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How demonization & bigotry works: For 40 years, US has painted Muslims & Iranians as people who value death more than life, suicide bombers, terrorists. So now we have Americans believing nonsense that Iran, a nation of 80 million, will engage in mass martyrdom for a war with US.
Iran is an aggressive, ambitious, strategic & bloody actor. It is not suicidal. Iran knows US can obliterate it in a conventional war. Iranian people, and Muslims abroad, do not hate US freedoms & values. The opposite according to the Gallup Poll done of over 1 billion Muslims.
The anti-Americanism and rage of the Iranian '79 revolution was due in part to US helping overthrow their democratically elected leader Mossadegh in '53 in favor of a brutal and repressive dictator, the Shah. US favored Iraq in its bloody 8 year war with Iran in the 80's.
US has been bombing the Middle East, especially Iraq, since the 1980's. This include the Gulf War by Bush and the second disastrous war started by his son which remains the worst US foreign policy decision in recent memory with lasting consequences felt to this day.
Muslims in that region want what others want: stability, security, freedom, education, opportunity for their families, access to technology. They are not irrational, barbaric monsters or Hollywood stereotypes. They are often oppressed by their very own corrupt leadership.
I'm only saying this b/c I've ived through it & it's all predictable. These toxic, bigoted narratives will be marshalled to create an easy villain (the Iranians, the Muslims, the Middle East), a"them" vs. "us." Just be smarter, more critical & realize the world is complex. END
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