No one in their right mind would write off Germany’s culture based on the period of Nazi rule. Let’s not do that here, for the sake of coherence.

You seem to be also ignoring alltogether that the Arab invasion mostly took place in what is now Iraq, which was past of the Persian empire back then (Google up Ctesiphon, it’ll teach you something).

Are you some sort of bitter Parsi by any chance? Persia isn’t limited to just Zoroastrianism. You seem to be forgetting Judaism, Manicheism, Bahai’sm and many other faiths that have been firmly part of Iran’s history. Cultures change, evolve, adapt.

Good luck trying to convince 70 million Iranians that they’re just “confused Arabs”!

“Or, if you subscribe to the theory that wars are caused by surpluses of young males, it’s going to bit us. Big time bite.”

Actually you can some of this dynamic at work near the North Korean border with China. There smugglers will help North Korean women get out of North Korea, but then they find themselves sold as wives to Chinese farmers. I think the going rate is around $250, which is at least 1-2 years income so women are already at a premium in some places in China.

Then there is the STD/HIV aspect. Right now workers live in huge single gender dormitories. There are few amenities, if any. Most are charged for every last bit of service. The workers try to save money so they go without. Without books, dining out, hot water, etc etc etc. But they do this so they can live for the Chinese New Year when everyone goes home for a few weeks. It’s at this time the Chinese workers are being paid.

The problem is that the number of available women in the rural villages is dropping rapidly due to gender imbalances. Then there’s the issue of many single women living in similar circumstances and working in factories. So you’ve got an odd situation where people must rely on arranged marriages simply because the opportunities for romance occur only once a year.

Now as the number of available women drop, the value of those remaining will skyrocket. There probably will continue to be some women who will act as prostitutes, but there will be far fewer of them. This means that each will be an even greater nexus for STD/HIV transmission. And married couples are even more prone to this sort of infection because married men are living away from their wives and families for a year at a time.

It’s potentially a real mess.

Persians are Zoroastrian. Persian culture and tradition are Zoroastrian. Period.

There are only a few hundred thousand Persians left in the world – most living outside of the homeland – and the vast majority of us don’t care to have our heritage soiled by Arabs. Knock it off!

And afterwards there will be about 500 million Chinese men, and 300 million (maybe) Chinese women.

That one child per couple rule is certainly going to bite them.

Or, if you subscribe to the theory that wars are caused by surpluses of young males, it’s going to bit us. Big time bite.

1. Due to the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War the majority of Iranians today are under the age of 30. The benefit of this is that their entire life experience is with the oligarchy in Tehran. And from their vantage point they can see what an incurable mess it is. Clerics should mind the Word of God, and leave government to others.

2. The biggest since force for democracy in Iran, is Iraq. Once the violence level in Iraq is greatly reduced, we’ll see a massive influx of religious tourism from Iran. While the overt reason would be to visit the holy sites, I expect a LOT of people suddenly becoming very devout, any number of side trips would be very enjoyable.

Primarily this is because, for many Iranians, democracy is a theory. It’s somewhat the same for Iraqis, but at least they’ve recently had an election. For Iranians the only elections they’ve had were mostly all sham. Plus you can add in the generous serving of freedom of speech, freedom of thought. The ability and pleasure of being able to speak your mind. To read any book you want. To read any website you want.

It’s this freedom that will draw out many younger Iranians. It is this freedom that will instill a desire for more of the same, but in Iran their beloved homes. To enjoy oneself on vacation is one thing, but to give it all up when returning home is completely another. Then there’s the organizational aspect where various groups will be able to speak and organize freely in Iraq.

There are few things more corrosive to a repressive regime than freedom. Particularly a freedom just a short distance away where almost anyone can justify a pilgrimmage to.

3. China is a shell-game waiting for the last call. Sure there’s a lot of investment. Certainly many domestic steel companies are making money hand over fist. But there are fundamental flaws in the Chinese economy that MUST result in a declaration of war. Not necessarily to fight a war, but to eliminate the debt.

China currently has, at least according to official numbers, about $700 billion in bad debt. Not overall debt, bad and uncollectable debt. The banks are all government owned. Many of the companies in China are partially or wholly government owned. When a company, a cash cow for an elite politician or general, is running deeply in debt, a loan must be made from a bank. The government officials will not allow those companies that are offering them profit-skimming opportunities to fail.

But this sort of thing cannot continue indefinitely. The Chinese are between a rock and a hard place. Anything that might interrupt or slow economic growth cannot be allowed. If it does then the entire edifice might come crashing down and the Chinese economy would simply self-destruct. The amount of American debt held by China is roughly the same as the bad debt held by Chinese banks.

One way to deal with bad debt is to pay it off. Another way of dealing with it to is to kill off the creditor. And increasingly the creditor are Taiwanese banks who not only hold many Chinese notes, but also have huge cash reserves of their own.

Then there are the long term issues such as environmental destruction and the increasingly destructive gender demographic imbalance. Current in Ghangzou, again according to government figures, there are about 140 boys for every 100 girls in middle school. Right now there are an estimated 70 million Chinese men who are completely unmarriageable because their financial prospects aren’t good enough for the available women. I.e. there aren’t enough women to go around as it is. In twenty years there will very likely be about 200+ million such men in China.

This trend is also continuing to increase. Even though it it currently illegal to abort children based on gender. But the Chinese cultural imperatives demand sons and not daughters. So the process is accelerating. The 200+ million number might be understating the case by 50%.

Then there is the aging demographic. Half of all Chinese are above the age of 50. In a decade they’ll be 60. In two decades they’ll be 70. And there’s no support system. There will be 600 million elderly Chinese with no infrastructure available to care for them. This will either result in a massive die-off, of truly Biblical proportions, or an enormous amount of wealth will be needed to support them.

And afterwards there will be about 500 million Chinese men, and 300 million (maybe) Chinese women.

That one child per couple rule is certainly going to bite them.

In addition to Witchita’s question I’ve got another. You also wrote “…and allows the rest of the world to continue appeasement,…”

In all seriousness, if the rest of the world wants to continue appeasement, how do we disallow it?

This and the previous question seem to form a pattern that comes up all the time from people that don’t like our policy.

There seems to be an underlying assumption that everyone and everything is under the control of the omnipotent and omniscient US. Just cause we are the biggest and the best doesn’t make us perfrect nor does it make us God.

I’m not ragging on you here, but, if you make statements that assume our power is so great, it would be nice if you explained the details of how to pull this off.

The same thing could be said for China.

The same thing could be said for North Korea.

The same thing could be said for Russia.

The same thing could be said for Pakistan.

At least India seems to be trying.

All of these countries pursue weapons of mass destruction while their people do without the basic necessities.

And it seems that having access to great wealth does not change this dynamic. In fact if we look at the countries with the most natural resources often as not we see corruption and tyranny.

Your response is encouraging. Like Witchita I question what “aggressive” means, but if the mullahocracy is half as weak as you claim and the, that’s a good thing – to my way of thinking anyway (I’m sure the mullahs and those who profit under them disagree).

I’ve known very few Iranians so I have no way to generalize about them. One thing I suspect, however, is that (oddly enough given the deadly seriousness of the mullahs) Iranians are very quick to laugh. It could just be that I’ve encountered a non-representative sample, but I’d guess that Iranians have a very wide ranging sense of humor. Which had nothing to do with the topic.

Don’t judge how far “we” have come wrt diversity by my question about Thomas “who”. After reading you answering post, however, I had to chuckle because it is completely obvious in retrospect but I failed to make the racial connection. I was thinking about “current administration” rather than “black”. I’ll take that as a positive sign of my own progress