Iran
Tuesday night, it is probably a good guess that the topic of Iran will come up in the State of the Union.
It is a good time to once again reprint the map of Iran and its close neighbors in the Middle East.
Iran Lebanon Israel area (pdf – includes Israel)
Iran and environs, 1987 Readers Digest Atlas of the World
Iran is almost exactly the same geographic size as Alaska, and has a population of about 93 million, more than twice the population of California. While Alaska and Iran are about the same size, Alaska has less than 1% of Iran’s population (738,000). Most people in Iran live in cities. It is a major world country. It is important to come to an understanding of the country, its people, and particularly its relationship to the west, especially to the United States. Note especially the Strait of Hormuz, and if I’d make any suggestions start your history with the early 1950s, democracy in Iran, and oil….
I asked some folks I know who are Iranian if they have any sources of info which they would consider credible. Here’s one: “Article that may be of help: https://jacobin.com/2026/02/protests-revolution-iran-war-intervention. I would also check out Quincy institute and their materials.”
This brief post comes about because of an e-mail (forwarded with permission) by a native Iranian (long time American), sent to a friend in the last few days. Here’s the note in its entirety. The opinion is as all opinions are: the view of the writer.
“It’s heartwarming to know that you and people like you care.
Internet is somewhat reconnected and the news are horrifying. I don’t think there is an accurate statistics of the murdered but 40,000 would not be an exaggeration. At this point anyone I know either knows a killed one personally or knows of them!
The streets were covered in blood of the innocent. They even attacked the hospitals and shot the wounded!! We know this because some of the bodies still had hospital stuff attached to them and gunshots in the forehead.
People are divided and really desperate. Almost half the people really want him to attack!!! I’m talking about people inside Iran.
I’m totally against this brutal stupidity but understand the desperate people whose logic is: we are getting killed anyways and there is no help. Even if the help comes in the form of getting more of us killed but giving us freedom we take it.
A lot of people are waiting to be bombed to freedom.”
I only add this comment which I made to the person who sent me the above writing: “As you know ’the west’ has a very long history with Iran, much of it going back to the early 50s and oil and the Shah and the like.”
I could add much more to this, but let it suffice for this post. This is yet another crucial opportunity to learn.
Here’s an additional response from someone in a position to know what Iran is.
Many are playing a chess game with all of our lives, for their reach to power. Keep in mind the Epstein file exposes how so many leaders were manipulated to do as asked.
There is so much we don’t know! Yet Iranians keep going from one autocrat to another instead of getting their own plan put together. They are asking for Israel to help them, not sure if they are aware that they will live similar to Syria and Iraq……
I know despair is where they are at and unfortunately they don’t empower their own intellectuals to help. It is so sad….
from a friend of over 70 years, who’s ancestry is Syrian (Mar 4, 2026) This comment also appears in the March 14 post): It was appropriate for you to look back to 1950 and mention the Shah in your discussion, but you neglected the most important event from that period. In 1949 Iran had freed themselves from other powers and established a democracy patterned after our American democracy. I can still remember young girls running around in short skirts like the girls were doing in the United States. Then next came the actions taken by the US in support of this new democracy. Instead of supporting it, our CIA joined forces with the British Intelligence Agency and worked to destroy this democracy and return it to the rule of the Shah. When the British are involved, there is a caste system involved. I worked with three individuals at [my company who] were part of that Privileged Caste System, and in spite of all the factual information that they had, they would not accept the premise that they were a part of that Privileged Caste System. It was all the horrible things that the US did to the Iranian democracy that resulted in the Iranians pleading “Death to America”, something that you would have also done if they had done such horrible things to you. That was the most important point that your discussion had overlooked.
The British Government is one of the most horrible in the world, which doesn’t always extend to the population, but generally does. Remember the actions taken by the early British settlers that were working to take land away from the Native Americans folks [in North Dakota] and surrounding areas so they could farm if. I doubt if there was ever a treaty with the Native Americans that the British settlers ever honored. And I believe that I shared with you the horrible things that were done to the Native Americans in [North Dakota] and surrounding areas that had fled to northern Canada where they could find food and were then herded back … and held there until most of them starved to death. That British culture is in general a horrible culture, and I am bothered by how much of it has extended to America.
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