Thinking About War with Iran

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"Thinking About War With Iran" is a speech presented at the University of Alaska Anchorage Complex Systems Center in November 2007.

Abstract

Iranians are terrorists! Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler! Bush is the most hated person in the world! The US is the Great Satan! I think everyone in the world has by now begun to realize that the rhetoric on each side in the US-Iranian dispute has become not just ridiculous but dangerous. The truth of the situation is of course just a little bit more complicated than the irresponsible insults of short-sighted politicians… I will address 4 Questions: * How do Iranians view us? * Why does Washington seek conflict with Tehran? * Why does Tehran seek conflict with Washington? * How can we make sense of this relationship? This will get complicated but for the moment, sit back and let me tell you a story. Once upon a time in a far-away culture long ago… In the heady early days of anti-colonialism just after WWII, an old but liberal patriot, Mossadegh, decided to take his country into the modern world, so in 1953 he stood up to Big Oil and tried to nationalize the wealth his poor people needed to modernize.