Brendan’s Reviews > A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind > Status Update
Brendan
is on page 284 of 368
Extremely sad in light of current events:
“The failure of the West fully to take advantage of the opportunity offered by a reformist president in Iran already looks like a bad mistake. One such opportunity came after the September 11 attacks in the US when members of the Iranian leadership condemned the terrorist action in forthright terms, and ordinary Iranians showed their sympathies with candlelight vigils…
— Jul 31, 2026 01:39PM
“The failure of the West fully to take advantage of the opportunity offered by a reformist president in Iran already looks like a bad mistake. One such opportunity came after the September 11 attacks in the US when members of the Iranian leadership condemned the terrorist action in forthright terms, and ordinary Iranians showed their sympathies with candlelight vigils…
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Brendan’s Previous Updates
Brendan
is on page 252 of 368
“The [Pahlavi] monarchy became more remote and disconnected from the attitudes and concerns of ordinary Iranians. In a sense, paradoxically perhaps as a result of combatting underground Marxists for so long, the Shah [Mohammed Reza] made the mistake of a Marxist analysis: he thought that if he could just secure material prosperity through successful development, then everything else would fall happily into place.
— Jul 29, 2026 07:55PM
Brendan
is on page 94 of 368
“Like [Christian] friars, the Sufis were intimately involved in the religious lives of ordinary people and were responsible for missionary activity in the countryside and beyond Persia. Given the low level of literacy at the time, and the fact that the population lived overwhelmingly in the countryside, it becomes plain that the Sufis were central to the diffusion of Islam outside the towns and cities. The center
— Jul 25, 2026 10:44AM
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Jul 31, 2026 01:42PM
[] Another opportunity came after Iran gave significant help to the coalition forces against the Taliban later in 2001, helping to persuade the Northern Alliance to accept democratic arrangements for post-Taliban Afghanistan. In 2002, Iranians were rewarded with President George W Bush’s Axis of Evil speech, which lumped Iran with Iraq and North Korea. Finally, the Bush Administratjon ignored an Iranian offer in 2003 for bilateral talks toward a grand bargain that appeared to promise a possible resolution of the nuclear issue and de facto Iranian recognition of Israel.”
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Yet again, American foreign policy has been at best foolish, and at worst barbarous, toward Iran and other middle eastern nations. Partly I think this stems from a general American ignorance of the region, which I recall well from my teenage years during the “War on Terror,” that provokes both a brash dismissal of valid complaints (the ‘they hate us for our freedom’ canard) and an overweening sense of our own power. For many reasons, I will never countenance Bush rehabilitation — even as we live through worse — because of contemptible mistakes like those quoted above.
And yet I hear no opposition calling any of today’s plights a “quagmire.” Are memories so short?