Sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation

Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, and Obama is celebrating by issuing a statement graciously offering to “move beyond this past.” Evidently Obama thinks that the history of US-Iran relations started 30 years ago: “This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation.”

Technically, that’s half true, in that the US embarked on sustained suspicion, mistrust and confrontation. Before that, most Americans (outside the CIA, that is) were unaware of Iran’s existence or that it was the place that used to be called Persia. The Iranian people, on the other hand, had plenty of suspicion and mistrust toward the US, based on the US’s decades-long history of keeping the shah’s foot planted firmly on their necks, the history so thoroughly ignored by Obama.

WHAT, YOU DON’T THINK “DEATH TO AMERICA” IS AN AGENDA SUFFICIENT UNTO ITSELF? “We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future is it for.” It’s that sort of condescension that should get us off that path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation.