Saudi Arabia or Iran, which is less evil of the two?

[Roller]

US is working together with Iran on defeating ISIS while Saudis are/were financing and fostering ISIS.

Iran is our enemy but Saudi Arabia is an ally. Saudi Arabia does not have an exactly stellar human rights record but Iran doesn't have one either.

In all this mess, with who do you think we can align our interests better?


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[dx713]

Iran is a much more diverse culture.
They have tasted both secular (and, ironically, US-backed) and religious dictatorship.
They have a past of world-influencing culture and international trade.
They have an emerging middle-class that would like a bit of freedom.
They have a thriving diaspora who knows what living in a secular and/or democratic country is like.

For all of those reasons, I believe it would be easier to collaborate with them than with the Saudi, who are basically a herders and warlords feudal system propped by oil money.

I don't say it's going to be easy, and NATO should just barge in to "free" them. Even if I had believed that at the time, Iraq is there as a exemple. But I believe the ground there is more fertile than in Saudi Arabia, and careful small steps could bring a change.

 

[Sarpedon]

I, too, think that Iran is a natural ally of the US, and consider our plot to overthrow Mossadeigh and replace him with the Shah to have been one of the most wretchedly shortsighted and hypocritical foreign policy moves the US has ever made. (and the field is crowded)

As it is, I think little can be done under their current government, short of pragmatic cooperation. Hopefully the time will come when this can ripen into something more.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's hard to compare sufficiently large numbers.

Iran is on our side against ISIS because ISIS isn't their flavor of Islamist insanity. That doesn't mean they don't want to impose their brand--and Iran is working on the bomb, ISIS isn't.

 

[barbos]

Iran is a much more diverse culture.
They have tasted both secular (and, ironically, US-backed) and religious dictatorship.
They have a past of world-influencing culture and international trade.
They have an emerging middle-class that would like a bit of freedom.
They have a thriving diaspora who knows what living in a secular and/or democratic country is like.

For all of those reasons, I believe it would be easier to collaborate with them than with the Saudi, who are basically a herders and warlords feudal system propped by oil money.

I don't say it's going to be easy, and NATO should just barge in to "free" them. Even if I had believed that at the time, Iraq is there as a exemple. But I believe the ground there is more fertile than in Saudi Arabia, and careful small steps could bring a change.

I agree. Iran is clearly less evil and has better potential to be a normal country.

 

[boneyard bill]

I don't see why we have to take sides with respect to either of these countries. Saudi Arabia has the worse human rights record by far, but it isn't our business to be telling other countries what their human rights policies should be. Perhaps we could reasonably work with the UN on that, but we have no authority to do so unilaterally, and it isn't in our interests to do so.

This isn't to suggest that we actually care about human rights anyway. It is always used as a pretext for intervention. It's never the real reason. We didn't interfere with the Ugandan genocide or the Darfur genocide but then insist on intervening for far less serious human rights violations. That is where the real hypocrisy of our foreign policy comes in to plain view for the rest of world even if Americans somehow manage to get fooled by it every time.

Of course, Saudi Arabia is dead set against our reaching any détente with Iran, but we shouldn't let Saudi Arabia dictate our foreign policy. Nonetheless, we do. Our Mid-East policy, at least, is determined either in Tel Aviv or in Riyadh. Such is the sad state of American "democracy" today.

 

[Ford]

I'm leaning towards Iran.

ISIS calls themselves "The Islamic State." Iran was an "Islamic State" when the leaders of ISIS were still in diapers, but Saudi is the "OG" Islamic State.

Iran tried to export their brand of Islamic revolution decades ago, but that effort failed...in no small part because they were Shia in a Sunni world.


Saudi Arabia has been much more successful at exporting their brand of radical Islam, and if I'm not mistaken the Sunni branch (and the Saudi Wahabi sect in particular) is far more prone to suicide attacks than the Shiites.

 

[bilby]

'Evil' is a pretty useless word to describe anything - and certainly is not a valid description of an entire county; It implies irredeemable and absolute immorality, and I am unconvinced that there are many people in the world to whom it could correctly be applied - and certainly it cannot be the right term for large groups of people.

Iran is a fairly diverse nation, currently under the control of a theocratic regime that is highly inflexible and seeks to paint the west, and particularly the USA and Israel, as 'evil' for its own internal propaganda purposes. The Iranian people, like all peoples, can tolerate dictatorship and hardship in the service of their country, when it is under attack from outside, and the Iranian government are pretty good at giving that impression (ably assisted by US and Israeli foreign policy blunders).

If and when the Iranian people decide that their theocratic government is doing them more harm than good, they will likely be able to return to being a civilised and pleasant member of the international community pretty quickly - it's not long since they were last in that role, and perhaps the biggest barrier to them regaining that position is US propaganda that paints Iran in cartoonish broad strokes as a great enemy - ironically almost in direct mimicry of the Ayatollahs' portrayal of the US.


Saudi Arabia has never been civilised; and by getting rich and powerful selling oil to the Americans, Saudi Arabia has been able to buy the fruits of civilisation without having to actually implement civilisation itself. Most Saudis do nothing useful, and have poor attitudes as one might expect from rich, spoiled brats. Their government reflects this, and I suspect that both government and citizenry are, in the most part, incapable of learning. However most people in Saudi Arabia are not Saudis, and the vast numbers of disenfranchised foreigners who do everything from drilling and pumping oil to shining shoes and cleaning windows may be an interesting force for change once the oil (and hence the money) runs out. It may not even take that to spark a bloody revolution - just because the serfs are nominally foreigners doesn't mean they are not able to revolt; being able to send money home to their families in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Kenya etc. keeps them under the thumb for now, but you never know when the pressure might get to be too much.

Of the two nations., Iran is more likely to become a friend of the USA, and more likely to become a civilised member of the international community without too much bloodshed.

Saudi Arabia is wealthy, corrupt and ignorant; and the Saudis like it that way. Take away the first part of the triplet though, and the other two will bite them in the arse. Saudi Arabia is friendly to the USA in the same way that wealthy drug dealers are friendly to their customers. It is a nice facade, but if you stop buying their product, or start imposing on the 'friendship', watch out. They will do business with you; but they despise you nonetheless.

 

[NobleSavage]

Trying to make good/evil calls at the nation state level in the ME is futile. It's an interwoven clusterfuck of a conundrum. There are more permutations than a game of chess.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I wonder what kind of pain in the ass Saudi Arabia might be if the tables were turned and the US were in bed with Iran? What kind of DoD dollars we might be spending on that?

 

[Medicine Man]

I'm leaning towards Iran.​

They're workin' on their 1960s, presently....


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[Derec]

I agree. Iran is clearly less evil and has better potential to be a normal country.

But only if there is a regime change. The current theocracy is quite evil.
KSA is quite the opposite. If the regime falls the country will move in a more fundamentalist direction, not less so. So working with the regime makes a certain amount of sense, no matter how distasteful they are.

 

[Derec]

I, too, think that Iran is a natural ally of the US, and consider our plot to overthrow Mossadeigh and replace him with the Shah to have been one of the most wretchedly shortsighted and hypocritical foreign policy moves the US has ever made. (and the field is crowded)

Mossadeigh was a socialist which is why the US Left loves him even 60 years later, but he was hardly a textbook democrat or innocent in his overthrow. For one, he gave himself power to rule by decree. Second, he stopped the 1952 elections as soon as districts favorable to his party were finished - imagine Republicans stopping elections before the Left Coast is finished voting and not counting their results - it was a bit like that. Last but definitely not least, he expropriated US and British oil companies. You can't do that without opposition by US and Britain.

As it is, I think little can be done under their current government, short of pragmatic cooperation. Hopefully the time will come when this can ripen into something more.

Dictatorships rarely go peacefully.

 

[Derec]

However most people in Saudi Arabia are not Saudis, and the vast numbers of disenfranchised foreigners who do everything from drilling and pumping oil to shining shoes and cleaning windows may be an interesting force for change once the oil (and hence the money) runs out.

That is actually wrong. While there are many foreigners in Saudi Arabia (CIA Factbook puts the estimate at 21%), they are hardly a majority. And if oil/money runs out these foreigners are much more likely to go home than to try a revolution. If it comes it will more likely come from homegrown Islamists that think the KSA government is too soft or from the ISIS types across the border. Which is why Saudis are making an impressive border barrier along their border with Iraq.

 

[Medicine Man]

Mossadeigh was a socialist which is why the US Left loves him even 60 years later, but he was hardly a textbook democrat or innocent in his overthrow.​

Yeah....his overthrow....aka.... ​

...Iran's Democratic Election!!!​

"Iran had been ruled since 1925 by a military dictator who crowned himself Shah with the blessing of the British government. A joint British-Soviet invasion ousted the Shah in 1941 when he appeared sympathetic to the Nazis and installed his 22-year-old son instead.

In January 1952, democratic elections produced a majority for a grassroots political party, the National Front. The Shah had little choice but to appoint Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq, a National Front leader, as prime minister.

A reformer with years of public service, Mossadeq was European-educated and pro-American. (He led a post-war fight to deny the Soviet Union oil concessions in northern Iran.) Mossadeq considered foreign control of his country’s oil riches as a barrier democracy and independence. His government nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., to the joy of the Iranian people and horror of corporate executives and policy-makers in Britain and the U.S.

Britain took its grievance to the UN, but got no satisfaction. So Britain imposed an embargo on Iranian oil and other economic sanctions. After two years of economic hardship, Mossadeq considered selling oil to the Soviet Union. This, and his government’s cooperation with the left-wing Tudeh ("Masses") Party, gave the new Eisenhower Administration an excuse for action. The Central Intelligence Agency received authorization to jointly organize a coup with British secret service to destroy the democracy movement and restore the power of the Shah.

CIA operatives disguised as Mossadeq supporters harassed and threatened religious leaders. General Norman Schwarzkopf (father of the Gulf War general) smuggled more than $1 million into Iran. The CIA staged riots and bribed top military and police officials. In August 1953 the Shah returned to power, backed by the military, the U.S. and Britain. The following month the U.S. granted the Iranian government $45 million.

The brief period of democracy and independence ended. Formerly a kind of British colony, Iran was now firmly in the U.S. sphere of influence.

In 1954, a consortium of oil companies, including British Petroleum, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Chevron, Gulf, Royal Dutch/Shell and CFO, negotiated an agreement with the Iranian government for oil production. Amoco signed an agreement with the Shah in 1958."

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