Loudmouth,

If something happens, and I draw a conclusion form the event - then it simply happens...I don't need to find a way to show you anything.

For the second time, I did "not" suggest that the overthrow of the Shah was America's doing...

ergo, your (c) challenge is moot, m'dear : )

Okapy, Poirot,

When you write,

" .... The acrimony and sabre-rattling that regularly passes between Iran and the West is to a degree a consequence of British and, particularly U.S., interference in 1953. The Islamic state was born as a consequence."

are you simply noting that (b) the Islamist state in Iran merely comes some time after (a) British and US interference in 1953 ?

i.e. 1979 comes after 1953 ?

Or are you trying to attribute the cause of the Islamist state to the US in some way ?

i.e. are you suggesting merely one event follows another in time, or one event somehow causes the later event ? In the sense that the Mongol invasion of Persia (Iran) somehow had effects which still linger ? Mongol b@stards !

Sorry, dear, I'm a bear of little brain :)

Joe

Poirot,

At what point do the Egyptians stop the blame game and take responsibility for there own future?

In South Africa 17 years after the election that brought the ANC to power the ANC government is still blaming the Apartheid regime for the ANC failure to deliver on services. By all accounts the voters aren't buying. If there were a viable opposition party the ANC would be out on its ear.

It's only a matter of time.

But then again South Africa is a democracy. Egypt isn't and probably won't be in our life times.

Now is this all the fault of the wicked USA?

Or must the Egyptians, and the ideology of Islam, bear some of the blame?

Gawd!.....

Okay, Loudmouth....have you got your interpreter and ear trumpet at the ready?....yes?....good.....here we go....

I believe I've stated fairly clearly that (in my opinion) the Islamic revolution of 1979 was likely to have been in response to decades of the Shah's rule - i.e. the Shah was a U.S. installed and supported puppet.

Sheesh!

Steve,

I'm no expert on South African politics, but When I read Naomi Klein's analysis of the situation, I was enlightened somewhat. Here's some of what she wrote in "The Shock Doctrine":

"As the political talks progressed and it became clear to the National Party that Parliament would soon be firmly in the hands of the ANC, the party of South Africa's elites began pouring energy and creativity into economic negotiations....In these talks, the de Klerk government had a two-fold strategy....they used a wide range of new policy tools - international trade agreements, innovations in constitutional law and structural adjustment programs - to hand control of those power centres to supposedly impartial experts, economists and officials from the IMF, the World Bank, the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade(GATT) and the National Party - anyone except the liberation fighters in the ANC. It was a strategy of balkanisation, not of the country's geography (as de Klerk had originally attempted), but of its economy.
The plan was successfully executed under the noses of ANC leaders, who were naturally preoccupied with winning the battle to control Parliament. In the process, the ANC failed to protect itself against a far more insidious strategy - in essence, an elaborate insurance plan against the economic clauses in The Freedom Charter ever becoming law in South Africa."

Steven,

If you're interested in some of the contributing factors in the ANC's failure to deliver the promise of the Freedom Charter, here are some examples given by Klein of the obstacles they faced:

"Want to redistribute land? Impossible - at the last minute, the negotiators agreed to add a clause to the new constitution that protects all private property, making land reform virtually impossible. Want to create jobs for millions of unemployed workers? Can't - hundreds of factories were actually about to close because the ANC had signed on to the GATT, the precursor to the World Trade Organization, which made it illegal to subsidise the auto plants and textile factories. Want to get free AIDS drugs to the townships, where the disease is spreading with terrifying speed? That violates an intellectual property rights commitment under the WTO, which the ANC joined with no public debate as a continuation of the GATT. Need money to build more and larger houses for the poor and to bring free electricity to the townships? Sorry - the budget is being eaten up servicing the massive debt, passed on quietly by the apartheid government....Free water for all? Not likely. The World Bank, with its large in-country contingent of economists, researchers and trainers (a self-proclaimed "Knowledge Bank"), is making private sector partnerships the norm. Want to impose currency controls to guard against wild speculation? That would violate the $850 million IMF deal, signed, conveniently enough, right before the elections. Raise the minimum wage to close the apartheid income gap? Nope. The IMF deal promises "wage restraint".....The bottom line was that South Africa was free but simultaneously captured, each one of these arcane acronyms represented a different thread in the web that pinned down the limbs of the new government."

I wonder if the Egyptian people will have a similar experience?