The Iran war and Poland

Bad idea.....

News about Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon in a matter of days had been spread by Israel from 1985 onwards. It has been 40 years. They don't have nuclear weapons. I would ask a question - how credible is that ' news'?

the always interesting Kamil Galeev has very sound thoughts on the relationship between the US, Israel and the coming Iran war....

x.com/kamilkazani/status/1935823134201909526

tldr: Israel's dependence on the US (and unconditional US support for whatever Israel does) has lead to the dysfunctional situation of the US being dragged into a war that's mostly about internal Israeli issues - namely Netanyahu's efforts to stay in power no matter what... part of this is about avoiding corruption charges that he faces when/if he leaves office....

At this point it would easier, safer (and cheaper!) to just pardon him and give him a couple of vacation houses in the US to retire in.

Good guess anyway, amiga!
Close but no cigar:-)

Potentially yes.

It could certainly make the Kurds happy. They'd be oil rich too.

For BB, Iran 1978:

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Do you remember the "Bible Code" codswallop that some Orthodox Jewish people and some Protestant evangelicals in America were getting all worked up over.

There was a best-selling book about 30 or so years ago. It said that if you number crunch parts of the Old Testament in a really ultramodern computer like a 386 or even a pentium. You can see predictions of future events encoded within it, something to do with repetitions of characters to which the researcher had assigned arbitrary numerical values.

It didn't predict this though.

Or this....life bevor the islamization:

x.com/Alex__Steffen/status/1935635409557463470

Maybe something is starting....in exile first (like so often):


x.com/aryeshalicar/status/1936028763953016986

Not exactly universal in Iran. Some places there have always been among the most conservative in the world.

...well....the Mullahs must had come frome somewhere, I guess.

What a plague on the mankind!

I've been reading your posts for probably ten years now. I think I know what type of person you are - in the most general terms.

I think if you had been living in the 1970s in Iran - you would be among the first to support the Mullahs.

The Mullahs of the 1970s were not like the Mullahs of today. They were "punk", and they were more often surrounded by young people than anyone else.

As they were preparing for their moment in the sun, they had some "co-passengers" which I think would surprise you.

These Mullahs were allied with Marxists (Tudeh, Fedayeen e Khalq, Mujahideen e Khalq). They were allied with secular nationalists (Mossadegh's National Front and Mehti Bazargan's Freedom Party). They were backed by the bazaaris and businessmen of the large cities. Finally, they received support from extremists, primarily the Islamist street fighters and Komiteh.

Basically everyone joined together to overthrow the Shah. That's how much they hated him. Marxists, Nationalists, Progressives, the business community, and Islamists - all supported the revolution.

Recognize the man below?

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Why?

Because you are a conscientious person with a strong moral position.

I think if you witnessed the astronomic corruption of the Shah, and the way his intelligence services would kidnap and disappear anybody that presented a threat to the regime (whether Islamists, Marxists, or Liberals) - you would quickly learn to hate him.

This was a man that cared more about how foreigners perceive him and his country, than he did for his own people. He hated Iranians - saw them as inferior to Westerners, and sought to change them wholesale to make himself less embarrassed in front of his friends in Monaco and Cannes.

The word Heimat was to him an empty sound.

At the time the Mullahs were poor. Often imprisoned. Denied access to media. Denied access to foreigners. The only safe space to think out loud was with the young people in the medreses.

.....still....hard to imagine being so young and naive without the experience (even from afar) what the Mullah regime brought about.

Its abit like saying Pol Pot surely wasn't so bad in the beginning....knowing about the killing fields and what he did to the people.

Difficult! But would I be wrong to say the revolutions brought worse than the Shah and Sihanouk could ever be?

Horrible. I can't imagine what sort of people could ever support this kind of evil regime. No... wait a minute... ;)

Say what you want about Putin, but his people do not toss out the lifeless bodies of teenagers along the highways in the suburbs of Moscow.

There aren't thousands of parents in Russia, that have no clue about where their son is, until he one day shows up wrapped in ice completely black and blue.

Russian intelligence services don't drop off anonymous packages at the homes of parents, with severed body parts.

These are all routine happenings in Tehran in the 1970s.

All that was necessary for this to happen, is some snitch neighbor to squeal and say he's seen your son spending a lot of time around the mosque with guys that wear beards and prefer footwear with open toes.

Perhaps not, but people who present a threat to his regime don't end up well either. If he's not quite as cruel as the shah, it's because he's Slavic--senseless cruelty is alien to our nature.

The sad part was that most people had no idea how serious Khomeini was.... women wore chadors as a sign that they wanted the Shah out and were horrified that with Khomeini they were compelled to wear them....

Most always did.

Nobody ever knows anything when it comes to this.

Not with Lenin or Fidel.

The key thing, instead, is what a toxic piece of sh*t Nicholas II and Fulgencio Batista were.

It's total bs to blame the people for these things.

If Nicholas II and Batista weren't murderous autocrats, they could have saved Russia and Cuba. It's on them.

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Just to be clear - I am not a Muslim. I have spent most of my time here defending Orthodoxy, and assailing the mandate of the impostor Roman church.

But you people must understand that these Muslims are not very different from us

Just to display my total objectivity - I do not agree with the canonization of Nicholas and his family.

One under-appreciated fact is that modern Iran is an urban place (with a low birth rate and rock bottom mosque attendance).

Also during the Iran-Iraq war women kept the country going (a bit like the UK during WWI) and once women enter the work force it's hard/impossible to keep them out.

I've seen no evidence that most modern Iranian women want to have to wear chadors or hijab (a modern invention of political islam).

Doesn't mean they're western but they're not their grandmothers either.

Explain this to BB.

Oh, but we understand it quite well. Ordinary folks all over the world are by and large all right; it is people in power who sometimes become corrupt and evil (and we don't have to look as far as Iran to realise it).

I know you do - you are simply an extraordinary individual.

Addressed to everyone else.

I'm sure others, with very few exceptions, realise it too. PFers are Internet Old Guard - we are not that easy to be incited to hatred (with some exceptions ;)).

This, however...


... worries me, Major.

It means that your psychological profilers tell you that I am susceptible to compliments. Fire them, they're useless. ;)

Aren't we all? Don't be too harsh on yourself.

Rest assured - you are the most unusual person I have interacted with in ten years of participation here.

Crow included.

Thanks, kiddo, all your feelings are entirely reciprocated.

As for "unusualness", I don't think anyone can beat Crow in this aspect. When all the wars are over and the world enters again into another era of Kumbaya singing and "end of history", I am definitely getting him drunk during the inevitable PF Meetup. :)