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Originally posted by rogue06
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Wow. What color is the sky in your world?
I get that you have been brainwashed by the crazed conservative propaganda that hyperventilates about Iran being one step away from invading Nebraska and nuking NY. But the facts of the matter are that Iran has been pretty consistently moving towards being a good-faith-actor and honestly seeking to Westernize and ally with the US. There are three main political blocs in Iran: Conservatives who want to keep everything pretty much the way it is, moderates who want to see gradual change and Westernization, and liberals who want to see rapid change and Westernization and want it now.
Iran has a massive number of young people - over half their population is below 30 - and the young people tend to be liberal and interested in rapid westernization, and the aging religious authorities are hanging onto their current power by their fingertips. The group that the international sanctions on Iran has most annoyed is the young people who want access to the latest iphones etc, and they blame the old religious fogies for unnecessarily mouthing off against America etc and thus preventing them from having nice things. It's a climate where the religious leaders have had to backtrack on their anti-American statements and say things like "Did I say 'death to America the great Satan?' Um, what I really meant was 'death to Americas current Satan-approved foreign policy' and meant it would be nice if they adopt a new and better foreign policy".
As far as US foreign policy with the country is concerned, being nice to them and seeking to gradually work with them more should work fine. Some nice words to appease the older conservative bloc who remembers the historical wrongs that the US did to Iran, should do the trick. The moderate bloc (who is currently in political power) is happy to negotiate in good faith and move gradually toward an alliance with the West. And the younger liberal bloc who is the future of the country is already on-side, so you only need to be nice to the country for a couple of decades before they're in charge.
As far as the conservative religious leaders themselves go, you've got to remember that Iran is a Shia nation and their main enemies are actually the Sunni nations in the regions, specifically Saudi Arabia. US actions in the region in the last couple of decades have: Removed the Sunni Taliban from their neighbor Afghanistan; Changed Iraq from being a sunni controlled nation to a shia controlled nation, turning their neighbor from being an enemy (whom they once fought at war against) into an ally; Fighting extensively against the sunni group ISIS; Strengthening the position of sunni Saudi Arabia via an alliance. So much of what the US has done has helped the Shia cause and most of the groups the US has fought in the region are Sunni groups, so the conservative Shia religious leaders in Iran have actually been approving of a lot of the US actions in the region. The one they don't like is the US alliance and arms sales with Saudi Arabia. What they would prefer is for the US to ally with Shia Iran rather than with the Sunni Saudis. So the religious interests of the conservative bloc in Iran are actually pushing them to want to ally with the US, who has been conveniently fighting a lot of their sunni enemies in the region lately.
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