Women make up 54% of new students entering Iranian universities

Would some ex-soviet country be better example? Again, we have very different stories for ex-soviet countries as well.

Overall I agree with you.

Iranian women have been historically been very well-educated, and this predates the Islamic republic. They've been churning out lots of female engineers and physicians for some time. I know women well into their 70s who are graduates of med school in Tehran and practicing in the US for e.g.

I'm not sure how you can hypothesize these things without any historical and cultural context

I've never believed that will never actually happen. For all of turkeys public relations efforts pushing their euro identify, European countries don't care for the Turks, don't identify with them culturally, and will never allow it. Erdogan doesn't help their cause either, obviously.

You suffer under the total delusion that the US cares about human rights, totalitarianism, censoriship and things like that. Or even if people who cry 'Death to America'. PLEASE STOP IT. THE US DOESNT GIVE SINGLE SHIT ABOUT THAT.

If your analyisis of US forign policy includes "US does X because country Y is against gay rights" or "because its a totalitarian regime" then you are already totally deluded yourself about what is happening in international politics.

Half the countries that are allied with the US would be opponents if they cared about thise things thus analysis of issues with that premis are non-starter.

The US has supported groups and countries that are far, far worse in each of those aspects, that makes the US position totally clear. It simply doesn't care.

Thus its utter hypocracy to claim its hostility with Iran is based on those things are simply lies to confuse the uninformed US population.

> it's a destabilising element in the region

I would argue that's not actually true. That is, the US media likes to talk about it, because everything that the US doesn't like 'is destabalizing' but is it destabalizing to what? The US interest, not the region itself.

In reality of course the main destabalizing force in the ME is the US itself. The Iraq war is and was the most destabalizing event in modern ME history. Afganistan, Lebanon, trying to overthrow Assad and the list goes on.

Iran supports Assad against Rebelion. The US calles that 'destabalizing', well that regmin has existed for 40 years and the US policy of overthrowing it was actually the destabalizing factor. If the Assad regmin would fall, anybody knowlagable about Syria will tell you that the possible replacments are far, far worse then Assad. The US knew this and thus never went all-in against Assad, they got smarter after Iraq.

Iran supports Hezbollah, who are a part of the Lebanese government and whatever you want to say about them, they are not a destabalizing force. In fact Hezbollah was primarly responsable for defeating ISIS on the boarder to Lebanon and preventing ISIS to spread into Lebanon.

Iran fought ISIS in Iraqi-Kurdistan and in Iraq. In fact Iran was vital to those battles (even while the US takes all the credit). Is fighting the most evil terrorist regmin that has existed in 100s of years destablizing? Or the opposite?

Iran has allowed Qatar to use its airspace when Saudi Arabia started to blockade them. They also traded with Qatar, even when they were not really friendly with each other.

So please tell me, is fighting ISIS and opposing Saudi Arabian aggression in Qatar and Yemen 'destabalizing'? No it is not. Its simply against the US interest.

No compare this to US allies. Is it destabalizing to send a massive air and land army into Yemen as Saudis and UAE have done? Is it destabalizing to blockade another country? Is it destabalizing to support Whabi radicals in Syria rather then fight them? Is it destbalizing to destroy a democracy threw a military coup?

> Russia and North Korea got sanctions for their behavior, I don' see why Iran shouldn't. Their population is far from starving. I tend to agree the sanctions have yet to prove themselves, but it's a much better tool than full blown war which nobody wants.

I don't think sanction in some cases are totally unreasonable. If Iran invaded Basra (equivalent of taking Crima) then sanction would make sense. But the sanctions are not for any of these things mentioned above.

They are because of a missile program that doesn't even get them up to parity with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Israel. And are thus unreasonable against a country with 90 million people and legit security questions on its boarders.

The other set of sanctions are because of their nuclear program that they have addressed with a internationally binding treaty. They reassured and rereassured everybody about that program. However the US, despite all the evidence of both their own security services, the IAEA and international pressure have gone back on the deal.

So, once Iran invades Basra, or once Iran actually tries to build nuclear weapons, I will argue with you if sanction them makes sense. Currently they simple don't.

In terms of Greece’s liberal progressive spectrum, in fact, the tradition of a newly wed bride’s father gifting the groom a house/apt is still a thing. I know because I am from the Balkans. As much as you think that Greece is progressive, its actually not, in the western sense of the word. Also, I dont really believe that one can have an individual’s opinion of progressiveness, or whether ones left wing or right wing, I believe that most things people believe in are there because of their herd mentality, and of course theres the wealthy and powerful people who are trying to keep the citizens in a status quo. Chomsky has a great book on this. Also, I believe it was Napoleon who said “Religion is why the poor havent murdered the rich yet”