I lived with a Persian guy, who was both a hero in the Iran/Iraq war and the son of a judge, and he told me that when Khomeini came into power everyone believed that he was going to restore Iran's position in the world. He told me that within a year, the people knew that they had been fooled,but by then it was too late to do anything about it. Khomeini was firmly in control.
Zoroastrianism was once the accepted religion and now they were Muslim without any democratic process. Theocracy does not work.
I learned so much about the culture and his upbringing. His grandfather was a Khan and had his own territory to grow opium. He was like a leader in a serfdom. All that changed after opium cultivation was outlawed.
I was surprised to find that a great deal of the male population smoked opium regularly. Even though it was illegal, opium growing went underground and it is a cheap habit but highly addictive. He went on to tell me about camel caravans smuggling opium still exist, with bribery used to ascertain where the patrols whereabouts were.
The people long to return to the days when the people were very westernized, especially the woman, in spite of being a CIA asset.
Not sure how their country will evolve in the ever complex political environment they currently find themselves in.
That man was a man's man. His war stories kept me on the edge of my seat.
One of my favorites and there are a lot was when his platoon rolled into a kurdish village and he was ordered to open fire on a group of women and children and he refused to obey orders saying that they are not the enemy. His commanding officer told him that he was lucky that he didn't shoot him. I never knew this but the Kurds in the north wanted to seperate and were not considered allies in the war with Iraq. He was sent to higher officials where they sent him to the front lines which was as good as a death sentence if you remember how Iraq used chemical weapons.
That to me was character. He survived one year on the front lines. He had just finished two years of university and was planning to study abroad when the war started and he was drafted.
During the 1970's, I was in the US Army JAG Corps stationed in Berlin, Germany. One of my duties was to teach the Hague & Geneva Conventions to the troops. This was because of the My Lai massacre on March 16, 1968 where US Army soldiers massacred Vietnamize civilians. The US Army's position was that even the lowest ranking US Soldier must REFUSE TO OBEY an unlawful order. Murdering civilians is evil & violates the Conventions. Your friend was a manly man who refused to obey an unlawful order.
It breaks my heart that things are so different now: Trump and the corrupt US Congress are killing Palestinian civilians by the tens of thousands And they celebrate it! and gloat about it.
I strongly agree with your framing here. Lavrov is absolutely right to call out the sanctions regime for what it is - an instrument of coercion rather than a tool of law. What stands out in Iran’s case is how decades of external pressure have unintentionally produced the very opposite of what the West intended. Instead of collapse, Iran has cultivated a unique form of sovereignty built on resilience, self-reliance, and new alignments with non-Western powers.
One additional point worth noting is that sanctions are not just about weakening a state. They are also about signaling to other “difficult” countries what the costs of independence will be. Yet Iran, much like Russia today, has demonstrated that when a civilization is rooted deeply enough, it can withstand those costs and even emerge stronger. That is why, as I argued in my earlier piece “The Fortress States: Why the West Cannot Topple Russia and Iran”, both countries embody a model of resistance that goes beyond geopolitics. They show how sovereignty can be defended in an era of financial warfare and technological siege.
In this sense, Iran is not only a regional power but a living example of what a multipolar order actually looks like in practice. Its endurance under siege proves that the “grip on the throat” can be broken and that lesson will not be lost on others who seek to preserve their independence.
I lived with a Persian guy, who was both a hero in the Iran/Iraq war and the son of a judge, and he told me that when Khomeini came into power everyone believed that he was going to restore Iran's position in the world. He told me that within a year, the people knew that they had been fooled,but by then it was too late to do anything about it. Khomeini was firmly in control.
Zoroastrianism was once the accepted religion and now they were Muslim without any democratic process. Theocracy does not work.
I learned so much about the culture and his upbringing. His grandfather was a Khan and had his own territory to grow opium. He was like a leader in a serfdom. All that changed after opium cultivation was outlawed.
I was surprised to find that a great deal of the male population smoked opium regularly. Even though it was illegal, opium growing went underground and it is a cheap habit but highly addictive. He went on to tell me about camel caravans smuggling opium still exist, with bribery used to ascertain where the patrols whereabouts were.
The people long to return to the days when the people were very westernized, especially the woman, in spite of being a CIA asset.
Not sure how their country will evolve in the ever complex political environment they currently find themselves in.
very interesting. Thank you!
That man was a man's man. His war stories kept me on the edge of my seat.
One of my favorites and there are a lot was when his platoon rolled into a kurdish village and he was ordered to open fire on a group of women and children and he refused to obey orders saying that they are not the enemy. His commanding officer told him that he was lucky that he didn't shoot him. I never knew this but the Kurds in the north wanted to seperate and were not considered allies in the war with Iraq. He was sent to higher officials where they sent him to the front lines which was as good as a death sentence if you remember how Iraq used chemical weapons.
That to me was character. He survived one year on the front lines. He had just finished two years of university and was planning to study abroad when the war started and he was drafted.
During the 1970's, I was in the US Army JAG Corps stationed in Berlin, Germany. One of my duties was to teach the Hague & Geneva Conventions to the troops. This was because of the My Lai massacre on March 16, 1968 where US Army soldiers massacred Vietnamize civilians. The US Army's position was that even the lowest ranking US Soldier must REFUSE TO OBEY an unlawful order. Murdering civilians is evil & violates the Conventions. Your friend was a manly man who refused to obey an unlawful order.
It breaks my heart that things are so different now: Trump and the corrupt US Congress are killing Palestinian civilians by the tens of thousands And they celebrate it! and gloat about it.
I strongly agree with your framing here. Lavrov is absolutely right to call out the sanctions regime for what it is - an instrument of coercion rather than a tool of law. What stands out in Iran’s case is how decades of external pressure have unintentionally produced the very opposite of what the West intended. Instead of collapse, Iran has cultivated a unique form of sovereignty built on resilience, self-reliance, and new alignments with non-Western powers.
One additional point worth noting is that sanctions are not just about weakening a state. They are also about signaling to other “difficult” countries what the costs of independence will be. Yet Iran, much like Russia today, has demonstrated that when a civilization is rooted deeply enough, it can withstand those costs and even emerge stronger. That is why, as I argued in my earlier piece “The Fortress States: Why the West Cannot Topple Russia and Iran”, both countries embody a model of resistance that goes beyond geopolitics. They show how sovereignty can be defended in an era of financial warfare and technological siege.
In this sense, Iran is not only a regional power but a living example of what a multipolar order actually looks like in practice. Its endurance under siege proves that the “grip on the throat” can be broken and that lesson will not be lost on others who seek to preserve their independence.
"A world of sovereign civilizations cannot emerge through compromise with domination"
Iran and Russia are both members of the IMF, therefore at the monetary level, there are both under the domination of that "unipolar" world.
The British and the Shah are Ajax and we only helped. As usual 🇺🇸we get to clean up or close down Europe’s messes.
Having said that, enjoy your new BFFs Iran 🤣.
Link to the article I referenced in my earlier comment: https://open.substack.com/pub/chandragupta/p/the-fortress-states-why-the-west?r=2rza6e&utm_medium=ios