<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>entropy_</author><text>This particular position baffles me, especially since we&amp;#x27;re discussing Iran here. Iran &lt;i&gt;had&lt;/i&gt; a liberal democratic government and the US toppled it(because they &lt;i&gt;dared&lt;/i&gt; try to take control of their own oil reserves) in favor of a military coup and a dictator. That dictatorship then proceeded to radicalize the population through oppression which led to a revolution and the installation of a theocratic anti-US government in one of the worst cases of shooting-your-own-foot US foreign policy in modern history.&lt;p&gt;The reality is: US foreign policy does not care one tiny bit about the liberal&amp;#x2F;ilieberal or democracy&amp;#x2F;dictatorship spectrums, it only cares(rightly, some may argue) about its own(mostly economic) self-interests. As pertains to the MENA region, that mostly means it only cares about the economics and politics of the oil business(though there is in an irrational, lobby-driven, tendency to protect Israel in any and all things even when it harms the aformentioned oil intersts). The liberal&amp;#x2F;illiberal thing is a red herring and mostly about gaining the support of their citizens for whatever thing they want to undertake right now.&lt;p&gt;Do note, I&amp;#x27;m not in any way condemning the US for the way they tend to act around the world, they&amp;#x27;re just looking out for themselves. I&amp;#x27;m just saying, it has nothing to do with favoring particular modes of government and to argue otherwise is to cherry-pick maybe 30% of the events the last 60 years and ignore the rest which does not line up with your particular worldview.</text><parent_chain><item><author>barry-cotter</author><text>Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; opts to harm the illiberal government. Libya complied with all arms control treaties and is buddy buddy with Italy. Doesn’t matter, as soon as someone whispers democracy the US does their level best to fan the flames of war. There’s an authoritarian democratically elected government in Ukraine. Let’s support a violent rebellion.&lt;p&gt;This is part of a historical pattern that’s basically unbroken but is aptly represented by the US involvement in the world wars. What business did the premier power in North America, or the Western Hemisphere, have in a European war between empires? What possible benefit would accrue to them from it? Very similar argument for the European theatre in WWII but the Pacific theatre is, if anything, more ridiculous if you don’t start the history of US involvement with Pearl Harbour. The US embargoes the Empire of Japan, banning most importantly the export of oil. They know the Empire of Japan cannot continue its never ending clusterfuck of an attempt to conquer China without oil. This was a calculated attempt to bring the Japanese to heel they had to have known could lead to war. And this was not isolated. The only reason the US military started hostilities against the Empire of Japan after Pearl Harbour rather than before was logistical fuckups.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Flying_Tigers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Flying_Tigers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The US is, in every part of it, hostile to anything that isn’t a democratic republic. This is true even if wide heads within USG know that democracy is bad for US interests. If the Arab Spring had actually succeeded anywhere apart from Tunisia it would have been a car crash for the US. The Arab public is a lot less willing to deal with Israel than the dictatorships, monarchies and juntas that currently surround it, and democracies are very likely to lead to civil war and ethnic cleansing in any country with no tradition of liberal government. See Syria. The US tries to arm the non-existent liberal opposition and all the weapons end up with the people who were Al Qaeda in Syria until yesterday or with those shouting “The Christians to Lebanon. The Alawites to Hell!”</text></item><item><author>chewbaxxa</author><text>I doubt that US foreign policy has anything to do with the desire to “liberalize” a country. Unless you’re using that term in a different sense...</text></item><item><author>chibg10</author><text>&amp;gt;In general openness and cultural&amp;#x2F;economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve read in various places that the opposite is actually true -- sanctions from the liberal US strengthens the liberals in Iran by highlighting how the regime&amp;#x27;s aggressive policy is resulting in economic pain for Iranians.&lt;p&gt;This didn&amp;#x27;t really work with China either. Granted, there are plenty of examples where sanctions have failed&amp;#x2F;backfired but I&amp;#x27;d like to reject any &amp;quot;general&amp;quot; statement on the best way to liberalize a country through foreign policy.</text></item><item><author>jacobolus</author><text>The main reason for US policy changes vis-à-vis Iran in the past couple years has been spite toward the previous US administration.&lt;p&gt;There are some nasty folks in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but Iran is a large, diverse, and complicated place, and there are many other internally powerful people with different agendas (just like most large diverse countries).&lt;p&gt;In general openness and cultural&amp;#x2F;economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.</text></item><item><author>throwaway-klsdj</author><text>This is a good point. To add a slightly different perspective, I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored. I think most people don&amp;#x27;t realize how incredibly serious this is, and how basically there is already a global war being fought. And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose.&lt;p&gt;Certainly most of the people in Iran are similar to most of the people around the world. In kindness, compassion, in just trying to get their daily job done and enjoy time with friends and family. If only it was easy to distinguish between the good, the bad, the indifferent. Probably a lot of sanctions don&amp;#x27;t hinder the most threatening of Iran&amp;#x27;s activities, while impacting the population. But it does have an effect (not always the ones intended, perhaps).&lt;p&gt;If the government in power over you is in conflict with others, and&amp;#x2F;or in conflict with it&amp;#x27;s own people, it&amp;#x27;s going to impact you. If you want your life to be better, look for ways to improve your government. True for the USA and everyone else. Another lesson that the USA has been illustrating repeatedly recently is that it&amp;#x27;s probably better for a nations citizens to reform their government themselves, instead of a foreign power. Until that happens, yes their lives are not going to be as free as they&amp;#x27;d like. It&amp;#x27;s hard and there is a cost to be paid for those freedoms. Many of us are fortunate in that those before us did the hard work and we get to enjoy the benefits. Good luck to the author of the blog, hopefully they can find good solutions.</text></item><item><author>throwaway-ba9</author><text>Throwaway account for obvious reasons.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m one of those operations people who have been required by a legal department to block access from sanctioned countries - I&amp;#x27;ve literally written the HTTP rules to deny access to folks like the original author.&lt;p&gt;I think about how the infrastructure I write and operate creates situations like these, and while I know I&amp;#x27;m partly to blame, it&amp;#x27;s worth highlighting that this is a by-product of United Stats policies that create pressure on US companies. I&amp;#x27;m most certainly _not_ a lawyer, but if this sort of thing bothers you, be cognizant of candidate policies about technology if you want to help enact change - because I doubt most companies will provide services to these and other regions if it&amp;#x27;ll break export law.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>How is it like to be a dev in Iran</title><url>https://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-in-iran</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>yongjik</author><text>&amp;gt; Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government.&lt;p&gt;This makes sense only if you define &amp;quot;liberal&amp;quot; as &amp;quot;aligned with the interests of Washington and&amp;#x2F;or American corporations&amp;quot;.  For god&amp;#x27;s sake, USA supported Saddam Hussein while he was gassing Kurdish civilians during the Iran-Iraq war.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;United_States_support_for_Iraq...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Joost R. Hiltermann says that when the Iraqi military turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds during the war, killing approximately 5,000 people in the town of Halabja and injuring thousands more, the Reagan administration actually sought to obscure Iraqi leadership culpability by suggesting, inaccurately, that the Iranians may have carried out the attack.</text><parent_chain><item><author>barry-cotter</author><text>Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; opts to harm the illiberal government. Libya complied with all arms control treaties and is buddy buddy with Italy. Doesn’t matter, as soon as someone whispers democracy the US does their level best to fan the flames of war. There’s an authoritarian democratically elected government in Ukraine. Let’s support a violent rebellion.&lt;p&gt;This is part of a historical pattern that’s basically unbroken but is aptly represented by the US involvement in the world wars. What business did the premier power in North America, or the Western Hemisphere, have in a European war between empires? What possible benefit would accrue to them from it? Very similar argument for the European theatre in WWII but the Pacific theatre is, if anything, more ridiculous if you don’t start the history of US involvement with Pearl Harbour. The US embargoes the Empire of Japan, banning most importantly the export of oil. They know the Empire of Japan cannot continue its never ending clusterfuck of an attempt to conquer China without oil. This was a calculated attempt to bring the Japanese to heel they had to have known could lead to war. And this was not isolated. The only reason the US military started hostilities against the Empire of Japan after Pearl Harbour rather than before was logistical fuckups.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Flying_Tigers&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Flying_Tigers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The US is, in every part of it, hostile to anything that isn’t a democratic republic. This is true even if wide heads within USG know that democracy is bad for US interests. If the Arab Spring had actually succeeded anywhere apart from Tunisia it would have been a car crash for the US. The Arab public is a lot less willing to deal with Israel than the dictatorships, monarchies and juntas that currently surround it, and democracies are very likely to lead to civil war and ethnic cleansing in any country with no tradition of liberal government. See Syria. The US tries to arm the non-existent liberal opposition and all the weapons end up with the people who were Al Qaeda in Syria until yesterday or with those shouting “The Christians to Lebanon. The Alawites to Hell!”</text></item><item><author>chewbaxxa</author><text>I doubt that US foreign policy has anything to do with the desire to “liberalize” a country. Unless you’re using that term in a different sense...</text></item><item><author>chibg10</author><text>&amp;gt;In general openness and cultural&amp;#x2F;economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve read in various places that the opposite is actually true -- sanctions from the liberal US strengthens the liberals in Iran by highlighting how the regime&amp;#x27;s aggressive policy is resulting in economic pain for Iranians.&lt;p&gt;This didn&amp;#x27;t really work with China either. Granted, there are plenty of examples where sanctions have failed&amp;#x2F;backfired but I&amp;#x27;d like to reject any &amp;quot;general&amp;quot; statement on the best way to liberalize a country through foreign policy.</text></item><item><author>jacobolus</author><text>The main reason for US policy changes vis-à-vis Iran in the past couple years has been spite toward the previous US administration.&lt;p&gt;There are some nasty folks in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but Iran is a large, diverse, and complicated place, and there are many other internally powerful people with different agendas (just like most large diverse countries).&lt;p&gt;In general openness and cultural&amp;#x2F;economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.</text></item><item><author>throwaway-klsdj</author><text>This is a good point. To add a slightly different perspective, I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored. I think most people don&amp;#x27;t realize how incredibly serious this is, and how basically there is already a global war being fought. And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose.&lt;p&gt;Certainly most of the people in Iran are similar to most of the people around the world. In kindness, compassion, in just trying to get their daily job done and enjoy time with friends and family. If only it was easy to distinguish between the good, the bad, the indifferent. Probably a lot of sanctions don&amp;#x27;t hinder the most threatening of Iran&amp;#x27;s activities, while impacting the population. But it does have an effect (not always the ones intended, perhaps).&lt;p&gt;If the government in power over you is in conflict with others, and&amp;#x2F;or in conflict with it&amp;#x27;s own people, it&amp;#x27;s going to impact you. If you want your life to be better, look for ways to improve your government. True for the USA and everyone else. Another lesson that the USA has been illustrating repeatedly recently is that it&amp;#x27;s probably better for a nations citizens to reform their government themselves, instead of a foreign power. Until that happens, yes their lives are not going to be as free as they&amp;#x27;d like. It&amp;#x27;s hard and there is a cost to be paid for those freedoms. Many of us are fortunate in that those before us did the hard work and we get to enjoy the benefits. Good luck to the author of the blog, hopefully they can find good solutions.</text></item><item><author>throwaway-ba9</author><text>Throwaway account for obvious reasons.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m one of those operations people who have been required by a legal department to block access from sanctioned countries - I&amp;#x27;ve literally written the HTTP rules to deny access to folks like the original author.&lt;p&gt;I think about how the infrastructure I write and operate creates situations like these, and while I know I&amp;#x27;m partly to blame, it&amp;#x27;s worth highlighting that this is a by-product of United Stats policies that create pressure on US companies. I&amp;#x27;m most certainly _not_ a lawyer, but if this sort of thing bothers you, be cognizant of candidate policies about technology if you want to help enact change - because I doubt most companies will provide services to these and other regions if it&amp;#x27;ll break export law.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>How is it like to be a dev in Iran</title><url>https://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-in-iran</url></story>