This "Iran has been this way" bullshit is the same nonsense I called out in a previous article about how Hezbollah is some Iranian cleric + Syrian Asad backdoor meeting became a movement BS.
Iran's history is more complex than that.
TL;DR Iran was not Shi'a, it became Shi'a, for political and politicized reasons, and was racheted up and down over the last few centuries and the authoritarian isolationism is a product of that now.
So maybe I am wrong, but what do you base this on?
(There are many books on this topic, not just this one, I just know even this one was translated to Arabic by a reputable publisher; more factual academic works exist and this is the modern Western analysis of Iran coming from when I was in school 5-10 years back in these BS Arab/regional courses, and Iran is lumped in.)
http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Without-Allah-Religious-External...
This "Iran has been this way" bullshit is the same nonsense I called out in a previous article about how Hezbollah is some Iranian cleric + Syrian Asad backdoor meeting became a movement BS.
Iran's history is more complex than that.
TL;DR Iran was not Shi'a, it became Shi'a, for political and politicized reasons, and was racheted up and down over the last few centuries and the authoritarian isolationism is a product of that now.
So maybe I am wrong, but what do you base this on?
(There are many books on this topic, not just this one, I just know even this one was translated to Arabic by a reputable publisher; more factual academic works exist and this is the modern Western analysis of Iran coming from when I was in school 5-10 years back in these BS Arab/regional courses, and Iran is lumped in.)