On 7/21/2015 4:44 PM, sf wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Jul 2015 08:04:04 -0700, gtr > wrote:
>
>> I went to school in Oklahoma in the late 60's and there were many
>> Iranians students there, mostly studying petrol engineering. They
>> *always* referred to themselves as Persians. They spoke with great
>> loathing of the Shah, and great disgust with the USA for propping him
>> up. 10 years later they spoke with disgust about how we supported
>> Iraq's border war with them--but still called themselves Persians. Now
>> they have about 80 years of complaints--all of them predicated on
>> America's love for Saudi oil and deference to Saudi paranoia--but still
>> call themselves Persians.
>
> Do you blame them? They've been trying to crawl out from under
> shariia law since 1928, but the West keeps pulling the rug out from
> under them. We ousted a democratically elected government and
> installed the Shah back in 1941 - and they have been unstable ever
> since.

That was an unfortunate response to a fear we had of Iran becoming a
communist nation.

Regrettably we had a similar concern with Iraq and hence Saddam offered
us a blocking maneuver.

So we set him against the Mullahs and got multiple decades of checkmate
between the two nations.

Think of it as a sponsored dogfight where it doesn't matter which dog
wins as long as they keep fighting each other.


> They are the most educated people of all that middle eastern mess and
> even better, they don't treat their female population the way Saudis
> treat theirs. Given a fighting chance, they will move into the 21st
> century while the rest of them move backward to the 800's. I'm
> praying for Afghanistan, but they are in the grip of ISIS and I don't
> have much hope.

Roger that.

There is speculation that the terms of the Iran "deal" will lead them to
a whopping 7-8% economic growth annually.

That's a ton of pent up demand if the estimates are accurate.

Sadly the price is nukes for a nation that doesn't need any, their oil
supplies are so deep.

But if the Mullahs light a few candles, we may all end up toast.