Imperialism has been a “gift that keeps on giving” that Europe has imposed on the World for centuries and it did not start there, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could move beyond that in the Twenty First Century! One of the BIG and I MEAN HUUUUUGE! differences between the foreign policies of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is that Hillary Clinton wants to keep the status quo going and Bernie Sanders wants to emphasise dialogue.
I will do a series of articles on this topic including my thoughts on our relationship with Russia several countries in South America, but this article will focus on Iran.
Iran has played a very large role in US politics since 1980. It could be argued that some rather trivial mistakes made by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, mostly as a result of listening to bad advisors…a topic worth another set of articles…, led to the hostage crisis and gave ex-head of the CIA George Bush the opening he needed to orchestrate the October Surprise that ended up being the deciding factor in the 1980 election that brought the Reagan/Bush era into existence. It is hard to overstate what a drastic negative impact that had on the United States and World Politics in General.
This series of videos gives you a good overview of the history behind our current situation with Iran. Kind of a must watch.
Iran and The West 1/3: The Man Who Changed The World – BBC (Feb 7, 2009)
Iran and The West 2/3: The Pariah State – BBC (Feb 14, 2009)
Iran and The West 3/3: Nuclear Confrontation – BBC (Feb 21, 2009)
Episode 3 is the most telling regarding the current situation. The Bush administration was blocking any semblance of trust and Iran returned the favor by electing a hardline regime so the negotiations simply could not happen. Even when Iran was willing to talk, the Bush administration just put a line in the sand and when the Iranians complied the US moved the line. The film was made in 2009, so it ends with Obama extending a hand to the Iranians so now there is an agreement. But once again, the Republicans are trying to undermine it. If they do it will end in tears for everyone involved. The bottom line is: The Republicans SUCK!
The Truth Behind The Iran Nuclear Talks
And here is an interesting and ironic twist to the entire situation.