Iran is going to be a beacon of light in the region once the Islamic revolution is over. They have the culture and the human capital for it. Arab dictatorships are jealous, but their future is not very bright. No way they transition to modernity as well as Iran.
Religion will disappear eventually amongst the majority but it will take centuries to happen. Science cannot be denied. Will religion disappear completely? Never. There will always be those willing to take the easy way out because science and the universe, for some, can be difficult to comprehend. And those people will be the hard-core types.
Fortunately, their numbers are dwindling.
Not without a chainsaw, or maybe a good blade.To the arbiters of their own reality science can absolutely be denied if it contradicts their absolutely certain beliefs.
The trickery of the "intellectuals" and "liberal academicians" is no match for the true beliefs of a true believer. Just look at the people who believe politicians and the oil industry over the worlds scientists and all data to deny that humans have an effect on our environment in the form of global warming. They have a true belief that will not be changed by evidence of any sort.
You cannot fix wilful ignorance.
Not without a chainsaw, or maybe a good blade.
OP's article is 4 years old.
The US propping up of the Shah is actually part of the reason they have a significant population of moderates in Iran to begin with. The Shah opened up Iran to western influence during his reign. It was the main reason the Islamists rebelled. It was a reactionary backlash. They said he was bringing western "decadence" to Iran.
These older Iranians were raised during this era of openness, and they've raised their kids with those values. I've known many immigrants from Iran, and they (i.e. those who chose to immigrate to the west) are the most moderate and least religious Muslims I've ever met. These people are thoroughly pro-western. They had already assimilated before they arrived. One woman who went to work as a receptionist in my office was one year "off the boat" - and she was already a "party girl" who dressed so provocatively at the office that we had to tell her to button up. She complained that she hadn't been allowed to wear makeup in public when she lived in Tehran.
Which is why it's ironic that Trump's travel ban includes Iran.
I think it's problematic to blame the west for radical Islamism in the middle east. It's pretty much home grown. And to the extent that its rise was a reaction to western meddling, it's also fair to point out that this meddling is a big part of the reason you'll find more moderates there today than in most Islamic countries.
This is a heck of a whitewash of the Shah and how he came to be there, not to mention ignoring the previous history. It's true that the Shah was 'Westernising' in some respects, especially culturally, but SAVAK and its torturers seem to have slipped your mind. And Oric already mentioned the little issue of how and why the Shah came to be there in the first place. If anything, the association of 'Westernisation' with the Shah is what discredited Westernisation among many Iranians.
(There was also the little matter of the occupation of the country by the allies during WW2).
It's not a whitewash at all. You think I am trying to somehow exculpate the Shah. I am not. I said one thing: he brought cultural westernization to Iran. This is indisputably true. And it's also true that the fact they have more moderates there, even now, than in other Islamic countries has much to do with the Shah's influence. Yet it's also true that he came to power under questionable circumstances, and did several bad things while in power. It's also true that while the country westernized, this caused a backlash which brought the Islamists to power.
The moral of all this is that "blame" is a rather complex issue. The present state of Iran has more than one cause. And what complicates the matter further is that it's impossible to know what the present state would be in a counter-factual scenario where the Shah had never taken power there. Things could be better in that scenario, or worse, or about the same. It's impossible to know.
I don't buy that point about the positive traits of Iran being down to the Shah. There are too many other factors, particularly the strength of 'Persian' culture and the long history of the country. There's no comparison in the depth of the culture of Iran with that of say, Saudi Arabia. There's also the Sunni/Shia difference, but I really can't work out how that relates to the growth of radicalism (I remember when the Shia were considered by the Western media to be the dangerous radical ones, now that seems to have swapped round).
But as you say, you can't know what would have happened without the Shah, therefore how can you give him the credit for Iran's 'moderate' traits? The toppling of Mossadeq was a criminal act by the West, that much seems clear to me, regardless of what one thinks the long term effects were.
Also I think one needs to be careful about assuming there's a silent majority of liberals waiting to get the chance of freedom - that's what we were told (by the neocons) about Iraq before the invasion, that iraq wasn't like other parts of the region, that it had an educated democratically-inclined class who would turn it into a capitalist liberal democracy once Saddam was off their backs. I mean, I'm sure it did have such a class, but that wasn't all it had, and the actual process that removed Saddam was clearly going to be important in determining what emerged (possibly you don't actually disagree with that point).
I never said the moderates were a "majority," silent or otherwise. Be careful about not reading too much into my posts. I mean only what I say.
OP's article is 4 years old.
The US propping up of the Shah is actually part of the reason they have a significant population of moderates in Iran to begin with. The Shah opened up Iran to western influence during his reign. It was the main reason the Islamists rebelled. It was a reactionary backlash. They said he was bringing western "decadence" to Iran.
These older Iranians were raised during this era of openness, and they've raised their kids with those values. I've known many immigrants from Iran, and they (i.e. those who chose to immigrate to the west) are the most moderate and least religious Muslims I've ever met. These people are thoroughly pro-western. They had already assimilated before they arrived. One woman who went to work as a receptionist in my office was one year "off the boat" - and she was already a "party girl" who dressed so provocatively at the office that we had to tell her to button up. She complained that she hadn't been allowed to wear makeup in public when she lived in Tehran.
Which is why it's ironic that Trump's travel ban includes Iran.
I think it's problematic to blame the west for radical Islamism in the middle east. It's pretty much home grown. And to the extent that its rise was a reaction to western meddling, it's also fair to point out that this meddling is a big part of the reason you'll find more moderates there today than in most Islamic countries.
Holy fuck this is a bunch of complete bullshit propaganda. If not for the US propping up the Islamist movement Iran would have been secular in the 1960's to this day much like Afghanistan would have been a secular nation if the US would have stayed the fuck out instead of supporting every crazy warlord and Islamist movement in the area for 60 fucking years.
You should fucking know better, old man.
Most historians regard counterfactual history as perhaps entertaining, but not meeting the standards of mainstream historical research due to its speculative nature.
I should know better because you're certain of how things would be if such and such had been different, as if this is an objective fact? Historical counterfactuals are closer to a form of entertainment than they are to real historiography.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_history
All I will say on this is that the Islamists have always been there, and would always have reacted to secularization with hostility and likely eventual rebellion, regardless of whether it had been the Shah or some other regime bringing it. Beyond that, I really have no idea what an alternative outcome would have been, and neither do you.
I'll cop to being old though. In dog yeas, I'm already dead.