Iran
Iran is becoming a focal point for western concern. This article is meant to provide a factual overview of Iran and its relations with the west. Often one side will leave out certain information and the other side will leave out other certain information. Here is an attempt to provide both sides.
Iran is one of the oldest modern civilizations with a fairly continuous history.
Relevantly, in modern times it has been influential in every era. Here are four paragraphs from Wikipedia:
"In 1925, Reza Khan overthrew the weakening Qajar dynasty and became Shah. Rezā Shāh initiated industrialization, railroad construction, and the establishment of a national education system. Rezā Shāh sought to balance Russian and British influence, but when World War II started, his nascent ties to Germany alarmed Britain and Russia. In 1941, Britain and the USSR invaded Iran to use Iranian railroad capacity during World War II. The Shah was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In 1951, after the assassination of prime minister Ali Razmara, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected prime minister by a parliamentary vote which was then ratified by the Shah. As prime minister, Mosaddegh became enormously popular in Iran after he nationalized Iran's petroleum industry and oil reserves. In response, the British government, headed by Winston Churchill, embargoed Iranian oil and successfully enlisted the United States to join in a plot to depose the democratically elected government of Mosaddegh. In 1953 US President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax. The operation was successful, and Mosaddegh was arrested on 19 August 1953. The coup was the first time the US had openly overthrown an elected, civilian government.
After Operation Ajax, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's rule became increasingly autocratic. With American support, the Shah was able to rapidly modernize Iranian infrastructure, but he simultaneously crushed all forms of political opposition with his intelligence agency, SAVAK. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became an active critic of the Shah's White Revolution and publicly denounced the government.
Khomeini was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. After his release in 1964 Khomeini publicly criticized the United States government. The Shah was persuaded to send him into exile by General Hassan Pakravan. Khomeini was sent first to Turkey, then to Iraq and finally to France. While in exile, he continued to denounce the Shah."
Obviously, Iran's extremely defensive posture towards the west did not arise in a vacuum. They just did not spring up one day and say out of the blue "We must protect against western interference".
So now, 2012, there is an extreme autocratic regime in Iran. Human rights, if you are a member of the opposition, are comparable to many of the worst regimes in history. Iran has been consistently one of the "big four" execution countries, killing its own citizens in substantial numbers for offenses against society (the other three being China, Saudi Arabia and the United States).
Israel
Israel has had to struggle for its existence from the very beginning. When the state was still in the planning stages there were many Jews who did not support the Zionist ideal. Since the state was created there has been a continuous struggle against enemies. The primary argument of those enemies is that the Land of Israel was previously occupied by other people, Palestinians, and it was not proper to expel many of those people and limit their rights just so a Zionist state could exist. Israelis respond by saying that a number of Palestinians are allowed to live in the state of Israel, with citizenship. Some claim that authority to take the land comes from the bible and that because "god" gave the land to Jews the Zionists have the right to use force to take political control. On the other hand though, some more religious Jews claim that taking political control of the Land of Israel was an improper act.
Iran's biggest antagonist, in recent years, has been Israel. Israel has always been a close ally of the United States though its political influence in America has become increasingly contentious since the events of September 11.
It's widely known that a group of policymakers in the U.S. government, known as the Neocons, have as one of their primary interests defending the security of Israel. They have advanced policies that enmeshed the interests of the two countries in ways that seemed prudent at the time but are being questioned more and more as time passes, notably in Iran and its neighbors.
The Iran / Iraq war was generally considered an extreme strategic success for Israel. It tied up and drained two countries whose energies might otherwise have been put to more malicious use. The war was initiated, fed and prolonged through small acts done by a committed core of "pre Neocons". See Iran Contra in Wikipedia. Likewise, The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait led to a drastic worsening of the political situation of Palestinians (who are generally antagonists of Israel) throughout the Muslim world.
The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (the two principle neighbors of Iran) were a major step in the attempt to integrate the interests of America and Israel. Anyone who has a bit of knowledge of the region would scratch their head over the notion that it could possibly be in America's interests to invade those two countries. Neither was a direct threat to America or its interests before they were invaded, now both are.
Iran gives substantial support to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, as well as to supposed Palestinian "terrorists", and that support clearly is part of a long term strategic effort.
Additionally, Iran's economy has tremendous potential growth in the next several years due to both oil and a new focus on expanding trade. That economic threat would, in time, probably be more of a concern than any military gestures Teheran might make. The ultimate fear of Israeli planners being an Iran that was part of a cohesive Muslim bloc (including Sunnis).
