Its not all about you

In one of my classes last week, the issue of Iran came up, again. There was a divide in class opinion about what should be done about Iran providing weapons to Iraqi insurgents and continuous Iranian interference in Iraqi internal affairs. It was pointed out that this is not Iran's only transgression. Their support of the Palestinians and quest for nuclear weapons was mentioned. It was also pointed out that the rulers of Iran were "crazy" because they had rules forcing men to grow beards.

I thought the entire argument was ridiculous. It struck me that my classmates didn't get that it was not America's place to enforce international law, especially law that is broken by America on a daily basis. There are many dimensions to this argument which will make this post so much longer, but that is not the point of this post.

In the case of Iran let me point out that it is a democracy. It is not a democracy in the way that America is, but neither is any other country on the planet. In fact, going by accepted standards, Saudi Arabia is a worse democracy than Iran which has had regular free and fair elections and they are interfering in Iraqi affairs too, as is Turkey. It is a free for all in that region right now because of the mess created by America.

On the issue of transgressions, Iranians have not forgotten the Shah that was supported by America after a democracy was overthrown. Lets not forget Chile, Nicaragua, Haiti, Lebanon, Vietnam and Liberia, all of which are a clear case of internal interference by America. Now, these might be justified because its all a case of "good" fighting "evil" and the fact that these were terrorists. Right now, international opinion sees America as the terrorist and biggest threat to stability so going by the "good" fighting "evil" standard, all these countries should bring sanctions against America.

Finally, I believe it was Egypt that said that it will join the "Coalition of the Willing" only if there was an international definition of "terrorism" and not an American one. America refused of course saying if you are not with us, you are against us. The irony here is, as pointed out in class, the American definition of terrorism, makes America a terrorist and a state sponsor of terrorism.

What should we do about that?