to the stone age!"

The only way these things are alike is not useful. It's true that they both said things. But everyone understands that, even though Trump is a reckless idiot, he is saying bellicose things during a military offensive; not that he plans to annihilate Iran with nuclear weapons.

The people in charge of Iran who are acquiring nuclear weapons actually intend to use them. Besides the nuclear weapons, the quantity of conventional weapons they are stockpiling is an existential threat to Israel.

I'm going to give the Iranians credit for understanding that the intention of the US is to mitigate the threat that its autocracy poses to other countries. But it doesn't really matter. They can't be allowed to develop nuclear weapons or pose an existential threat to Israel. Neither of those aims was going to be accomplished waiting for some sort of sea change effected by an unarmed citizenry oppressed by a ruthless regime.

Pakistan has nukes already. They hate Israel. They harbored bin laden. Somehow we don't care about any of that. They just got a slap on the wrist I guess. Iran gets the beating stick though.

Yes, puzzling. What might the difference be? Oh, Pakistan isn't devoted to "Death to America" and they're not actually firing rockets at Israel and killing Israelis.

The thing with tit for tat geopolitics is that there is always a stone thrown already. However it seems to be the US and Israel that are assassinating leaders of sovereign nations without any due process and I'm not even talking in the last few weeks and months within this conflict either. Seems people already forgot about this with Trump from his first term too. I guess memories are short and soundbites really are king.