Letters to the Editor
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Let me say this about that...
I largely agree with Mr. Parsi's assessments although I do disagree with some of them but that's not what I want to write about. What I want to address is that portion of your article in which you insert your own attitudes and opinions.
Why do you, apparently many Americans, and certainly our foreign policy establishment fail to see the goose and gander quality to our "outrage" over Iran's support to Hamas and Hezbollah? Why is it OK for the US to provide arms to Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan during the Russian occupation, openly advocate and support "regime change" groups with money, intelligence, and, in some cases, arms but it's not OK for Iran to do the same? Presumably, that's because we're "the good guys" and Iran isn't.
Frankly, that's bullshit. The US needs to stop trying to impose our "solutions" (which favor our friends) when trying to reduce regional tensions (pick a region). If we took the time and had the sophistication to understand all sides and respected all sides as having legitimate goals and concerns, we would become a respected arbiter who could help reduce regional tensions. Unfortunately, this is not our present approach to foreign relations. Let me suggest a word that almost never crops up in discussions about our relations with any number of nations: impartiality.
I also find it interesting that you think Iran's human rights record "appalling". After Guantanamo, Abu Graib, black sites, extraordinary rendition, etc etc etc, coupled with our vaunted judicial system's total unwillingness to address these human rights outrages, all I can think of is Arlo Guthrie: "You gotta lota damn gall asking me if I'm moral enough to join the Army, burn women, children, and villages after being a litter bug."
I was in Iran from 1977 to 1979 when our buddy (whom we installed over the objections of the Iranian people) Shahinshahi Mohammed Reza Pahlavi hisself was running the show. He was not a nice man. Aside from ripping his opponents fingernails off, using thumbscrews, and other instruments of torture (with which the CIA is doubtless very familiar), everything was him, his family, and Tehran. If you were a provincial, you got shit. I can't tell you the number of provincials you'd see in town, squatting by the side of the road selling pickled eggs, roast garlic, and charcoaled corn for a few rials apiece. To put this in perspective, the rial/dollar exchange rate was close to 70 rials to the dollar. My apartment in a nice but by no means ritzy part of town cost $1200 a month. These guys were doing well to make a couple of dollars a day. I asked one once why he'd come to Tehran since he was obviously wretchedly poor. He told me he was better off than he had been in his home village. Iranian friends who travel to Iran tell me that the government has been building roads, hospitals, and schools out in the provinces. The Shah never had programs to do that sort of thing.
So I think a little balance is necessary. They aren't prefect but, then again, neither are we. These guys (not just Iran) are sovereign nations. We need to remember that.