At first glance, it may seem obvious. “Shock and Awe”, missiles slamming into buildings, illuminating a dark Baghdad night, pictures on innocent civilians, including women and children, dead and injured, American tanks rolling into the Iraqi capital…they are all images that remind us of the brutality of war, especially a war waged against a neighboring country with which we have so many cultural and historical ties. But let’s take a step back and compare the aftermath of the Iraq war to the aftermath of the 1979 devolution in our homeland.
The Iraq war was the result of a foreign military force attacking the country. It caused massive damage to the country’s infrastructure and resulted in the deaths of more than a hundred thousand Iraqis (some estimate the figures to be in the hundreds of thousands). But seven years later, Iraq has a nascent democracy that has shown resilience even in the face of a less than decisive elections and in even in the face of an ongoing American troop withdrawal. The road will be tough, but all indications are that Iraq will not fall apart as a result of a civil war as some had predicted – or even hoped.
By contrast, look at Iran. Thirty one years after the 1979 devolution and we are in a much worse situation than we were before that catastrophic event. The devastation brought on by the devolution is no less than what happened in Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iranians were executed, hundreds of thousands died in the trenches of the Iran-Iraq war –which would have never happened if Shah had remained in power. Whole cities, such as Khorramshahr and Ghasr-e-Shirin were destroyed in the war, and many others were severely damaged, and Iran’s infrastructure and military were also decimated during the war.
So, the question is: what did we gain in return? While Iraqis can at least look forward to a democratic future, Iranians are still being brutalized by a medieval theocracy. While Iraqis can look forward to a growing economy (albeit some distance away), Iran’s economy has been declining and declining every year, and is going to weaken even further as a result of the impending sanctions. While Iraqi minorities can celebrate their newly acquired rights, Iranian women are still being forced into a mandatory dress code, and are being fined for wearing nail polish. While Iraq has been enjoying a free media, every single opposition newspaper and magazine has been shut down in Iran. While Iraq has an independent body that oversees elections, Iran’s thug in chief, Kahmenei, tells the Iranian people that they will be responsible for what happens to them (meaning we will kill you and it will be your fault) and his thug minions rape, jail and execute Iranians for asking “where is my vote”. And now, 31 years on, they are reverting back to their tactics of three decades ago in harassing the average Iranian.
Now, I know that the IRI lackey’s response will be that “we have independence”. First of all, you don’t. Before the devolution, you were arguably reliant of the “West” (operating word: arguably). Now you are dependent on the Russian mob and Chinese murderers and have to kiss their behinds day and night so that they don’t vote for sanctions against you (which they do at the end).
So, for the past 31 years since the 1979 devolution, we have had every bad thing that happened to Iraq happen to us with the only difference that the Iraqis may get something out of their suffering, whereas we have so far gotten zilch.
Lastly, for all those who still reminisce about the glorious “revolution”, I suggest you take the time to watch the last six minutes of this video (credit goes to David ET for posting it on another blog):
