"Decades of wrong assumptions, combined with hesitant leadership and diplomatic overreach, produced the war we are witnessing today." For me this says it all.
American policy towards Iran since 1979 can be defined as appeasement of an ideologically driven foe that was never interested in moderating it’s irredentist ideology
The so-called misconceptions of liberal foreign policy were the smokescreen for something deeper at play: the misconceptions of modern society which the people who fomented these idiotic policies also promoted, chief of which was that modern society, embodied in the West and achieved after centuries of effort, was basically a smokescreen for maintaining the powerful against the oppressed, a reworking of Marx's denunciation of capitalism extended now to the entire spectrum of society. Obama translated Habermas' description of modernity as the colonization of social life into a call to transform America in similar New Left fashion, exemplified by his Cairo speech which was an out and out lie in its description of Islam. Of course other leaders mischaracterized Islam too - George W. Bush's and David Cameron's insistence on Islam as a religion of peace, current Canadian PM Carney's assertion that Muslim values are Canadian values - but Obama's message was rooted in his leftist project that he has not abandoned, even though he rode it all the way to a Martha Vineyard mansion, helped along by his Jewish leftist coterie of advisors. The repeated misreading of Islam and the modern Middle East by western government leaders reflects one of democracy's blindspots, namely that religion being defanged under modern democracy and become peaceable becomes extended universally, just as the shibboleths of democracy become universal truths for society is made up of people endowed with inalienable rights. This is not the most accurate description of democracy, but it is functional for the way things work under conditions of modernity. It is even less an adequate description of how Muslim societies work, where religion is not separate form state and democracy hardly reigns. The roots of the problem you address go much deeper and are still operative, extended now to the younger generation under the tutelage of their lazy and misinformed elders.
There was probably too many foreign policy failures on Iran during Reagan administration as well leading to disastrous decisions to do nothing other than continue deliberating Iran policy in response to attack on US embassy which is, after all even legally "casus belli" and continue deliberating foreign policy after Iran's proxy army, Hezbollah killed hundreds of US Marines in Beirut .
Why do you say the Iranian revolution caused the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini? The reality is that President Jimmy Carter toppled the Shah of Iran and promoted exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a saintly leader like Santa Claus in white garb. Then the French neo-Marxist neo-intellectual Michel Foucault wet himself with unrestrained delight of cheerleading the greatest anti-Americanism since George III.
"Decades of wrong assumptions, combined with hesitant leadership and diplomatic overreach, produced the war we are witnessing today." For me this says it all.
American policy towards Iran since 1979 can be defined as appeasement of an ideologically driven foe that was never interested in moderating it’s irredentist ideology
The so-called misconceptions of liberal foreign policy were the smokescreen for something deeper at play: the misconceptions of modern society which the people who fomented these idiotic policies also promoted, chief of which was that modern society, embodied in the West and achieved after centuries of effort, was basically a smokescreen for maintaining the powerful against the oppressed, a reworking of Marx's denunciation of capitalism extended now to the entire spectrum of society. Obama translated Habermas' description of modernity as the colonization of social life into a call to transform America in similar New Left fashion, exemplified by his Cairo speech which was an out and out lie in its description of Islam. Of course other leaders mischaracterized Islam too - George W. Bush's and David Cameron's insistence on Islam as a religion of peace, current Canadian PM Carney's assertion that Muslim values are Canadian values - but Obama's message was rooted in his leftist project that he has not abandoned, even though he rode it all the way to a Martha Vineyard mansion, helped along by his Jewish leftist coterie of advisors. The repeated misreading of Islam and the modern Middle East by western government leaders reflects one of democracy's blindspots, namely that religion being defanged under modern democracy and become peaceable becomes extended universally, just as the shibboleths of democracy become universal truths for society is made up of people endowed with inalienable rights. This is not the most accurate description of democracy, but it is functional for the way things work under conditions of modernity. It is even less an adequate description of how Muslim societies work, where religion is not separate form state and democracy hardly reigns. The roots of the problem you address go much deeper and are still operative, extended now to the younger generation under the tutelage of their lazy and misinformed elders.
There was probably too many foreign policy failures on Iran during Reagan administration as well leading to disastrous decisions to do nothing other than continue deliberating Iran policy in response to attack on US embassy which is, after all even legally "casus belli" and continue deliberating foreign policy after Iran's proxy army, Hezbollah killed hundreds of US Marines in Beirut .
Why do you say the Iranian revolution caused the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini? The reality is that President Jimmy Carter toppled the Shah of Iran and promoted exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a saintly leader like Santa Claus in white garb. Then the French neo-Marxist neo-intellectual Michel Foucault wet himself with unrestrained delight of cheerleading the greatest anti-Americanism since George III.