Re: Nadeem F. Paracha spews more hatred for Islam
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That was in 1953. There were no sanctions during the Shah's reign and Iran was a very prosperous society during the Shah era. The US did nothing when the Shah was falling because the State Department thought it would be a good thing and compared Khomenini to Gandhi. Iran's fundamentalist government has only itself to blame for the sanctions. Again, the sanctions were not imposed until after Iran took diplomats hostage (I believe the only country to ever do so...).
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No, it was not prosperous. Explain to me how a country with a 30% literacy rate in 1970 can be seen as "prosperous". Explain how a country in which the wealth was allocated to the elites can be construed as "prosperous". If it was "prosperous" as you claimed it to be, then how come the middle class rose up? Why was it that the Iranian diaspora in the 60's and 70's established anti-shah movements in the West?
Iran may be fundamentalist, but it is still relatively preferable to the illiterate tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan run by wacko Wahhabified Sunnis.