Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

e360.yale.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 335 posts

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#241

Post by breppp »

vkou wrote: post #238
nradov wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but on the other hand the CIA today isn't forcing Iran to sponsor terrorist organizations or arrest women for being immodest or keep Islamists in charge. If they want to eliminate the sanctions then the path to doing so is clear and would have tremendous benefits for the Iranian people.

The Saudis are doing all of those things, but we turn a blind eye to that. The Cubans are doing none of those things, but they are still at the top of America's shit list. Something makes me think that those aren't the reason for why Iran is everyone's favorite whipping boy in the region. Nationalizing western assets half a century ago probably has something more to do with why they are treated the way they are.

Generally the Saudis aren't that great supporters of terror as they are made out to be, Qatar would be a better example.

The most important difference is that the deranged things the Saudis are doing aren't aimed at the West which makes them useful allies, also their current ruler is enacting reforms while Iran is only going backwards

Regarding nationalizing, Egypt had done that and has successfully jumped ship to the western sphere, it's completely possible. Saudi Aramco used to be American owned, you can nationalize with tact

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#242

Post by vkou »

breppp wrote: post #241
vkou wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Saudis are doing all of those things, but we turn a blind eye to that. The Cubans are doing none of those things, but they are still at the top of America's shit list. Something makes me think that those aren't the reason for why Iran is everyone's favorite whipping boy in the region. Nationalizing western assets half a century ago probably has something more to do with why they are treated the way they are.

Generally the Saudis aren't that great supporters of terror as they are made out to be, Qatar would be a better example. The most important difference is that the deranged things the Saudis are doing aren't aimed at the West which makes them useful allies, also their current ruler is enacting reforms while Iran is only going backwards Regarding nationalizing, Egypt had done that and has successfully jumped ship to th…

Egypt has always had one foot in each camp.

The US' treatment of Cuba is the better example. It's doing none of the things the parent poster listed, yet it's still treated by the US as a pariah state. Uncle Sam doesn't care about how you treat women, or whether you have elections, but he deeply cares about you taking some corporation's stuff 70 years ago.

That is the original sin that can never be atoned for.

(For another example of that, see last night's deranged speech about Venezuela 'stealing' America's oil.)

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#243

Post by cess11 »

adventured wrote: post #199
therobots927 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think any serious post WWII historians would agree with you. There was a concentrated effort by the UK and US to displace Mossadegh, who was democratically elected by the way. At the very least it disproves your unspoken assertion that the Iranians are primarily to blame for their problems when it’s been proven that the most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet were actively destabilizing their societ…

> who was democratically elected by the way He was everything but democratically elected. He was installed. The Iranian people did not elect Mosaddegh. He was put there by a Shah and the elites of the Majlis, neither of which ever represented the people of Iran. At no point in the past century has Iran had representative government. For the absurd 'democratically elected' premise to be true, there would have to be ac…

He was as democratically elected as the system at the time allowed and spent basically his entire political career on increasing the power of the majlis and getting rid of colonial interests.

The UK spent a lot of resources conspiring against this project, which ultimately failed, to a large extent because he did not have a solution to the blockade that followed nationalisation of the oil production. Perhaps he also did not expect as many members of the majlis to join the foreign conspiracy as did when the blockade got inconvenient.

It's also not like democratisation followed under the shah, rather the opposite, like the establishment of rather nasty security services and a nuclear program that the later revolutionaries inherited.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#244

Post by cess11 »

mc32 wrote: post #219
smugma wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%2527%C3%A9... A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mossadegh nationalized and refused to concede to western oil demands.

Whatever happened due to the British, it’s still fact they Iran was doing pretty well before the current revolution. I don’t think anyone would argue the population at large are better off today than they were under the previous regime.

That's a matter of values. Some would argue that appeasement of and being subdued by colonial powers is a much to high price to pay for whatever material wealth you're referring to.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#245

Post by reducesuffering »

smugma wrote: post #173
corimaith wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Mossadegh was appointed by the Shah (who was still head of state), but his own autocratic actions such as dissolving parliament and giving himself autocratic powers pushed most political forces against him that a confrontation was inevitable. There is a reason the military stood back as he was disposed. Furthermore, the Shah did actually have the legal right to fire Mossadegh, when je ignored that the situation w…

From my understanding your retelling of history is a minority view. For instance, it is in conflict with Wikipedia. It’s commonly accepted that Mossadegh was thrown out by a coup and that Khomenei seized power through a revolution.

The point GP made was that Mossadegh was not democratically elected. There hadn't been representative democratic support for Mossadegh. Mossadegh was installed by the Shah and Majles, stopped an election that wasn't going his way, and then tried to dissolve parliament to concentrate power with himself.

"Iranian people voted in their beloved leader, who was then toppled by the mastermind West" is a cartoonish level of geopolitical understanding by those who have read the first couple paragraphs of wikipedia

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#246

Post by rayiner »

baxtr wrote: post #73

Maybe it’s selection bias but: The saddest thing about Iran I’ve noticed is the stark contrast between the current state of the country and the intelligence of the people I’ve met from this country.

Yes! Iran baffles me. Iran has a tremendous intellectual tradition. It has quite advanced technology. And Iranians are quite orderly. Tehren is clean, well organized, etc. They even have relatively functioning democratic systems at some levels of government. Candidates are screened for conformity with theocratic dictates, but at the local government level--where the focus is on roads and bridges and stuff like that--there is functioning multi-party democracy. In Tehran, the city council is directly elected, and then appoints the mayor of Tehran. In the early 2000s, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then mayor of Tehren, made a list of the world's 10 best mayors, alongside Atlanta's Shirley Franklin.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#247

Post by rayiner »

dartharva wrote: post #108
baxtr wrote: post #73

Maybe it’s selection bias but: The saddest thing about Iran I’ve noticed is the stark contrast between the current state of the country and the intelligence of the people I’ve met from this country.

This can apply to almost every country on earth.

No. I'm from Bangladesh, and when you meet Bangladeshis you can easily understand why the country is the way it is. Same thing for Denmark. But Iran baffles me.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#248

Post by reducesuffering »

jrjeksjd8d wrote: post #117
breppp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far I remember a large reason for the water crisis is subsidizing water for agriculture which does not fit the local climate This is based on some ideological pillar of being autarkic, as the Islamic Republic was generally built upon the fear of outside influence sounds like if 90% of their water goes to agriculture, mostly export, and their country is cash strapped due to their habit of kidnappings, then maybe th…

Their country is cash strapped and needs to be independent because of US sanctions. The CIA overthrew the democratically elected government in the 50s which led to the Islamic Republic.

> democratically elected government

No, the government installed by the Shah and non-democratically-elected Majles, which stopped an election not going Mossadegh's way, was overthrown

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#249

Post by breppp »

vkou wrote: post #242
breppp wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally the Saudis aren't that great supporters of terror as they are made out to be, Qatar would be a better example. The most important difference is that the deranged things the Saudis are doing aren't aimed at the West which makes them useful allies, also their current ruler is enacting reforms while Iran is only going backwards Regarding nationalizing, Egypt had done that and has successfully jumped ship to th…

Egypt has always had one foot in each camp. The US' treatment of Cuba is the better example. It's doing none of the things the parent poster listed, yet it's still treated by the US as a pariah state. Uncle Sam doesn't care about how you treat women, or whether you have elections, but he deeply cares about you taking some corporation's stuff 70 years ago . That is the original sin that can never be atoned for. (For a…

Cuba and the US were very close to normalizing under Obama IIRC.

What do you think about Vietnamese-US relations?

Post reply on HN