>You obviously think it's pure and simple, but someone has to tell you. What the UK and the USA were doing in Iran (and other mid-East countries) in the fifties and up to end of seventies is one of the major causes. Perhaps islamic fundamentalism wouldn't gain so much ground without so much imported fertilizer.
>
>It's a damn good thing that the U.S. and British intelligence helped to force Mohammed Mossadegh out of power. He nationalized the entire Iranian oil industry, and it's quite possible Iran would have eventually fallen under Communist rule had we and the British not gotten involved. It was a major strategic advantage.

Doesn't that sound a bit like "we had to burn the village to save it", especially given where the USSR and its brand of Communism ended up?
So what that the oil industry had been nationalized?... Would that have prevented oil from flowing or would that have prevented profits from flowing to the big British oil company? Nationalizing didn't have to mean that the Commies stepped in, but that *was* the mentality (read that EXCUSE) of the day. And the fact was that profits for British (and American) oil companies were top-most in the minds of the decision-makers of the day.

And here, at least, you acknowledge that it was more than the Shah's trip to the U.S. for medical treatment that caused the revolution. Selling out, abrupt westernization, extravagance, secret police, de-valued religion and other things, all of which were rooted in installing the Shah and pulling his strings. The profits from oil and its continued flow were the ONLY things that concerned the U.S. and Britain and by then the U.S. was the major player in that triangle.

You and I wouldn't be here today discussing this if your stated method had been adopted by President Carter or President Reagan. Cockroaches would be crawling over the rubble of the planet in their garden of eden and developing a religion so that the whole cycle could start all over again.

>
>Kevin