Iran
During the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988 the US armed one side and then the other to ensure that neither became dominant. The death toll was over 400,000 thanks to US arming both sides and prolonging the war.
Iran and Iraq's human rights violations were not unique in the region - Israel and Saudi Arabia are just as bad.
In 1989 Iran started making moves towards greater liberalisation and political pluralism, reducing its support for radical Islamic movements. But the United States increased its hostility toward the Iranian revolution. In 1995 Clinton prohibited all American trade. Various sanctions and anti-Iranian measures were stricter during Clinton's term than during the regime's most repressive and extremist period in the 1980s. Iranian moderates fighting for greater political openness and better relations with the west were punished. US policy so offended nationalist sentiments that hardliners found more support. There is no legal basis for sanctions. Efforts to subvert the Iranian government are contrary to international legal conventions recognising sovereign rights and principles of nonintervention.
The US linked Iran with acts of terrorism, military threats and subversion without showing any evidence. The US exerted pressure on the Saudi government to implicate Iran in the 1996 bombing in Dharan, but Saudi investigators found no such link. The US has refused to present evidence in an international forum to prove its allegations.
Iran has been reducing its military spending due to chronic economic problems - it is barely one third of what it was in the 1980s when it received arms from the US.
In 1998 Iran came close to going to war against Afghanistan's Taliban regime in response to the regime's repression against the country's Shiite minority. Iran accepted nearly 2 million Afghan refugees throughout the period of war in Afghanistan. Iran has always strongly opposed Al Qaeda. In 2002 Bush gave a stern warning to Iran not to interfere in Afghanistan's internal affairs - ironically after US interference and heavy bombing. Bush alleges that Iran allowed Al Qaeda members to seek sanctuary (which is unlikely considering their stand against Al Qaeda) but has refused to show evidence.
The US will continue to demonise Iran in the next step towards an invasion in the 'war against terror'. The only terrorists are the Americans who fling allegations around as justification for aggression, but without providing evidence.
Information taken from "Tinderbox".
