You can’t complain about what the US did in the past to Iran and then complain about the US responding to what Iran did to it. Iran knew the consequences of its action. It actually got lucky. Carter was reluctant to use force. If Iran did that under, say, Nixon they would have received the wrath of daily air strikes.
Anyone? It is ironic to hear a Pakistani say this. They invaded and conquered Pakistan for one, as well as most of the Middle East and parts of Greece and Central Asia.
As to 20th century Iran, it did nothing to anyone else in the 50’s. The US/UK coup was due to Cold War concerns, namely the USSR, which bordered Iran, incorporating Iran into the communist bloc. The coup was wrong–as most Americans now agree it was–but it needs to be put into context. It was a Cold War action, not because the US has an obsession with a relatively minor country halfway around the world. The US did not care at all about Iran from 1776 until the USSR began threatening it after World War II.
Iran, which once complained about “foreign meddling”, is engaged in the same in several countries, most notably Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and according to an article in the World Affairs sub-forum, perhaps even Pakistan. This is not to mention its efforts to export its ideology around the globe.
The alternative punishment under shariah often is punishment of the victim for “adultery”…
Islamists, like communists, like to claim “true” Islamism has never been implemented yet they never spell out what “true” Islamism or Marxism is. Why is this? Is it because what has been tried time and again is basically in accordance with Islamism?
Apartheid was not a British or Dutch idea but the form of government and other laws were influenced by those two countries.
India is a functioning democracy. How many Muslim countries can make the same claim?
Many foreign affairs and business analysts. In Pakistan the focus is completely on India, the US, and Israel. In the US there is a more global focus.
Mexico is based on potential, China/India/Brazil are based on their fast growth and large size. Even in Pakistan it is assumed that China will become a superpower in a few decades. Apply the same logic to India. Brazil will not be as strong as China and India but it may have more influence over South America than China/India will over Asia since Asia would have 5 great powers (Japan, South Korea and Russia being the others) whereas Brazil would be the only great power in its region.
Yeah, and look up the list of per capita GDP by country and see Malaysia around 66th.
GDP is not a joke. Israel does not score high because it is a small country (something conspiracy theorists forget) and a small economy. It does well on per capita GDP–although not as well as Greece.
Malaysia and Indonesia have shown no indication they will rise to world power status. Yes, in theory it could happen but in theory any country can rise to world power status.
As to Mexico, it could be a power if it gets its act together but the same can be said about several other countries. South Africa is a different case. It will not be a world power anytime soon but it can be a regional superpower in a few decades since it is by far the most advanced and powerful sub-Saharan African nation. Egypt is on par with it right now among African nations but South Africa will leave Egypt in its dust in the coming years, in large part because South Africa offers its people far more liberty…
Russia is indeed an oligarchy and a world power but it is another oil/natural gas exception. Take away oil and modern day Russia is just a bigger Ukraine. China is the only great/rising country which has done it without a natural cash cow which requires no talent, system but only the death of many dinosaurs on its land.
Wikipedia–which you cited earlier. Look up the list of countries by per capita GDP.
Greece indeed has problems–so does Israel. A
The French revolution occurred after the Constitution was written. The US was influenced by the examples of the Roman republic and democracy in Greece and European thinkers (thinkers whose works were not available to most in the Ottoman and Persian lands because the Islamist ulemas feared widespread reading of books by the masses). The French republic had zero influence on the US government or its political principles.
What democratic trend did Europe have prior to recent times? The UK had some with the Magna Carta, but even there supreme power was in the hands of an unelected king. If you consider this democratic then you must think Jordan today is a democracy.
Why did Europe overtake China, India and Persia during that time? These empires all had great advantages of England, France in terms of wealth yet they were surpassed. I am curious as to why you think this happened. Was corruption the sole problem there too?
The Ottomans indeed were corrupt but the lazy thing is to blame the decline of an empire which expanded and was powerful for 700 years because it suddenly became very corrupt. There was always corruption there; it did not start at Vienna in 1683. The chief reason the Ottomans declined is they failed to keep up with the times, in part due to the religious “scholars.”
The Ottomans started to decline in the 1700’s. You cited patronage for scientists. Did that suddenly stop then?
Judges are checked by the power of removal by the Senate, although this is very rarely exercised in practice and it has never successfully done for a Supreme Court Justice.
The point is an example of a successful system’s separation of powers. What separation is there under Islamist systems (although Iran does have some checks and balances)?
It is not nonsense but a fact. Religious power in the US is not held by government officials but by leaders of churches, mosques, synagogues.
The Rashidun era united all power in one man. Isn’t this the ideal Islamists seek to go back to?
Exactly–even Islamists engaged in “innovation” and changed shariah on slavery because times changed and even they recognize that with respect to slavery. If this can be done in the case of slavery why do Islamists insist on freezing the laws regarding women or religious minorities?
The bedroom is part of the public sphere? You can have 9th century laws but you have to recognize the price. I hear Muslims complain all the time about why the Islamic world is behind the rest of the world and falling further and further behind yet no one ever connects the dots to see the reasons for the decline. Many Muslims want 9th century laws, 9th century culture with 21st century results. It is impossible.
Fornication was frowned upon by Western culture for centuries. No law was ever passed to encourage it. It was just an inevitable result of increasing liberty and openess in Western countries.
Yeah, it is secularists who impose regulations about what dress even mannequins wear! 
There are 0 regulations on what people can drink in the US and the only regulations on dress are against public nakedness. We don’t have a police dedicated to enforcing what people wear or what they drink like Islamist utopias do.
Of the list of priorities in the US prostitution is very low. There is no “war” on it like there is on drugs. When the US was founded fornication was not one the things it was created to stop; in Iran that was one of the things the mullahs were complaining about and promising to crush.
The US is not a utopia. It has flaws but fortunately it has a system which allows it to constantly innovate and change with the times. The history of the US is one of constant progress. Contrast the last 70 years of the US to, say, the last 70 years of Saudi Arabia where it is still controversial whether women can be allowed to drive and there is no debate on whether non-Muslims should be given *any *rights.
Secular laws are not nearly as intrusive as shariah. For instance, secular laws do not regulate the length of your shalwar or whether mannequins have to wear hijab. Moreover, in secular democracies you have an opportunity to change the law through the democratic process. Under shariah the laws are controlled by unelected religious clerics, who usually are uneducated in matters other than religion yet are tasked with regulating all aspects of society. In the US we didn’t like Bush and his party was booted from a majority to a small minority in both houses of Congress and his party was crushed in the 2008 presidential election. In Iran if you don’t like Khameni, if you don’t like Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, or didn’t like Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, etc. there are no options for change.