Real Source of Middle Eastern extremism: the United State (best PBS doc in a long time)

So, are you just going to ignore the OP that goes over how jihadists throughout the Middle East were indoctrinated, trained, armed, and given political power by the United States?

Do you think, absent the United States, the modern and secular countries of Iran and Saudi Arabia c. 1950 would have just organically yielded to some spontaneous terrorist wave, without our prompting?
One time someone in Bangladesh for diarrhea. It was the us fault for creating lays potato chips.


Iran has the shah around then. Did we oust him and let the twatollah take over? Should we have invaded and backed him?
 
One time someone in Bangladesh for diarrhea. It was the us fault for creating lays potato chips.


Iran has the shah around then. Did we oust him and let the twatollah take over? Should we have invaded and backed him?

We ousted the secular leader before the reinstatement of the Shah.

Don't post in threads if you can't even been bothered to read the OP.
 
We ousted the secular leader before the reinstatement of the Shah.

Don't post in threads if you can't even been bothered to read the OP.
You think liking Iran makes you edgy. It doesn’t. They’re as unacceptable of a society as the rest of the Middle East. We should have nothing to do with them if possible, but we can’t do that becaus do the global oil economy. They aren’t your friend. You don’t know these people. Just because you know a guy or had a falafel once doesn’t make you an expert. Hang in there. Either them or one of their neighbors will be showing exactly what type of people they are again soon enough.
 
You think liking Iran makes you edgy. It doesn’t. They’re as unacceptable of a society as the rest of the Middle East. We should have nothing to do with them if possible, but we can’t do that becaus do the global oil economy. They aren’t your friend. You don’t know these people. Just because you know a guy or had a falafel once doesn’t make you an expert. Hang in there. Either them or one of their neighbors will be showing exactly what type of people they are again soon enough.

The Iranian people are much more my friends than any ethnocentric, racist fuckwit reductionist like you.
 
You think liking Iran makes you edgy. It doesn’t. They’re as unacceptable of a society as the rest of the Middle East. We should have nothing to do with them if possible, but we can’t do that becaus do the global oil economy. They aren’t your friend. You don’t know these people. Just because you know a guy or had a falafel once doesn’t make you an expert. Hang in there. Either them or one of their neighbors will be showing exactly what type of people they are again soon enough.

You are truly a disgusting person.
 
You are truly a disgusting person.
Spend a few months in the gulf and get back to me. Or read up on these people and what they currently do to their own people. They aren’t your friend. They don’t want peace. Does that mean every Iranian? No. The entire power structure there though. All of it.
 
Yeah, I definitely think you're right.

And that bodes well for the region, as Iran is perpetually teetering towards secularism, while the Saudi population has been made pretty docile between the indoctrination and authoritarian beatings.

Also, Iran's government, despite its turn towards neoliberalism in the recent decade, has been pretty fucking impressive in its competence. The shit they have achieved with the world against them is admirable.

That is the undesired effect of sanctions on a country. When they can no longer import or trade for things they are forced to adapt and fill the void themselves, which makes them stronger in the end (if done effectively, which Iran seems to be doing).
 
Team Ottoman all the way. Safavids were assholes.
I meant the neo-Ottomans(Erdogan's Turkey) and neo-Safavids(Islamic Republic). In terms of the actual gunpowder empires I'm team Ottoman all the way.

Shah Ismail seems like a more interesting guy than Suleiman though, apparently he was a passionate poet in multiple languages while Suleiman let a fucking thot wrap him around her finger.
 
I meant the neo-Ottomans(Erdogan's Turkey) and neo-Safavids(Islamic Republic). In terms of the actual gunpowder empires I'm team Ottoman all the way.

Shah Ismail seems like a more interesting guy than Suleiman though, apparently he was a passionate poet in multiple languages while Suleiman let a fucking thot wrap him around her finger.

I think Suleiman's story is far more Shakespearean and poetic though. His acts of mercy coming to bite him in the ass like letting the knights go after the fall of rhodes. His act of choosing to marry a slave for love and then like you said, she ends up getting his son and best friend killed. he builds up the most powerful empire around and goes down as a law giver but leaves it in the hands of an idiot. Both his successes and fuck ups trump Shah Ismail (although admittedly i dont know much about him)
 
I think Suleiman's story is far more Shakespearean and poetic though. His acts of mercy coming to bite him in the ass like letting the knights go after the fall of rhodes. His act of choosing to marry a slave for love and then like you said, she ends up getting his son and best friend killed. he builds up the most powerful empire around and goes down as a law giver but leaves it in the hands of an idiot. Both his successes and fuck ups trump Shah Ismail (although admittedly i dont know much about him)
He was a great man but I firmly believe in bros before hoes and his killing Ibrahim and infatuation with Hurrem always made me think less of him. Its often justified on the basis that Ibrahim was becoming power hungry but I don't believe that, seems like Grand Viziers are common fall guys and I think that was the case there.

I watched Aladdin recently because I was craving some Orientalist aesthetic and I was reminded of poor Ibrahim when they introduced Jafar as the Grand Vizier. The fact that a movie made in the 90s was basically propagating the same medieval Sultanic ideology of blaming the Vizier for the Sultan's incompetence and malice really bothered me for no good reason.
 
He was a great man but I firmly believe in bros before hoes and his killing Ibrahim and infatuation with Hurrem always made me think less of him. Its often justified on the basis that Ibrahim was becoming power hungry but I don't believe that, seems like Grand Viziers are common fall guys and I think that was the case there.

I watched Aladdin recently because I was craving some Orientalist aesthetic and I was reminded of poor Ibrahim when they introduced Jafar as the Grand Vizier. The fact that a movie made in the 90s was basically propagating the same medieval Sultanic ideology of blaming the Vizier for the Sultan's incompetence and malice really bothered me for no good reason.

Cant do "bros over hoes" if she is the mother of your children and he was the son of Selim who killed viziers every tuesday.

Is normal.

but ya he was losing it towards the end.

I still have him and Mehmet at the top of the GOAT Ottoman sultan list. I think Bayezid I and Mustafa were the great "what ifs".
 
Last edited:
You two should watch turkish soap operas to get your ottoman fix :p
 
I think attributing the spread of Wahabism to the Iran/Saudi schism isn't telling the entire truth. It certainly helped isolate the Iranian regime in the region but the Saudis have funded mosques in literally every corner of the world. This isn't to counter some nefarious Iranian agenda because there has never been a real effort on the Iranian side to do the same thing. The relationship between the house of Saud and Wahabists runs very very deep. It spans centuries. The spread of their religion was a way for the Saudis to enhance their prestige in the muslim world outside of countering Shiism or whatever else they are trying to pin on Iran here. The decline of Ba'athism and especially the oil wealth as a result of the oil crisis 73 that got into Saudi hands was equally if not more important.
Indeed, and after the Grand Mosque seizure in 1979. The house of Saud thought it would be wise to spread wahabism globally so the religious zealots would focus on foreign affairs rather than meddling with domestic politics in Saudi Arabia.
 
Indeed, and after the Grand Mosque seizure in 1979. The house of Saud thought it would be wise to spread wahabism globally so the religious zealots would focus on foreign affairs rather than meddling with domestic politics in Saudi Arabia.

Yes, the Grand Mosque seizure was certainly another turning point in Saudi policy. It's just that regional factors outside of the Iranian revolution facilitated the great success that was the spread of Wahabism. You have to give the Saudis credit; they basically changed Sunni Islam to its core.

I agree with one of the main points here though. The Saudis have certainly lost control of the beast they created. Groups like ISIS view the house of Saud as the devil. There is no doubt about it. But it's clear that Wahabism and the spread of salafism in general did promote aggressive takfirism and violent jihadism. The result of that is ISIS. The problematic part is that the Sauds still view these groups as geopolitical tools even if it may come back and hit them. Read the old leaked US state departments leaks about Syria back from 2012. It made it clear that the creation of a "Salafist principality" in eastern Syria was the preferable outcome for regional allies(and in extent the US). It's damning.
 
Back
Top