Iran is one of the main political players globally because of its influence in the Middle East. It therefore weilds tremendous power for good or bad, and unfortunately, in recent decades it has leaned into the latter.  As someone who hopes for a more peaceful world, it is upsetting to watch a video like this, because it reveals the lack of moral ambition in some of the world's political leadership. 

Iran's support of terrorism in Iraq is justified in this video by the claim that, after Saddam was overthrown in Iraq, Iran would be next. This is basically a conspiracy theory, but I have little doubt that bellicose American Republicans would have been saying things that would support this theory at the time. The American right has too many of this sort of angry, militant, geographically and politically challenged people. I saw a video once where the producers of the video made up a country and asked American people if they supported the USA's invasion of it, to which some enthusiastically said "Yes". These are not serious people and the bumper sticker saying "kick their ass - take their gas" was representative of them. For a more tempered version of essentially kind of American entitlement, a US TV host famously said we should preserve the Iraqi infrastructure "Because we are going to own it soon".  

We know now that America did not completely take over Iraq and turn it into a colony. I know this will be taken hard by people prone to cynicism on all sides of politics, but the USA actually did what they said they would do - regime change; removed Saddam Hussein from power and turned Iraq into a democracy. History would seem to prove that people, on all sides of the discussion, saying the USA were trying to take over Iraq were peddling conspiracy theories. There are moments where we see how conspiracy theories play their part in world history. Partly based on fear or hatred of the USA, Iran supported and stoked religious conflict in Iraq after the USA occupied the country. How many mosques, people at prayer, children in the streets were blown up because of this, and how long this will contribute to the poisoning of politics and community in Iraq, would be hard to assess. Certainly, Iran were responsible for far fewer deaths than the US aerial bombing of Iraqi cities, and in launching the invasion the coalition forces hold some cupability for all civilian deaths in the conflict. Still, we should never absolve any party from the slaughter of civilians, particularly when civilians are the primary target. The coalition forces were directly responsible for about 37% of civilian deaths according to Iraq Body Count, with the rest coming from criminals, insurgents, militias and terrorism, and often some combination of these.  Today, years after the US withdrew active combat troops, Iranian-backed militias continue to destabilise politics in Iraq. This was partly done in the name of keeping the US occupied strategically and making them less likely to invade Iran. What would history have looked like if Iran had taken a different tack in Iraq? Perhaps instead of supporting violence and terrorism, they could try to support peace and religious tolerance in the country, while still being a strong critic of the USA?

On the day I write this, the US man-child-in-chief, Donald Trump, has said that if the Iranian government attacks protestors, the US will intervene on their side. This is reminiscent of the inclusion of Iran in the Axis of Evil by an only slightly less egregious George Bush. Republicans are for their own political purposes stoking the conspiracy theories some Iranians believe about imminent invasion by the US or Israel.  They do this from the belief that the USA can only guarantee a stable political climate by being feared, rather than basing it on the rule or law and international cooperation. It should also be noted that even though there is no good evidence that the USA had ever seriously planned an invasion of Iran after Iraq, when the idea has been thrown around, it is justified by Iran's nuclear weapons program and its internal suppression of more moderate sections of Iranian society. As in Iraq, there has never been a plan to create a colony out of Iran. On the subject of US colonialism, while a perpetual meddler in the affairs of other nations the USA has not acquired a colony since the second world war. The USA would like Iran and Iraq to be something like a client state, maybe, but as someone who lives in Australia, a country that is very nearly a client state of the USA, we have a lot of autonomy, a high standard of living and the ability to choose a different relationship with the USA if we wished.

In the interests of the progression of humanity Iran should do the same thing the USA, Russia and China should do. Move from being chaos agents and promoting violence in the world, to promoting peace, the rule of law and cooperation. The only slightly unfortunate thing here is history. These countries are all empires founded, at least in part, on conquest. They all have a history of murderous meddling in the politics of other countries, and of internal repression. Still, we are not the world of the past, or at least, we should not be chained to past horrors.  We can see by the protests against the Iraq war before the invasion even began, that the Western public is no longer as blind to global politics as it was when Mossadegh was overthrown. There is an opportunity for a new Iran to emerge, one less paranoid, more engaged with the International community, and playing a role as an agent of peace in an unstable region where violence and bloodshed are the sad reality of too many people's lives. Whether that version of Iran is in the interests of the people who hold power in the country, and how tightly they will cling to power, are the real questions confronting Iran.

If we could ignore the extremist politicians on both sides and their arrogant, nationalistic, anti-humanist, odious rhetoric, that would help too.