Public Comment

It is extremely doubtful whether Mr. Trump really understands the complexities of the Iran nuclear deal. It was all about taking cheap shots (the deal is insane” and “ridiculous”) at his predecessor and acting as the “tough guy” with his war mongering posse, John Bolton et al, likely dragging America into another dangerous conflict. Both “tough guys” evaded the draft. 

Clearly, Mr. Trump is totally unaware of our own very dark history in Iranian affairs. In 1953-54 the CIA (and British intelligence) orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's (parliamentary elected) Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had sought to build a true democracy. His major offense against the West was nationalization of Iran’s oil fields, thereby denying the British control of Iran's chief natural resource. The CIA ushered in the demonic Shah of Iran who, as an absolute monarch, bought billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the US, established a vicious secret police (SAVAK) that carried out torture and murder on a wide scale. In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini led the Shia Iranian Revolution expelling the Shah. US. Teflon President Reagan then generated revenue to support the Nicaraguan thuggish Contras by selling weapons to Iran (an impeachable offense). Seizing the opportunity, our defense contractors sold billions of weapons to Iraq in its eight year war with Iran violating every norm of human behavior. In a perfect world based on human rights we should have apologized to Iran and offered them massive reparations for interfering in their internal affairs.