PeterRS

And you seem to forget what Israel has visited on the Palestinians. In just the last year alone, the number of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces is the highest in nearly two decades. As Human Rights Watch has declared, thanks to Israeli actions Gaza is an "open-air prison." There are no rights and wrongs. Both sides are equally guilty.

Corruption! London Heathrow to Paddington in town is $30. From the low cost carrier airport Stanstead it is $28. The Arlanda Express in Stockholm in $29. But these seem to be by far the highest. Even Tokyo's Narita Express is just $20 for an 80 km ride and it has remained that price for years.

I attach "blame" only because I believe, as it seems you (and no doubt others) do not agree that the history behind present events has to be understood, the more so if solutions to problems in the world have to be found. Nothing - absolutely nothing - will change my view. As for a solution, I have already proposed one, even though the chance of either side accepting it is zero. You do have a tendency to compare like with unlike, with respect! The support for the UK (not merely England) early in WWII has been proven in dozens of sources to be in an effort to keep the Nazis and their ghastly ideology in Europe and away from the USA. If Hitler had succeeded, Roosevelt knew perfectly well that the USA would be the next target. Helping the UK in Europe was far easier and vastly less expensive than having US troops cross the Atlantic to fight in Europe, the more so considering much of the cost was in loans. After Hitler quickly declared war on the US, the costs of US military actions in Europe rose humungously by comparison. US support for israel has nothing to do with stopping Arab nations from invading the USA or making it more secure. Apart from obvious sympathy with the plight of the Jews following the Holoicaust, the USA has a very sizeable and influential Jewish community of approximately 6 million. Politicians have zero desire to upset them, whereas the Palestinian community is tiny in comparison with approx. 255,000. Few votes there! In March this year, the Congressional Research Service reported that between 1946 and 2023, the US has provided an estimated total of US$260 billion in various forms to Israel (in 2021 inflation adjusted dollars). Besides, the US purports to support democracy around the world. In the US eyes, Israel is a democracy whereas neighbouring countries are not - at least if they have elections they are rigged. A Paper by the same Congressional Service shows that aid routed via UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency devoted to Palestinian refugee assistance, came to US$6 billion by 2017. $260 billion against $6 billion. That fact speaks for itself. You might consider arguing that 9/11 was an attack at least on behalf of Arab nations on the USA, another ghastly terror event. Yet the root cause of that attack was once again US State Department actions. By arming and financing the mujahideen during the near-decade-long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the USA allowed Osama bin Laden to found, finance and equip Al Qaeda with both weapons (many American weapons) and a fierce anti-US dogma because it was perceived to be extremely anti-Islam. This led to planning for a violent struggle against the USA. The rest we know. 9/11 had absolutely nothing to do with the general Arab world. Incidentally, look up Osama bin Laden on wikipedia. You will see an entry marked Department of Justice - Federal Bureau of Investigation. Open it and what do you find? "Access Denied"!

How dreadful! I wonder how long they had been together - quite a long time I expect. Losing a boy friend at that age must leave one with a horrible feeling of emptiness and no doubt fear for the future. I know from many of your earlier posts that you are one of the most caring of people. I doubt you could have done more. While I agree with @reader that gay expats in Thailand tend not to be - as a general rule - very caring about fellow gay expats, I also agree with @Marc K and suspect quite a few do not consider their fellow gay men as a community any more. Time has moved on. Perhaps I was lucky in that when i did move here, I already knew a couple of expats and several Thais. Now with a long-time Thai partner, I have a small group of gay friends, western and Thai. and he has a larger group of Thai friends. Fortunately he likes my friends and I really enjoy being with his friends. None of them know much about the gay scene except one who is still desperate to find a German boyfriend! We do not go out to gay bars as we prefer an ambience that is not completely gay. In fact, my partner had never been to a gay bar until the friend desperate to meet a German took him to Soi 4 where they had a few drinks at Balcony. My partner said he would never go back. The reason? A few farang (probably tourists) came up to the two of them to ask them to go back for the night with them at the same time asking what fee to pay. When both politely would say 'no', the farang all basically told them to fuck off! I have met some other posters here and have arranged to meet another when he is next here. But we are all different and mixing with my existing friends gives me much enjoyment. For others I know it is different, and especially for those whose lives seem to revolve around a Thai or Asian boyfriend.

I think if you were to look back at posts made on gaythailand over the last 15 years, you will find quite a few making the same suggestions. Allied to more originality was a continuing plea that the bars offer more fun for customers rather than the same old, same old.

These points raised by Barry Kenyon are certainly factors to be considered. On the other hand Singapore in 1970 had its civilian airport based at Paya Lebar. With passenger numbers increasing considerably, especially from the kangaroo route between the UK and Australia, in 1972 a British consultant's Report recommended the rapid expansion of Paya Lebar. But then passenger numbers declined with the soaring international price of oil. It was Lee Kwan Yew who reconised two things. First, with increasing birthrates, the island state would eventually need more land for housing. Second, he considered the huge hike in oil prices a temporary blip. Lee determined that a new airport built on reclaimed land away from urban areas would make SIngapore ready to accommodate what he believed would be an eventual surge in air traffic. Paya Lebar was converted for military use and a start was made on Changi Airport. In its first year of operations with 1 terminal, it handled 12 million passengers. It now has 4 terminals, the more recent ones considered a marvel of airport terminal design being copied by others - notably recently at Doha. Handling capacity is now 85 million passengers. I suspect like Changi future estimates for the new Asian airports are not overblown, certainly in the longer term.

Again I fail to understand your logic - but then logic can be different from one person to the next. I suppose anyone who knows Thais will be in the same boat for Thai logic almost defies understanding. That said of course it is essential to trace back half a century and more, for this present disaster (for both sides) - as in all conflicts - did not happen overnight. Had the Ottoman Turks and then the British had more spine and been prepared to hammer out an effective solution all those years ago, what we have seen in recent weeks and what is about to come would almost certainly not have happened. Had the US and the UK not interfered with Iran's elections and then backed the Shah to the hilt, Iran would not have turned so violently against the west. Of course momentum was building particularly in Iran. It was not only in place, it was becoming increasingly ugly and violent. Only the western powers decided to turn a blind eye. Historical context is in most cases vital in understanding the present. @vinapu seems to believe in the biblical eye for an eye doctrine. Do you equate how Israel has treated the Palestinians over many decades with the reactions taken by Israel as "an eye for an eye"? If the latter is an eye, the former is shooting half a head off. I condemn in the strongest possible terms what Hamas has done especially in the outright murder of civilians. I condemn what Hamas stands for. But how Israel is responding is a far worse massacre mostly of civilians, many women and children. Was the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 retaliation on an "eye for an eye" basis"? Of course not. Eye for an eye presupposes proportionality of response. I agree completely. Two states is presently not on the table, sadly. And even if magically it were to happen, given the history of the last few decades, neither state is going to have any trust in the other. Unless, of course, there is some sort of buffer between them and a truly international force guarding it. And that isn't going to happen either in my view. As for the USA, sadly I again agree with @vinapu. When its stated goal almost since the founding of israel has been to back it up with billions and billions of dollars in cash and the latest military equipment, no Arab country let alone the Palestinians will accept the USA as an impartial referee. If all the Arab states were to set aside their many differences and come up with a common solution, just perhaps there could be some kind of peace. But then how can there be trust when israel possesses nuclear weapons and, as far as we know, other Middle Eastern countries do not? Peace can only come about along with trust - a commodity totally lacking on both sides.

A new play Cowbois is already previewing at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre in Engand's Stratford. It's set in a sleepy Wild West town where a handsome bandit known as Jack Cannon, a trans masc cowboy, swaggers up to the saloon and inspires a gender revolution. The play is presently undergoing previews and officially opens on the 24th. It is scheduled to run until November 14. If successful it will no doubt be transferred to London. The Observer newspaper got an early look at rehearsals. Today's paper offers a series of photos, of which these are just three. Vinnie Heaven as Jack Cannon does look cute! Vinnie Heaven being fitted with his costume All photos by Sarah Lee/The Observer https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2023/oct/20/backstage-cowbois-rsc-western-in-pictures

So your specific answer to your spectific statement is you have no answer. Fine. Your prerogative.

Unfortunately only the first is mine. A long time ago one company I worked for put me up in the Sydney Park Hyatt across from the Opera House which was framed in the window. An amazing sight to wake up to.

That is not the question I have asked in response to your earlier statement. You were very clear in stating "no autocratic regime has more to lose than Iran if it miscalculates the consequence of future actions." All I have asked is very simple given the simplicity of your statement. What will Iran lose? Lose from which nation? Or of it is easier, what in your own view will Iran lose? The USA declared Iran a state sponsor of terrorism way back in 1984 - nearly 40 years ago. In the Department of State 2021 Country Reports on Terrorism there is a very long list of Iran's terrorist actions. Even in the section dealing with Programs and initiatives, there is absolutely nothing about what specifically the USA has done to mitigate or even stop Iran during that time! Arguably that's because it has done very little. I have been clear in stating there is likely to be virtually no come back on Iran that it is not presently suffering - providing of course it does not directly strike America or American targets. I wish there was, but I can see nothing barring a nuclear strike. And the Lord only knows how that would escalate worldwide! Sanctions? They have been very tight for years. Military action? From which nation? I accept that ten years ago wiping out part of Iran might not have been too difficult. Now the whole scenario is very, very different. For years Iran has operated virtually with impunity as a bad actor in several Middle Eastern countries. The US has done virtually nothing. The EU has done virtually nothing. Israel has done virtually nothing. Russia and China are now its allies. No western government is going to take on Iran, least of all the USA with all its other military commitments and possible future commitments around the world. Iranian missiles and drones can be shot down day after day, but that does virtually zero harm to Iran. I would still appreciate an answer to your very specific question made in response to my earlier post.

Amsterdam has long been known as a sex capital with its officially sanctioned red light district virtually bang in the city centre. The narow streets and neon booths of the centuries old red-light district with the hookers doing their best to attract customers from their windows has been an attraction for many. Moving the red-light ditrict away from the centre has long been a desire of many in the city, especially the present Mayor, Femka Halesma. Moving the district out of the centre is part of her continuing effort to change Amsterdam's image as a party capital. It has already launched a "stay away" policy largely targeted at British men in the 18 - 35 age group who come for stag nights and boozy week-ends. This has raised anger in Britain. Not everyone is happy about the proposed move, especially residents of the three areas short-listed for the new red-light district. On the other hand, the centre of Amsterdam would still have a great many attractions for tourists. Would that be as true if the authorities took the sex trade away from Bangkok's city centre? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/19/amsterdam-sex-workers-protest-against-plan-to-move-red-light-district

Odd that Singapore which has been officially anti-LGBT wth its section 377A on the statute books, has taken the opposite route. That wily statesman Lee Kwan Yew realised near the end of his term as PM that Singapore needed muti-national companies to locate their Asian head offices in the island state. There was intense competition with Hong Kong which had till then won the race hands down. Lee accepted that the executives whom they brought and attracted would seek a lifestyle somewhat similar to what they enjoyed in the west. So the government not only offered tax advantages, they first opened the door to major entertainment companies, particularly those headed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and producer Cameron Mackintosh. Then came the Universal Studios Theme Park and a host of other attractions on Sentosa. The restaurant scene soon expanded with some of the finest eateries in Asia. By the early 2000s the tiny gay nightlife scene soon enlarged with more bars, more saunas, more spas and a gradual relaxation of harrassment against the LGBT community. Now that Section 377A is finally a thing of the past, there are no legal restictions on gay men other than the usual issues of age, rape, and so on. Many in SIngapore society are still wary of the new LGBT freedoms, but as in Hong Kong it is likely these concerns will eventually wither away.

I am aware from earlier threads that you have also visited Iran and been charmed by its beauty and its peoples. I am also aware that the Sunni/Shia'a schism continues to dog the world in an even worse manner that the Great Schism between the Christian and Orthodox Churches centuries ago. Indeed, on the week-end I arrived in Tehran it happened to be the most important Festival of Ashura when Shia's commemorate the death of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. I watched from my hotel processions of men of all ages, the younger ones engaged in self-flagellation by beating their backs with what looked like ugly chains. Yet, on the day after when all cafes and restaurants - indeed all shops - were closed, I encountered a kindness I found both bewildering and tremendously uplifting. Walking through the bazaar, virtually every stall holder offered me coffee or tea. Walking along a street mercifully empty of traffic, restaurants had tables outside with meals which they handed out to almost anyone who passed. This included me, even though I was from a country which had imposed crippling sanctions on their country. Iran has by far the largest Shia's population of any country in the world. Had I been a Sunni Muslim, I am certain the hospitality would still have been extended to me. Refreshments were always handed over with a smile. I mention this because I do fervently believe that only a tiny minority of Iranians are fanatics. Take away the 300,000 or so who are in the hated Revolutionary Guard under the thumb of the clerics, and you will not find many fanatics. Like you, I spoke to quite a number of Iranians, including ordinary men on the street whom we stopped to find a particular mosque. I talked with one group of young men and women at the same Tomb of Hafez. Many were keen to practise their English. In Shiraz, my guide's father made wine - a strict no-no in Iran with severe punishment. In a vegetable juice bottle, he gave me some of the wine. It was passable and a nice prelude to a dinner served with the uniquitous pomegranite juice. In Yazd we stopped an elderly man making his way to prayers. He answered our question and then started on about his loathing of the regime and how it was ruining his country. Walking in the evening along the bank of the dry river in Esfahan, many of the young people out to enjoy themselves eating and chatting with friends, waved and said "hello" or "welcome". I fear that some of these young ladies may have been caught up in the more recent violent crackdown on the wearing of headscarves. My guide was alarmed only once. That was when after visiting the tomb of Cyrus The Great he saw a group of the Revolutionary guard stopping cars. He quickly turned around! No one knows what will happen in the Middle East conflicts presently underway, including the long running war in the Yemen in which iran has also been involved. My belief is that if Iranians had an effective say in the running of their country, the religious elite would be out in a flash. But that is just my view.

I'm sorry - and with all respect for all your many valuable contributions to this Board - that is a complete cop out. To state unequivocally on the one hand "no autocratic regime has more to lose than Iran if it miscalculates the consequence of future actions" and on the other give not one clue as to what these consequences might be suggests the original statement is probably incorrect. Had it been made about quite a number of other countries inthe world, I would absolutely have agreed with you. About Iran, sorry I can not.

I could not agree more.

50 years ago today one of the world's great iconic buildings opened. Its design and consturction had undergone huge problems, not least the firing of its designer Jørn Utzon, the near impossibility of constructing its 'sails', completion was 10 years late, the budget overran 14 times, and politicians interfering by insisting on a highly controversial rearrangement of its interior venues. Yet the Sydney Opera House has become Australia's most visited tourist attraction and is admired the world over. While the world has marvelled, I doubt if Utzon ever imagined that his baby would become a projection screen. Each Australian summer there is a Fesitval in Sydney when images are projected on to the structure. Many are stunning and I attach a selection. The most moving surely was a special projection to mark Anniversary Day of the end of WWI with a simple series of poppies.

@Olddaddy seems to know a lot about the Philippines. You might consider sending him a PM.

This question is purely a request for more information - absolutely nothing more. The government of Iran (which I will always divorce from the people of that country) is a pariah state. Part of its actions in recent decades seem to be a hankering after some of its long lost glories. It was after all for a time the largest Empire the world had ever known. It was home to the world's first monotheastic religion, Zoroastrianism. It welcomed other religions a long time before they ventured westwards, in particular Judaism and Christianity. All three are protected state religions whose adherents have the right to practice their religions and which have dedicated seats in the Iranian parliament. Indeed there are references to Persia in no less than five books in the Old Testament. That aside, what consequences do you see or refer to if it "miscalculates the consequences of future actions"? Do you see the US taking action against it? Many might love to see that, but I consider it so unlikely it will not happen. The US is inextricably bound up with Israel/Palestine, with Ukraine and all but obligated to stand by to aid Taiwan if China were to invade. It is surely unlikely Congress and the US public will accept another war front. Israel with a thumbs up from the USA bombed a suspected nuclear facility in Iran in 2007 and kept the raid secret from the world for seven months. Iran is now a much more militant adversary and one with the ability to manufacture different and sophisticated weaponry as the Ukrainians have found out. With Russia and China in its corner, what does it stand to lose?

As I wrote you and I will agree to disagree. Nothing excuses not only the Holocaust but the ghastly inhumane treatment of Jewish people in Germany throughout most of the Nazi regime. I have never denied that and would never consider doing so. And I agree that in most people's minds had it not occurred the present Israeli/Palestinian conflicts would not be happening and Iran might - although I happen to doubt this - be sitting on the sidelines wondering where next to hit US interests. But the fact cannot be denied that many Jews pre-Holocaust had emigrated from Germany to other countries including Palestine. Folllowing WWII, quite a number of Jews not just from Germany but also other parts of devastated Europe made their way to Palestine because their own pre-war homes no longer existed. The number was at least 600,000. It was more than just a matter of shame that the post-WWII British administration in Palestine denied access to the country to most Holocaust survivors. And it was before most arrived that Ben Gurion made his pledge I referred to in my earlier post. The Arab-Jewish/Israeli conflict pre-dates the Holocaust. I merely say again that the main thrust of my OP were faults of the US (seen in hindsight) through not having Middle East specialists in its post war state department. It got it policies re Iran totally wrong - just as it did in Vietnam. The result is that a country which was once a staunch ally of the US is now arguably its most stanuch foe. And that is incontrovertible.

Can't please everyone. I did write a 5 part series last year. I was then asked why not write just one long one as it was easier to read! 😵

Seems a great way to travel the 750 kms betwen the two cities, the more so as the most expensive week-end ticket seems to be just US$43. The cuisine on board seems to be western given the table layouts in the photo, but I expect it should be very good. Individuals will clearly be sharing sleeping cabins with three others. Best to get three willing Vietnamese and have a nice little orgy before sleep and breakfast!

Not only are you correct in terms of the Americans. I think what you say is true of peoples in many parts of the world. Of that group, most do not want to know. But as I have tried to at least suggest, the history of that part of the world is complex and goes much further back than the Holocaust. That hideous atrocity only made the aim of the Zionists for a separate Jewish state in Israel far more urgent. Jews had been living in Palestine long before WWII. Life was not easy for them for first the Ottomans and then the British not only did not want them, the British actually turned back shiploads of refugees, including Holocaust refugees, from attempting to land. But by the time of the United Nations declaration in 1948, there were already 600,000 Jews living in what became Israel. On the day Israeli leader David Ben Gurion declared the inauguration of the state of Israel, he made a speech. He promised the State of israel would "ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and will be faithful to the principles of the United Nations." So we should ask ourselves: has the state of Israel lived up to these specific promises? The detail of the conflicts in the following half century can be itemised elsewhere. The nearest peace came about was at Camp David in 2000 when President Clinton all but forced Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to find a solution. Declassified documents and comments made by those present illustrate they never came close, despite the much more positive political spin later put on the negotiations. They agree that while Arafat was given many more concessions than at any other time, his aim had always been a one state solution. He killed the negotiations. And now the region is a tinder box again. Had the hugely admired soldier and politician Yitzhak Rabin not been assassinated by an ultra right wing Jew in 1995, many believe he could have brokered a workable peace. We will never know. What we do know is that with the election of the right wing governments of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, the idea of a peace settlement moved much further into the future. In the meantime, America's one time ally Iran lurks in the background revelling in using proxies to get back at what is now its implaccable foe.

There are lots of issues which have been raised but I will for the present reply to just two. It is fact that Prime Minister Mosaddegh was not communist, his government was not ommunist-leaning and he had no communist sympathies. There was no indication that his continuing in office would have resulted in Iran moving towards the USSR's camp. Mosaddegh had been duly elected as Prime Minster. Ironically the USA prides itself as a bastion of democracy - which of course is the subject for another long thread given the host of serious isues it now faces in Congress, with a lying and corrupt past president, and doubts over the worthiness of at least two Supreme Court Justices - but the rights of other countries to decide their own form of democracy is frequently questioned. That was certainly the view of Lee Kwan Yew who made Singapore into such an amazing economic success story. The US problem in the early 1950s was that its officials viewed Iran as backward, feudal and vulnerable to social revolution. American thinking at the time emphasised economic development driven by central state growth as a cure for what it perceived as these apparent ills - a view that prioritised security over democracy and therefore favoured authoritarian regimes over popular democratic coalitions. This view coloured US thinking in quite a few other parts of the world. But propping up the murdering thieving dictator Marcos did not turn the Filipinos against the USA in the long term. It did not turn the Vietnamese against the USA despite 3 milion deaths and its propping up deeply corrupt leaders of its proxy South Vietnam and in one case of murdering him. Similarly with most countries ruled by dictators propped up by the USA during the Cold War. I can think of no major US ally that is now such an implaccable and active foe as Iran. There we have to agree to disagree. That said, I do agree my comment was perhaps not well thought through. But the persecution of Jews in Europe had been going on for centuries, spurred on by the established churches and increasingly by governments of the new nation states. Much as we despise it today, there was a much-held view that Jews were an inferior race. The increasing anti-Jewish sentiment sweeping through Russia from the late 19th century onwards led to tens of thousands of deaths and the emigration of more than a million to the USA. As the century neared its end, the new political movement called Zionism was founded with a specific agenda being the creation of a Jewish homeland in Israel which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Soon hundreds of thousands of European Jews became active Zionists. As antisemitism continued in Europe, spurred on in part by the Dreyfus Affair in France and a fear that the world banking system was controlled by Jews, a fiction spread from Russia after WWI, many Zionists emigrated to what had by then become British controlled Palestine. But after WWII Britain was desperate to get out of Palestine. Its actions in the three years prior to the establishment of the state of Israel were utterly disgraceful but it does not disguise the fact that Israel by then was already home to a large Jewish population and more moved there, as many others were doing to their former homes in other parts of Europe as well as emigration to the USA and UK. My OP centred primarily on Iran and changing US policy towards that country. All else being equal, Iran would always be in the mix as a terrorist state in the present situation. Why it has turned from friend to foe is I believe of particular interest.

This post is very long, and I know some members abhor long posts. That’s their privilege and I suggest they simply click on to another topic. Others have in the past expressed their belief that history should be confined to the trash can. That, though, is a view with which I totally disagree. I believe passionately that we are where we are, as both individuals and nations, very largely because of past actions. And it is for that reason I wish to start a discussion on the present very dangerous situation in the Middle East. It seems to me that after the last ghastly ten days, only two countries will be metaphorically rubbing their hands in glee - Iran and Russia. The former because it is the main backer of terror in that part of the world, and Russia because finally there is a world event that takes the focus off its illegal invasion of Ukraine. I want to focus this post on Iran if only because for decades it was the USA’s only major ally in the region, yet in more recent decades it has become the USA’s sworn enemy. Having visited the country in 2018, I am aware that the average Iranian utterly loathes its regime. They are a proud, cultured and in many senses western-oriented people ruled by a totally repressive government. Yet it is one that the present generation’s fathers and mothers welcomed with an unalloyed fervour back in 1979. But with President Biden’s reason for visiting the region now totally wrecked after the horrific bombing of the Gaza Hospital, I think it best to start by looking at US involvement in the region. When I was at University in the late 1960s, the Vietnam War was at its height. Nightly on the television news, we would see graphic images of dreadful fighting and bombing. Yet, as students in the UK we rarely talked about that war. It was almost as though it had nothing to do with us. Vietnam seemed almost on another planet. We were far more interested in discussing the young state of Israel. Many of my contemporaries, almost all non-Jewish, planned to fly there to work on kibbutz over the summers. It was important to us that Israel prosper amidst a region of hostile Arabs. It was only after the 1973 Yom Kippur War that I started to think more seriously about that part of the world and why there was so much anger seemingly on all sides. To many observers, the USA has changed sides with increasing regularity and increasingly unfortunate results. During the ghastly eight-year Iraq-Iran war, the USA backed Saddam Hussein. It provided dual-use technology which could be used for both military and civilian purposes, military intelligence, special operations training and several billion dollars of economic aid. Less than two years after the stalemate which resulted, Saddam invaded Kuwait which had earlier provided him with substantial financial aid during that fight with Iran! The US turned turtle and attacked Iraq, a short war that was to be the prelude to the full-scale invasion of the country in 2003 whose disastrous effects remain to this day. Some Presidents have continued the actions of their predecessors. Decades earlier after the Russians had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the US leapt in by launching an extensive covert operation to help the Afghan Mujahadin. Using declassified documents, in 2016 Julie Lowenstein wrote US Foreign Policy and the Soviet-Afghan War: A Revisionist History. In this she makes clear that the resultant Soviet-Afghan war and in the fighting and war which followed had the US under every President from Carter to Biden playing major parts which helped launch "a cascade of devastating long-term and large-scale consequences, including the solidification of the concept of global violent jihad, the formation of Al-Qaeda and the rise of the Taliban regime." These covert US operations had exploded into the invasion of Iraq in 2003, this time under George Bush and his neocons. But there are several earlier turn-turtle events leading up to these disasters we can not forget. For three decades starting with the Eisenhower administration, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by other countries was actively encouraged by the USA. As Peter Frankopan writes in his excellent recent book The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, it was a policy “whose name and aims seem today almost comical: ‘Atoms For Peace’.” This plan was devised to allow US administrations to participate in ‘an international atomic pool’; and ultimately involved friendly governments being given access to 40,000 kilograms of Uranium 233 for non-military research. It was a fundamental part of US foreign policy! Then with the Soviet Union gaining greater access in the Persian Gulf area, not content with having organised and carried out along with the British the ouster of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in the early 1952, the US decided to reinforce its backing for the Shah. Administrations paid zero attention to advice from one prominent and knowledgeable source within the region that the Shah was “a megalomaniac and highly unstable.” That was not the view of Henry Kissinger, however, who advised President Ford that the Shah was “a man of extraordinary ability and knowledge”. In 1974, the US then signed an accord with Iran to provide two nuclear reactors and a supply of enriched plutonium. In 1975 the deal was sweetened and the US agreed a deal to sell Iran eight more reactors. Ford’s Chief of Staff had no hesitation in approving the sale. That man was Dick Cheney. With the nod from the USA, France, the UK and Germany also sold Iran related nuclear technologies. In propping up Iran, it was accordingly US policy to destabilise Iraq. But Iraq had also started down the nuclear path. It had already received a nuclear research reactor from the Soviets in 1967. And it wanted a lot more, particularly from France and Italy. Soon even Kissinger had realised how the US deal with Iran could come back to haunt it. By 1976 he had turned against it. But even by the late 1970s, members of the US National Security Council stated that the US had “no visible strategic alternatives to the close relationship with Iran.” The feeling was that the US was boxed in, the more so as it had burned its bridges elsewhere in the region. Hindsight is perfect and short-termism a policy put into practice by many nations, but we surely have to wonder why the US had been so naïve by placing all its support behind the Shah, a man increasingly power hungry and loathed by his peoples. On 31 December 1977 at a dinner in Tehran, President Carter praised the “great leadership” of the Shah and the “respect and admiration and the love which your people give you.” No one in the State Department or any other branch of government realised this was a complete denial of reality. If Carter had been allowed to look out of the Embassy windows before and after his visit, he would have seen the increasing number of Iranians taking to the streets to rebel against repression, the dreaded Savak - the Shah’s secret police, massive corruption of the Shah’s family and the lack of any form of social justice. And this was unfortunate because within less than two years it had all boiled over. The street demonstrations and killings had reached such a level that the Shah had to flee, the American Embassy was stormed and many of its staff held captive in their own Embassy, and the Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to receive a hero’s welcome. By installing a religious government, Khomeini went against his own promise that clerics and religious zealots would not rule the country. Rather they would provide guidance, he had earlier claimed. So having finally realised it had been in a state of denial for years, the US awoke to find Iran was no longer a friend and ally. The Khomeini government was far stricter than even most Iranians had bargained for. Initially they were prepared to put up with it if only because they were no longer ruled by the dreaded Shah. When Iraq then invaded, they had no choice. After eight years of hideous warfare which included the use of chemical weapons and young teenage boys being sent to the front, the stalemate that ensued solidified Khomeini’s rule and ensured there would be no rebellion against his religious regime. Now Iran was a sworn enemy of the USA which then continued its backing of Iraq's Saddam. A less direct consequence was the encouragement the installation of Iran's theocratic Islamic government had provided for more extreme Muslim groups in other parts of the world, including Malaysia and Indonesia. Following World War II, it is fact that the US State Department lacked virtually any staff with much clue about Middle Eastern politics, something that basically continued for the remainder of the century. Even though it was now the world’s only superpower, it was desperate to ensure that the increasing influence of the Soviet Union in the Middle East be curbed. It was also pressured heavily by the oil lobby to ensure no disruption to the oil supplied from Iran. Consequently the decision to kick out Iran’s elected Prime Minister who had nationalised the country’s oil fields and refineries which hitherto had been in US and UK control and from which Iran received little more than a pittance in royalties. Under a 1920s agreement, Iran (then Persia) received only 16% of profits from the sale of its oil. As a result of the Great Depression, demand for oil plummeted and Persia saw its oil revenues slashed. A new agreement was reached whereby it was to receive a greater percentage of profits and a guaranteed annual fixed sum. By 1950 anger within the country at the huge profits being made by Britain and the US, the major shareholders in the Anglo-Iranian company, at the expense of Iran had increased to a dangerous level. So Iran then nationalised the oil industry. As a result several western powers deliberately stopped importing Iranian oil further angering the Iranians. It took the reinstatement of the Shah to power to turn the taps back on. But the oilfields remained nationalised. The US and the declining international power of the UK, which did believe it knew more than a little about the region, were blinded by economics and their determination to keep USSR influence out of the region. The US believed it needed a proxy in that part of the world and, as noted, Iran was basically its only hope. The oil disasters, the anti-Mosaddegh coup and support for the Shah were not the start of anti-western feelings in Iran but they brought them to a head. And we know where all this has led in 2023, not forgetting that Trump made relations much more fractious by unilaterally pulling the USA out of the 2015 seven-power nuclear agreement with Iran without consulting and obtaining agreement from the other parties. Of course, one factor that I have not even discussed is Israel and its effect on the politics of both the Middle East and the western powers. OPEC nations were determined to punish the USA for its support of Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Oil became an even greater weapon. In 1970 the average price of a barrel of oil was US$2.96. By 1978 it had ballooned to $14.57. But then the Iran-Iraq war further threatened oil supplies. By 1980 the price had more than doubled to $33.86 thereby continuing the long near-recession in parts of the western world. Although many will argue against this suggestion, within the region Israel has now effectively become the only US proxy. The friendly relations that the US has been developing with countries in the Arab world are now threatened – even if only temporarily. The events of the last ten days sees the region on the verge of an abyss. The decades-long simmering of tensions between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis desperately needs some form of solution. It can no longer be placed on the back burner and a cease fire alone is not going to achieve it. Due to length I have not discussed the holocaust, the background to the state of Israel and other issues. They do deserve an airing, but I think they add only a little to the present situation.