“The primary issue is mistrust. American and Western politicians continuously reiterate their mistrust of Tehran but seem not to understand that this mistrust is mutual. Iran has profound reasons to distrust the West. The United States and the Britain orchestrated the 1953 coup that removed Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed a dictator, supporting him for a quarter century. Following the Iranian revolution, the West unilaterally withdrew from its contractual commitments and left Iran with billions of dollars of unfinished industrial and nuclear projects. In 1980, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, sparking an economically ruinous eight-year war in which Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, and 300,000 Iranians lost their lives. The United States and the West supported the aggressor in that conflict. In 1988, the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian jetliner, killing 290 innocent civilians, including 66 children…………. During Mohammad Khatami’s presidency, Iran was among the first countries to condemn the 9/11 terrorists attacks and cooperate with the United States in the “war on terror,” leading to the removal of the Taliban and al Qaeda from Afghanistan in 2001. In return, the United States rewarded Iran by designating it a member of the “axis of evil.”………….”

He is right, of course. This litany of Iranian grievances against the West is long, and likely will get longer before it is over (WTF it is that will be over). It is much longer than any grievances the US government can present against the Iranians, in terms of life, fortune, and national humiliation.
That was an odd behavior after September 11 in 2001. A bunch of Saudi and other Salafi terrorists, funded by Saudi princes and Salafi Wahhabi sympathizers around the Gulf, attacked the United States, the Iranians showed sympathy for the United States and cooperated with the US in Afghanistan against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda terrorist guests. So the Bush administration quickly returns the favor by labeling Iran part of this “axis of evil” and moves closer to the Saudi princes. That odd policy must have been engineered by that old foreign policy guru of the Bushes, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan al-Saud.
Cheers
mhg


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