Iran had a parliamentary democracy until 1953.  In 1953, the prime minister, Mosaddegh, began talking about nationalizing Iran&#x27;s oil.  The UK and the USA went by the normal playbook, bankrolling minorities, religious and otherwise to subvert the government (like the Hmong in Vietnam, Miskitos in Nicaragua etc.)  The CIA and SIS also backed the ayatollahs who wanted to overthrow the parliament and establish an Islamic republic - like Ayatollah Mohammad Behbahani, Mohammad Falsafi and even Abol-Ghasem Kashani at the end.<p>So western readers knowing this can know the history - the secular parliament of Iran was overthrown when the US and UK backed the ayatollahs and others in ousting it.  Then in the 1970s, the ayatollahs wanted an end to US influence in Iran, which is when Iran began becoming a pariah.  US nuclear companies were printing ads in newspapers boasting about how they were helping make Iran a nuclear power ( <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;img.myconfinedspace.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2008&#x2F;04&#x2F;shah-iran.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;img.myconfinedspace.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2008&#x2F;04&#x2F;sh...</a> ).  This is in the years before the GOP invited Netanyahu to Congress to scold Obama that he wasn&#x27;t bombing Iran for wanting to use nuclear power (also, it&#x27;s implicit that Israel is allowed to be a nuclear power, Iran isn&#x27;t).<p>It has little difference from other countries - if you notice, the US has been working to overthrow the last of the old Nasserite pan-Arab nationalist pseudo-socialist governments like in Iraq, Libya and more recently Syria.  In fact, the US has been arming jihadists fighting Assad&#x27;s secular government - something Putin himself has noted.  Meanwhile the US backs to the hilt Islamic dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Brunei etc. which are lapdogs to the US.<p>This notion that the US government is against Islamic radicalism is absured.  It&#x27;s true enemies are always the Qadaffis, the Saddam Hussein&#x27;s, the Assads, the Mossadeghs.  The US supports Islamic fundamentalist jihadists - Osama bin Laden is a creation of the US, banking his and the mujahideen fight against a secular socialist Afghani government.  Sylvester Stallone made a Rambo movie where he went to Afghanistan and fought alongside the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, attacking the secular socialist Afghani government and Russians, the end of the movie credits are &quot;dedicated to the brave Mujaheddin fighters&quot;.  That movie came out in 1988, 13 years before 9&#x2F;11.