<story><title>How the CIA Overthrew Iran&apos;s Democracy in Four Days in 1953 (2019)</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nexuist</author><text>In that regard, the current offensive action may as well be viewed as a breath of fresh air.&lt;p&gt;If blood must be shed to end tyranny, perhaps it is a worthwhile gamble. The Iranian people gain nothing from allowing the current regime to grow. A US-Iran war would almost certainly result in a democratic Iran, with a connected and educated populace capable of maintaining it. I think one of the main flaws in Iraq and Afghanistan was simply assuming that you could establish democracy anywhere and then the citizens of the country would come together to form a functional democratic government. Iran&amp;#x27;s populace is much better equipped for democracy. They have already started begging for it [1].&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t really believe the air strike was conducted with good intentions. But it may end up having a positive side effect for the Iranian people if the current government is ousted.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll end this by posting something I wrote earlier on reddit:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I mean, it&amp;#x27;s really an interesting conundrum, when is war with anyone ever a good idea?&lt;p&gt;And yet over the course of history there are several wars we have fought that are more or less universally accepted as being good ideas: the Revolutionary War, World War I, and World War II.&lt;p&gt;So obviously, at some point, the calculation must be worth it. But I don&amp;#x27;t know if it is possible for any human being to perform that calculation with the mental capacity we are all given. What I do know is that the Iraq war absolutely ended the suffering of people under Saddam Hussein&amp;#x27;s dictatorship, and the Afghanistan war somewhat ended the suffering of people under Taliban rule (the Taliban unfortunately still exists but is definitely not as strong as it used to be). What I don&amp;#x27;t know, and I don&amp;#x27;t think anyone can really know, is if the loss of those governments and introduction of our armed forces led to a general improvement on quality of life of Iraqi and Afghani citizens. I know the gut reaction is &amp;quot;obviously not&amp;quot; but neither of us are likely living in those countries at the moment, and so we really don&amp;#x27;t know how life has changed for them.&lt;p&gt;The million dollar question is: will toppling Iran&amp;#x27;s government and ending the suffering of its citizenry under it be a net benefit for its people, or is the status quo shielding them from an even worse fate? How can you really know?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;2019-20_Iranian_protests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;2019-20_Iranian_protests&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>dr_dshiv</author><text>I agree. It&amp;#x27;s really sad. Iran had&amp;#x2F;has so much potential.</text></item><item><author>emilsedgh</author><text>Iran is still suffering heavily from that coup.&lt;p&gt;That was the closest we ever were to a democracy. However, democracy is very fragile, specially at the beginning.&lt;p&gt;And it was shattered and to this day, we never got as close. Tyrant regimes come and go and we still think what might&amp;#x27;ve been. We could&amp;#x27;ve easily been another France in middle east.&lt;p&gt;Source: Iranian living in the U.S.</text></item><item><author>thdrdt</author><text>Most western people are very negative about countries like Iran, China and Russia because they are the &amp;#x27;bad guys&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;Well this article again shows that there are few countries that will not gain power over dead people. It&amp;#x27;s sad but true.&lt;p&gt;Now imagine you were living in Iran and came to know about the work of the CIA. Whould you think the USA is the greatest country in the world and democracy is the way to go?&lt;p&gt;I think it would be best if we look at people in other countries without judgement and try to understand their point of view. Leaders are to blame but most of the people in this world are just living their life.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mad_tortoise</author><text>How many innocent people must die for the USA to end &amp;#x27;tyranny&amp;#x27; in the Middle East? In Iraq alone it&amp;#x27;s over a million, then we can look at Yemen, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Lebanon before we even begin with Iran. And what then? Iran isn&amp;#x27;t like any of those countries the US has already pillaged, it has a 500k member armed forces, all highly trained. State of the art military systems, they have direct backing from Russia and China, they are perfectly placed to attack the Israel, Saudi, Qatar and the UAE where the US is vulnerable, the US has enraged the member&amp;#x27;s of the Iranian special forces by taking out their leader, so now you have a lot of very angry spec ops guys who will avenge this action.&lt;p&gt;So how many Iranians must die for your version of &amp;#x27;tyranny&amp;#x27; to be met? What figure would you be satisfied with, and what kind of tyranny are you ok with? Because it seems you&amp;#x27;ve got major double standards when it comes to Saudi, Israel, UAE and Qatar, let alone all the extra-judicial and illegal acts carried out by the USA themselves in the name of rooting out &amp;#x27;tyranny&amp;#x27;.</text></comment>
<story><title>How the CIA Overthrew Iran&apos;s Democracy in Four Days in 1953 (2019)</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nexuist</author><text>In that regard, the current offensive action may as well be viewed as a breath of fresh air.&lt;p&gt;If blood must be shed to end tyranny, perhaps it is a worthwhile gamble. The Iranian people gain nothing from allowing the current regime to grow. A US-Iran war would almost certainly result in a democratic Iran, with a connected and educated populace capable of maintaining it. I think one of the main flaws in Iraq and Afghanistan was simply assuming that you could establish democracy anywhere and then the citizens of the country would come together to form a functional democratic government. Iran&amp;#x27;s populace is much better equipped for democracy. They have already started begging for it [1].&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t really believe the air strike was conducted with good intentions. But it may end up having a positive side effect for the Iranian people if the current government is ousted.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll end this by posting something I wrote earlier on reddit:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I mean, it&amp;#x27;s really an interesting conundrum, when is war with anyone ever a good idea?&lt;p&gt;And yet over the course of history there are several wars we have fought that are more or less universally accepted as being good ideas: the Revolutionary War, World War I, and World War II.&lt;p&gt;So obviously, at some point, the calculation must be worth it. But I don&amp;#x27;t know if it is possible for any human being to perform that calculation with the mental capacity we are all given. What I do know is that the Iraq war absolutely ended the suffering of people under Saddam Hussein&amp;#x27;s dictatorship, and the Afghanistan war somewhat ended the suffering of people under Taliban rule (the Taliban unfortunately still exists but is definitely not as strong as it used to be). What I don&amp;#x27;t know, and I don&amp;#x27;t think anyone can really know, is if the loss of those governments and introduction of our armed forces led to a general improvement on quality of life of Iraqi and Afghani citizens. I know the gut reaction is &amp;quot;obviously not&amp;quot; but neither of us are likely living in those countries at the moment, and so we really don&amp;#x27;t know how life has changed for them.&lt;p&gt;The million dollar question is: will toppling Iran&amp;#x27;s government and ending the suffering of its citizenry under it be a net benefit for its people, or is the status quo shielding them from an even worse fate? How can you really know?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;2019-20_Iranian_protests&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;2019-20_Iranian_protests&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>dr_dshiv</author><text>I agree. It&amp;#x27;s really sad. Iran had&amp;#x2F;has so much potential.</text></item><item><author>emilsedgh</author><text>Iran is still suffering heavily from that coup.&lt;p&gt;That was the closest we ever were to a democracy. However, democracy is very fragile, specially at the beginning.&lt;p&gt;And it was shattered and to this day, we never got as close. Tyrant regimes come and go and we still think what might&amp;#x27;ve been. We could&amp;#x27;ve easily been another France in middle east.&lt;p&gt;Source: Iranian living in the U.S.</text></item><item><author>thdrdt</author><text>Most western people are very negative about countries like Iran, China and Russia because they are the &amp;#x27;bad guys&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;Well this article again shows that there are few countries that will not gain power over dead people. It&amp;#x27;s sad but true.&lt;p&gt;Now imagine you were living in Iran and came to know about the work of the CIA. Whould you think the USA is the greatest country in the world and democracy is the way to go?&lt;p&gt;I think it would be best if we look at people in other countries without judgement and try to understand their point of view. Leaders are to blame but most of the people in this world are just living their life.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>&amp;gt; What I do know is that the Iraq war absolutely ended the suffering of people under Saddam Hussein&amp;#x27;s dictatorship, and the Afghanistan war somewhat ended the suffering of people under Taliban rule (the Taliban unfortunately still exists but is definitely not as strong as it used to be). What I don&amp;#x27;t know, and I don&amp;#x27;t think anyone can really know, is if the loss of those governments and introduction of our armed forces led to a general improvement on quality of life of Iraqi and Afghani citizens.&lt;p&gt;The war isn&amp;#x27;t even over yet. Normal countries don&amp;#x27;t have missiles falling out of the sky onto the highway murdering a visiting foreign general, or routine car bombings with hundreds of casualties. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_mass_car_bombings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_mass_car_bombings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The most systematic attempt at assessing the impact of the war was the famous Lancet study, which estimated the &amp;quot;excess death&amp;quot; from all causes: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_cas...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; published on 11 October 2006, estimated 654,965 excess deaths related to the war, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006&lt;p&gt;So, if we round that to the five years since 9&amp;#x2F;11, or about 1800 days, that&amp;#x27;s 360 casualties a day, or one 9&amp;#x2F;11  roughly every week.&lt;p&gt;You can&amp;#x27;t argue quality of life improvements for the dead.&lt;p&gt;Iraq is a slightly larger country. Quite likely you&amp;#x27;d see a million dead in the first decade of the occupation, on which the US would spend enough for another moon programme or universal healthcare for all its citizens.</text></comment>