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I'm studying Iranian history this year and am looking for any pointers on texts. Currently still on ancient history, but will work up to modern. If anyone has book suggestions, I'd appreciate it!
That said, I read a few general histories early to get a sort of overview, including the Amanat one. I'd guess at this point my grasp of the general lines of Iranian history exceed pretty much everyone who hasn't studied the place seriously. And I'm mystified as to exactly why the Iranian government became the primary opponent of Israel and the US in the region.
Iran doesn't border Israel. In fact, they don't border any countries that border Israel. Persian people ethnically are not particularly in conflict with jews. Historically, Judaism is rather positive on Persia relative to Rome or Assyria, or any of the other mideast empires that owned the place successively. Neither is there much in the way of religious conflict, because the Iranians are Shia, and the countries that surround Israel are mostly Sunni. Shiism, as a minority faith for most of its history, is less militaristic and more tolerant generally than Sunnism (on the scale of tolerance that is muslim society).
Early in the conflict, it was the Sunnis, both Arab and Egyptian, who funded and manipulated the Palestinian cause. Iran had decent relations with Israel, which grew closer during the time of the Shah.
As best I can make out, this positive international relationship shifted the other way prior to the revolution. In very broad terms, the elites of Iranian society were pretty jew-friendly and largely remain so. The middle class and lower classes are wildly anti-semitic as most middle-eastern nations are, in the Iranian case because they blame much of the abuses of the Shah's regime on Israel and the jews. There was a fair bit of intelligence sharing and cross-training between the Israelis and the Shah's Iran, but of course this was conspiracized into the entire regime being a puppet of Zionists.
When the Iranian revolution succeeded, this view became the dominant one. Immediately as part of their efforts to export their revolution to the world, they began funding the only Shia they could find near Israel, what became Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Over time, the long arc of US/Israeli diplomacy and pressure was slowly bringing the Sunni arab nations around. They didn't like it, but the fact is none of them want the Palestinians and they've been cynically using the issue to keep their people riled up at the joos for a century. The non-arabs, Egypt made a deal with Israel in the seventies. Jordan and Syria made de-facto but not fully de jure deals. Israel and Saudi Arabia, the home of Mecca and Medina, were in talks to regularize relations when the Oct. 7 attack was launched. Those talks were scotched for a few years, but have since been concluded.
The Americans were able to choke off most of the funding for Palestinian terrorism coming from the oil-rich Sunni states. Iran (and the UN) stepped in to fill the void, and began funding Sunni groups like Hamas. Iran was able to install a friendly government in Iraq after the US did them the favor of clearing out the Sunnis, and controlled the most effective fighting forces in the Iraqi Army. Ten years ago the Iranians had their fingers everywhere, propping up Assad in Syria with Hezbollah, running ISIS out of Iraq (yeah, that wasn't us), keeping Hamas relevant and armed.
The US under Trump and Biden have been willing to legitimize Sunni terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who now run Syria and Afghanistan (again). In my view, we've essentially delegated to the Turks, Saudis and Egyptians, on the condition that everyone play nice with Israel and keep the oil running. There is no more "Iranian Crescent" of influence. Iran just bombed every country in the middle east with a Shia population in their response to the US and Israel playing trampoline on their government and infrastructure. Hezbollah is in rough shape after losing in Syria and the Israelis doing Mossad shit. Hamas is in bad shape after the last war.
So how did it come to this? Why did the Iranian government choose to so directly antagonize the US and Israel, both previous allies (with a lot of dirty politics)? Is it really so simple that the conspiracy theories of a revolutionary pack of morons in 1979 drove them to fight their only geopolitical friends in the region? Are they really going to be the last holdouts for Sunni muslim supremacy in the Levant?
I have to be missing something, because this is one of those things that makes me wonder if countries really are controlled by a cabal of their enemies.
The obvious explanation is one that is as old as time: It's useful -- socially, emotionally, and ultimately politically -- to have a scapegoat. Ideally you want one who is successful and who therefore excites peoples' envy and greed.
Actual "cries out in pain even as he strikes you", Israel has been belligerent against everyone in the region, stole nuclear technology and illegally acquired nukes, manipulated US into instituting regime in several countries in the region, has clearly been targeting the Iranian regime with war for decades, has now started two wars with surprise attacks. And we STILL have to suffer the "the Joos are just scapegoats" scthick.
They weren't belligerent to Iran under a different government for thirty odd years. Makes me think there's another variable.
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This is completely false, but before I respond I have a couple of questions:
First, generally speaking do you dislike Jewish people?
Second, do you assign blame/responsibility to Jewish people for much of the ills of the West, for example the Social Justice movement?
In my post, I was disputing the claim that Israel has been belligerent against everyone in the region. That's what I quoted.
For what it may be worth, I don't dispute that Israel has nuclear weapons. As to whether they were illegally acquired, I do know that Israel is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, although I wouldn't be shocked if Israel broke some specific country's law along the way.
I'm not sure what you mean by "12 days' war" Iran has been aggressively and incessantly waging war against Israel for decades. So I'm not sure I would say that Israel "started" that war. But if you want to ignore context and look at in isolation (and I know that Israel haters LOVE to examine Israel's behavior out of context) then yeah, I don't dispute that Israel started a bombing campaign against Iran in June 2025 as a surprise attack.
Anyway, before we go on, let me ask you the same questions I asked SS:
Generally speaking do you dislike Jewish people?
Do you assign blame/responsibility to Jewish people for any of the public policies in the West to which you object? For example, if you object to Social Justice, do you assign any blame/responsibility for Social Justice to the Jews?
Sorry, deleted my comment because I realised you were only responding to the belligerent claim, which is fair, my bad.
I think theres a distinction between the relations Israel and Iran had before and after both sessions of surprise aerial bombing. I guess my motte would be that both surprise attacks severely increased direct kinetic conflict, civilian suffering, and heightened tensions in and between both states, in a way that wasn't there on the days before both attacks.
wrt your two questions:
In general, I agree. But I would also note that when countries decide to go to war, it inevitably increases "direct kinetic conflict, civilian suffering, and heightened tensions" War sucks, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's unreasonable or unjust. And in fact, this situation is a good example. Iran has been making war against Israel for decades through proxies. At any time, Iran could have stopped and enjoyed the same sort of uneasy peace Israel has with places like Egypt and Jordan. But instead, Iran decided to pursue a FAFO strategy. It was totally reasonable for Israel to strike directly at the country which has been attacking Israel indirectly.
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