I am not a political scientist (though I did take a class on that once), a historian, or a member of any of those professions that would make me actually qualified to talk about such things, but I’ve decided, in all of my infinite wisdom, to discuss the ever-present issue of Iran.
The relevant question is: Why is Iran an issue?
Well, for one thing, Iran used to be known as Persia, and that fact in itself should give you an indication of the problem.
If not, remember that popular film “300” that came out a while ago? In that movie, the bad guys were from the Persian Empire, which wanted to destroy the seeds of modern civilization that the Greeks were so keen on planting. Did you know that that film was based on historical fact? So even several thousand years ago, the country that would become Iran was already interested in destroying liberty and making slaves of the world.
(On a side note, if you haven’t noticed it by now, it is rather important at this point that you be able to perceive the thick globs of sarcasm dripping from my voice; otherwise you lose the point and I run the risk of getting assaulted in a dark alley one of these days.)
Another problem is the name Iran, which Persia adopted in 1935. You probably didn’t know this, but the word “Iran” shares an etymological root with the word “Aryan,” which would become a rather important word just a few years later.
Around that time, Adolf Hitler was using that nasty little word to justify killing (no) slaughtering (no) degrading/beating/gassing to death/burning alive (there we go!) most of the Jewish population of the Third Reich along with anyone else who didn’t fit the bill of the “pure Aryan race.” So maybe the former Persians made a bad name choice, but they didn’t change the name back afterwards, thus proving their possible Nazi agenda.
But mostly the problem with Iran is that in 1979, militant Islamic extremists deposed the king, who was known as the Shah, and set up a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy.
You see, in the late 1920s, the Shah’s father overthrew the previous dynasty and became Shah himself. Iran was in a bad way at the time, and the new Shah figured the best way to fix things was to utilize the same structure that was already in place. The problem is that our overthrowing Shah had help from Britain, which guaranteed his success with the understanding that once he became king, he would let his Western ally help itself to Iran’s vast deposits of oil, which it did until the Revolution of 1979.
So now you know the real problem: After the Revolution, Muslim extremists decided that the Western World had grown fat and bloated with power, decadence, and our horrible system of capitalism, and so they decided to ban our cultural influences in their country.
But it really doesn’t do well to hate the US; after all, we’re the most responsible nation in the world, right? We therefore seek out injustice, in all its forms, the world over, to “correct.”
It became harder to obtain our precious oil from Iran after it decided it hated us, so we had to “correct” it as well. We did this by giving money and weapons to neighboring Middle-Eastern countries and letting them fight the battle for us. Yes, we funded, trained, and effectively put into positions of power some very responsible men over the years, men like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Totally responsible.
To be fair, the Iranian government did do some pretty horrible things to its people over the last 30 years. But apparently, times are changing. Reports are circulating that there are high levels of (peaceful) protest demonstrations by the disgruntled children of the previous revolution who apparently didn’t enjoy having all their rights taken from them before they even had a chance to use them. That’s all well and good, but my question is: Why should we care? Why has Iran gotten all this attention over the years? Is it because it’s a world power? No.
Well then what is it that makes Iran so much more special than all those other countries going through similar situations?
They have oil, duh.
Trey Treviño is a sophomore CTV major. He can be reached for comment at
[email protected].
