Ralph Nader’s absurd diatribe on Iran’s supposed innocence and peace loving nature.
“It is as if Iran, a country that hasn’t invaded any country for over 250 years, should remain cool in the face of such attacks, threats, infiltrations, boycotts, U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, and not engage in any military alliances.”
To begin with, I don’t know what a two hundred and fifty yr old Iran has to do with current Iranian policies. However, it should be noted that commonly accepted Iranian history lays waste to Nader’s wild and false claims. Umm, didn’t the “War of 1775-76” with the Ottomans see Persia, led by Karim Khan Zandi, invade and capture Basrah (partly in order to establish the Shia religion in what is now Southern Iraq)? Just outside Ralph Nader’s two hundred and fifty year supposed Iranian peaceful era, (By the way then called Persia) Shah Nader, (my what a coincidence) invaded India and ravaged Delhi. Ask the Indians about supposed Nader or Persian peaceful nature! No anomaly there, either. In 1794, the Quajar Persian dynasty in the Battle of Kisangani, similarly sacked and destroyed Tbilisi as part of the Quajar’s many military forays to re-establish the vassal state status that marked the earlier days of the Persian Empire.
Hell, no need to go back two hundred and fifty years. How about right now? Nader, himself, pointed out:
“It is as if Iran is not, in the words of former Obama adviser, Vali R. Nasr, carrying “most of the weight” in the “battles on the ground” against ISIS in Iraq, thereby saving the U.S. from committing again U.S. soldiers to avert a complete rout of those left behind after our deadly debacle in Iraq since 2003.”
Umm, Iranian forces fighting in Iraq? Oh well, we also have the invasion of Syria going on right now by Iranian surrogate Hezbollah, the terrorist organization. An invasion to support the Syrian dictator Assad, by fighting those who are trying to get out from under his despotic rule. Iran is widely recognized as the leading state supplier of weapons to terrorist groups in the Middle East, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and dozens of smaller jihadi groups. The State Department’s country by country survey, Report on Terrorism, says of Iran:
“Iran has historically provided weapons, training, and funding to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, including the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), although Hamas’s ties to Tehran have been strained due to the Syrian civil war. Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Iran has also assisted in rearming Hezbollah, in direct violation of UNSCR 1701. Iran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and has trained thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran. These trained fighters often use these skills in support of the Assad regime in Syria. “
But Ralph Nader would have us believe that Iran is a peace-loving state, innocently pursuing nuclear capabilities for cheap power and, in turn, being persecuted themselves by the United States and an Israel, who has been“ regularly invading a blockaded Gaza, invading Lebanon five times and attacking other nearby countries pre-emptively “
Not even a single word about the thousands of rockets hurled into Israel from Gaza-a rocket armory headed by the Iranian supplied Fajr-5 rockets that threaten nearly half-million residents of Tel-Aviv.
Which, of course, is to be expected by such a hack and biased view of Iran by Ralph Nader in the Huffington Post this week.
