← Back to context

Comment by JumpCrisscross

3 days ago

> None of the Arab Spring revolutions have gone well

None of the Arab-Spring populations had democratic rule since, arguably, Carthage. Iran is different [1].

More importantly, Iran was recently a secular society. It has memory of education and freedom. Many Arab countries have been fundamentalist for their entire modern eras.

(To be clear, every first democracy arose from the ashes of a string of fallen autocrats. I'm arguing for Iran being different from Egypt, Tunisia or Gaza.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_classical_Iran

14 comments

JumpCrisscross

Reply
regularization  3 days ago

Iran had a parliament until they wanted Iran to control its own oil, whence the US and UK overthrew Mossadegh. They had ayatollah Borujerdi wreck the democracy. Also Kashani who helped oust Mossadegh, and then later supported Khomeini.

The US recently worked to oust the secular leader of Syria to replace him with an ISIS leader. Actually al-Sharaa was on the US wanted terrorist list, only removed three months ago. Many such stories.

  • JumpCrisscross  3 days ago

    Sure. Not sure what about any of that says Iranians are incapable of governing themselves as a democracy.

    • valianteffort  3 days ago

      Iranians are protesting because their economy is collapsing from targeted attacks by the US/West.

      Foreign media records them and says they are trying to depose the theocracy, propaganda to justify a military incursion.

      Wild claims of civilians being killed by the regime, with zero evidence, manufactured from thin air. (WMD's in Iraq, White phosphorus in Syria)

      Average person now thinks it's their duty to to send American sons to die in the sandbox for another generation.

      The only winner here, israel.

      1 reply →

  • spwa4  3 days ago

    No Iran had a parliamant until it was overthrown in a socialist revolution. Then the ayatollahs started killing people, taking power. The KGB, of course, was also involved, on the side of the ayatollahs, like all socialists (the socialist international supported Khomeini personally). I kind of agree that the CIA is not always on the right side, but in Iran, is it so hard to say that at the very least the CIA was a lot better than the alternative?

    Hell, the ayatollahs even gave communist housing a shot. They failed, just like they failed at everything, but they gave it a shot.

    So you can ask the direct question: just like Venezuela was way better off with oil extraction before Chavez/Maduro ... and also in Iran you can easily say the situation was better before ... so is oil extraction and participating in the global economy not a lot better, at least for anyone actually living there?

clot27  3 days ago

[flagged]

  • dang  2 days ago

    We've banned this account for using the site primarily for political battle and flamewar comments. Not allowed here, regardless of which views you favor or disfavor.

    It looks like your account didn't use to do this, if I look far back enough in the history. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll stick to the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

  • JumpCrisscross  3 days ago

    > Democracy wont survive in iran until the govt want their oil to be depleted by western war hungry demons

    Yet somehow Brazil, Mexico, India and hosts of other non-European-origin-majority resource-rich democracies exist.

    That said, maybe the limiting factor on democracy is agency. If a culture blames outside forces for all of its woes, there is nothing it can–within that worldview–do to self improve. So it won't. If, on the other hand, it separates the factors it can control from those it can't (and nobody can control all of the factors, that's just reality), it has a hope.