Iran is not Iraq

John Bolton has been agitating for a war with Iran since at least 2007. For years Mike Pompeo has wanted a war with Iran. With these two "war hawks" -- and Bolton never served in the military -- now in charge of US foreign policy with the ouster of all of the military men who constrained the early Trump administration, the US is predictably sabre-rattling and name calling, daring the Iranians to a face-off.

But Iran is not a third world country, like Iraq or Afghanistan. It's a modern, industrialized nation with high literacy rates and a modern army. And when Iran had the temerity to nationalize their oil fields in 1953, the US overthrew their democratically-elected president.


The US installed a brutal dictator friendly to the US, who ruled for 26 years through oppression and his SAVAK death squads. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company got to keep its oil contract. Thousands of Iranians were tortured and killed, until the 1979 revolution which deposed the Shah and seized the US embassy in Tehran. 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days, until minutes after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, who had promised to return Iranian assets and sell arms to the Khomeini regime. In response the US gave arms and nerve gas to Saddam Hussein, who invaded Iran in Sept 1980, leading to the 8-year Iran-Iraq War and a half million deaths.

So, the Iranian people have multiple good reasons to distrust the US. Bolton and Pompeo are just the latest ill-advised manifestations of long-standing US enmity.