I have read arguments on both side of this. A number of people say IRI is Iran. Then have used that to blame Iranian people for actions of IRI. In my opinion a government is never the same as the people. This is specially true when there is no democracy. Or when there is a nominal machinery for democracy but it is broken. The only time a government may really reflect WILL OF “the people” is in a direct democracy likte Swiss have.
But the government is never the same as a people. Governments come and go but great nations remain. Iran has gone from Curus the gresat to Arab invasion through good like Karim Khan and evil like Khomeini and many others. Therefore Iran is far greater than its government. The government is simply the people who at any given time have the reins of the nation in their hands who may or may not have peoples best interest in mind.
Of course a government greatly impacts the nation. An incompetet or selfish evil government harms people a great deal. We have seen it from Monghols to IR. But that is like saying a bad bus driver hurts the passengers. The bus driver is not the same as the passengers or the bus.
We may use the same argument for the USA. I do not even think that the US government is the same as its people. As NP reminds us USA government has done lots of bad thing. I can tell you most Americans are fine nice people who would not hurt anyone.
I want to know peoples opinions. Please be civil and respectful. No need to start throwing instulas around.
Let us learn from each other and work together.
PS,
There is also the issue of what is really Iran? Many of us believe in “Greater Iran”. Parts of Iran: Central Asia: Afghanistan; Eastern Iraq; Azarbayjan; Bahrain; were forcefully taken from us. I would love to talk about how the Iranic people could reunite. But that is not the focus of this discussion. I plan to write another blog to discuss this.
VPK
