Second Chances

[TheMercenary]

Another interesting view of Iranian intentions:

http://www.brookings.edu/views/artic...n/20070218.htm

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Another interesting view of Iranian intentions:

http://www.brookings.edu/views/artic...n/20070218.htm

First, this is the propaganda I was talking about. The facts are not what I disagree with, I bet everything this guy says is true, it is just he makes it off like Iran is the only one doing it so it is somehow bad.

• The article does not once mention Sunni involvement.
• The article does not mention that the US has done the same thing as Iran is doing.
• The article does not mention why Iranians are anti-American.
• The article does not mention any deep analysis on.
• The article just takes the Iranian perspective and not the whole Middle East's perspective.

The article starts out by mentioning how bad Iran has been in the past to set the scene. I won't disagree that it is fact, just that it sets the mood for the rest of the article and you have remember that the US has supplied terrorist groups weapons as well to fight groups that have threatened our interests.

That is basically what everything comes down too, protecting interests. Iran, along with the rest of the Middle East, does not want US influence so to single out Iran is flawed. Yes, Iran will fight the US occupation but so are the Sunni nationalists and so are the Sunni Extremists, it isn't something that Iran is doing by itself. Along with past US-Iranian relations, this is not something that should be surprising or something that we should see as a direct attack against us. All this shows is that they want our influence out of the Middle East just like Europeans do not want their influence there.

Besides that, this article even says that the Shiites are not attacking Americans, but Sunnis. This shows directly that the civil war is the main cause for the Iranian arms in Iraq, not the American occupation even though that does have some effect.

Originally Posted by from article

Tehran does not want the secular and pro-Western Iraq that America dreams of, and it wants to ensure that the U.S. doctrine of preventive regime change is dead.

No one in the Middle East wants a secular and pro-Western Iraq that America dreams of. This is just mentioning Iran and never in the article does it say that Iraqis or Saudis do not want a secular pro-Western Iraq as well.

Everything else that the article mentions is common sense. Of course Iran wants influence in Iraq, everyone wants influence in Iraq. That is the reason why we attacked Iraq in the first place, to spread our influence. But they give Iran a negative connotation when they do it as well, why?

My real question is why is Iran being attacked for doing something that everyone else is doing?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

First, this is the propaganda I was talking about. The facts are not what I disagree with, I bet everything this guy says is true, it is just he makes it off like Iran is the only one doing it so it is somehow bad.

I believe you have read to much into it. His article makes some assumptions which I believe are generally correct. He kept his focus on Iran, not because there are not other issues to be considered, but because that was the focus of his article.