/lit/ - Literature

>>4419752
When the Iranian revolution kicked off in the late 1970's, American foreign policy makers and writers tended to cast the Shi'ites as the more "radical" ones. In order to curtail the threat of Khomeini's influence and the influence of other emerging Shi'ite organizations, a lot of money that was previously put into supporting secularists ended up being put into supporting Sunni fundamentalists in surrounding areas who could help isolate Iran and stop Iranian influence in the region. It is interesting how people in this thread say that Sunnis tend to be more radical when if this was 1981, we'd probably be saying it was the Shi'ites who were a radical sectarian division that was of the greatest threat to the West and especially Israel. This attitude became a staple of our foreign policy and was what led us to fund and support all these organizations who are now attacking us because we thought they'd stop both Khomeini (and the Russians.) In some ways it still is, we have preachers in the United States who have converted to Islam as it is practiced by the Saudis (Yusuf Estes & Bilal Phillips are two that come to mind) are very polemic against Shi'ites and Sufis and receive money from conservative Saudi religious organizations. The United States also continues to cozy up with the al-Saud regime, which has Wahabism as its official creed, and which has for decades suppressed its millions of Shi'ite subjects as well as other Sunni reformists who oppose Wahabi preachers. Yet at the same time, it continues to sanction Iran, a country which, compared to Saudi Arabia, is much more modern (and Westernized, ironically enough), provides political representation to its Jewish and Christian minorities, and offers its women more rights to own their own property, receive an education and run their own businesses. Saudi Arabia has a functioning embassy here, but Iran no longer does, only having an interest group in the Pakistani embassy. The Lebanese Hezbollah is still categorized as a terrorist organization by the United States even though for many others, even in the West, it's considered a legitimate political party that, like many other legitimate political groups that aren't on such lists of terrorist organizations has its own military wing. And these days, much of Hezbollah's platform has a lot more to do with creating unity among Lebanon's various religious and ethnic groups and protecting its borders from Israel than it has to do with the spread of Shi'ism per se and it's found quite a few allies among the Christian and Sunni Lebanese population.

>>4361683
>>4361685
> oh vey
> Israel has never lost a war!