At CBS News, staffers are apparently barred from reading history books.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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Bill Grueskin
‪@bgrueskin.bsky.social‬

At CBS News, where staffers are apparently barred from reading history books, the hostilities between Iran and the US don’t begin until 1979.


7:01 AM · Mar 4, 2026

At CBS News, where staffers are apparently barred from reading history books, the hostilities between Iran and the US don’t begin until 1979.

— Bill Grueskin (@bgrueskin.bsky.social) 2026-03-04T12:01:08.838Z

[C_U_L8R]

1. Where every day is leave your brain at home day.

And your integrity too.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Not to mention that many Iranians lump the US in with "The West", which did them dirty long before the US ...

got deeply involved in the Middle East, or was even a world power. Great Britain, in particularly, was seen by many in the ME as more or less the same bunch of White Christians as the USA, and since the UK sort of stepped aside and turned things over to the US (which came out of WWI much stronger than its ally), it appears to many opposed to "the West" that US intervention was an unbroken continuation of UK intervention. US gets blamed for things that the UK did, which US and UK were often partnered in.

Constitutional Revolution and the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty

The Persian Constitutional Revolution between 1905 and 1911 led to the establishment of an Iranian parliament.[94] After the 1921 coup d'etat, the Qajar dynasty was replaced with the Pahlavi dynasty.[95] The dynasty was founded by Reza Shah, who established an authoritarian government that valued nationalism, militarism, secularism and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda.[96] Reza Shah introduced many socio-economic reforms, reorganizing the army, government administration, and finances.[97] Reza Shah ruled for almost 16 years until 1941, when he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.

To his supporters, his reign brought "law and order, discipline, central authority, and modern amenities -- schools, trains, buses, radios, cinemas, and telephones."[98] However, his reign has been characterized as a corrupt police state which provided only surface level modernization.[98][99][100]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#20th_century_up_to_the_Iranian_Revolution/excerpt]

Russia/Soviet Union occupied about the northern third of Iran, GB the southern third. The two acted together to end the era of parliamentary rule and install a friendly dictator. Later GB and the American CIA colluded to install the second Shah, which eventually led to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 due to his repressive, West-facing policies. So Iran has a good deal of resentment toward meddling Westerners. Doesn't excuse the actions of their theocratic dictators, but it's important to know where some of the public's embrace of the fundies comes from.


ETA: And all this is without even mentioning the Anglo-Persian/Iranian Oil Company, which the UK used almost as an arm of the gov't.

[sop]

3. Iran's present-day problems with "the West" go all the way back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Iran's first Parliament predated that. The "Great Powers" wanted it gone.

I kind of suspect that's a little closer to Iranian hearts than something that happened to the Palestinian Arabs. (Iranians are not Arabs. Arabs are not Iranians.)

The Persian Constitutional Revolution (Persian: مشروطیت, romanized: Mašrutiat, or انقلاب مشروطه[10] Enqelâb-e Mašrute), also known as the Constitutional Revolution of Iran, took place between 1905 and 1911[11] during the Qajar era. The revolution led to the establishment of a parliament in Iran (Persia),[11][12] and has been called an "epoch-making episode in the modern history of Persia".[12]

The revolution was "the first of its kind in the Islamic world, earlier than the revolution of the Young Turks in 1908".[12] It opened the way for the modern era in Iran, and debate in a burgeoning press. Many groups fought to shape the course of the revolution. The old order, which Naser al-Din Shah Qajar had struggled for so long to sustain, was finally replaced by new institutions.

Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar signed the 1906 constitution shortly before his death. He was succeeded by Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar, who abolished the constitution and bombarded the parliament in 1908 with Russian and British support. This led to a second effort with constitutionalist forces marching to Tehran, forced Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar's abdication in favour of his young son, Ahmad Shah Qajar, and re-established the constitution in 1909.

The revolution ended in December 1911 when the Shah's ministers oversaw the expulsion of the deputies of the Second Majlis from the parliament "with the support of 12,000 Russian troops".[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution

[Grim Chieftain]

5. I long for the days of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather