The Infidel's Guide to the Middle EastSection V: The Gayatollah, Sodomy Hussein, and Ronald Reaganhomosexualman

Or, WHY ARABS ESPECIALLY HATE AMERICA, PART 2

When we last left off, America was spreading freedom in the Middle East by deposing a democratically elected official in Iran so that the authoritarian monarch they had put into power could rule even more absolutely. This set the stage for any old religious nut to rise to power by voicing the dissent of the people and, not so much breaking, but more like pawing at the shackles of oppression. However, it was not just any old religious nut answered the call… It was the old religious nut of the century.

Shi’ite leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (he’s the “ayatollah” in that Billy Joel song) used his religious power to speak out against Shah Pahlavi, verbally donkey-punching him every change he got. He publicly spoke out against the Shah’s White Revolution, a series of unforgivable and inhumane reform programs, such as enabling women to vote, redistributing the farmland of feudal lords to their slaves, fighting illiteracy, preserving national forests, and worst of all, giving free food to needy mothers and their children. Khomeini opposed all these programs, calling them anti-Islamic, and denounced the Shah as a Western puppet. It has been suggested that Khomeini’s opposition to this program of reforms was actually in response to one reform in particular: a restriction on the amount of property the Shi’ite clergy could own. Under this criticism, it is important to remember that Khomeini was a religious figure; things like money and property don’t motivate religious figures.

Eventually, Khomeini was exiled from Iran because he just wouldn’t shuttup. He went abroad to various different countries, most notably Iraq, where he was also exiled from because he just wouldn’t shuttup.

In his absence, his unshuttupable message lived on. By the late 70s, the public demonstrations/riots/orgies against the Shah grew so extreme that, in January of 1979, the Shah left the country and never returned, with the official reports stating he went “on vacation.” Presumably, he was having so much fun this vacation that he simply forgot about the revolution in his homeland. Fifteen days later, Khomeini came back from exile to millions of Iranians celebrating his return. Khomeini then asked to “borrow” the Iranian constitution, saying that he needed it to help his niece with a school report. The Majlis—Iranian parliament—was of course suspicious, since little girls were forbidden to read or even learn. When Khomeini returned the constitution, the Majlis were surprised to find that their proud Iranian republic was now a religious theocracy, and that Khomeini now held the main office, a position he invented for himself called “Supreme Leader.”

In November of that year, a group of liberal college-students invaded and captured the U.S. embassy, having gotten the idea during a rousing game of “Asshole.” The 63 Americans inside were taken hostage, and after the release of women and blacks,(1) 52 remained for the duration of the crisis. When he heard of the capture, Khomeini famously responded “Fuckin’ Awesome!”

President Jimmy Carter responded quickly and effectively to this attack on American dignity by sticking his thumb two-digits deep into his anus. Luckily, and in keeping with the theme of this blog, war saves the day.

The only country that hated Iran more than the U.S. was Iraq. This was partly because of the Sunni-Shi’ite tension, partly because of the Khomeini-Saddam rivalry (back when he was Vice-President, Saddam was the one who ordered Khomeini’s exile from Iraq), and partly because of their shared borders. In actuality, though, the real reason Iraq and Iran hated each other was that damn one-letter difference in their names.

What began as a gentle and good-natured hatred, manifested only in loving border disputes, became a savage war when Khomeini—crazed by his new power and drunk off his love for Allah—tried to persuade Iraqi Shi’ites to revolt against Saddam Hussein’s regime. Saddam responded by taking off his beret of compassion and diplomacy, and putting on his beret of aggression and war, which ironically was more flamboyant and gayer than the first.

Of course, months earlier the U.S. fed Saddam exaggerated information about how weak and easily defeatable Iran’s military was. Before condemning the U.S.’s tactics, you try spending billions of dollars on a country just to have them revolt and take 52 of your citizens hostage. That shit stings!

So, America tried its best to produce a realistic-sounding gasp when the world found out that Iraq invaded Iran. By 1981, the Iranians were so involved in the war that they struck a deal with America and released the hostages. By 1982, the entire world was bored with the War of the Ira_s, as it soon became a gruesome stalemate, and instead turned their attention to the groundbreaking TV show Family Ties.

Enter our hero, Ronald Reagan. The former-actor president now had the opportunity to play the finest role of his career: The Guy Who Fucked Over The Middle East. And like a good actor, he immersed himself in this role, first by giving Saddam lots and lots of money, saving Iraq from bankruptcy—and essentially Saddam’s job. He followed that by giving Iraq lots and lots of weapons, which a decade later they would use to kill Americans. (2)

Lest you get the wrong idea of Reagan, he didn’t just fund corrupt terrorist governments. He also funded small terrorist groups. In 1979, the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan, in reaction to their successful democratic coup a year earlier. The U.S. was all ready to go in, guns blazing, but then it remembered it left the oven on and couldn’t fight. Instead, it threw money at any Afghani organizations that so much as had a mild distaste of communism. Among these was a group led by a passionate young man named Osama bin Laden, who, much to everyone's surprise, would later grow up to be none-other-than Osama bin Laden.

So, basically, Ronald Reagan gave significant financial aid not only to Saddam Hussein, but also to Osama bin Laden. Also, he was voted 2nd Greatest President in a recent poll, beating out FDR, Washington, and Jefferson.(3)

Still, neither of the Ira_s proved dominant, and the Iraq-Iran war ended in 1988, when both countries ran out of money. It was then that the desolate Iraq first noticed its neighbor, Kuwait, all tiny and vulnerable, sitting on all that oil money. So tiny. All that money. “Fetch me my war beret!”

America would never sit idly by while a poor, defenseless, oil-drenched nation was attacked. In the Persian Gulf War, America n’ Friends(TM) liberated Kuwait and gave Saddam a stern talking-to. Saddam repented his wicked ways once-and-for-all, and America and Iraq have been the best of friends ever since.


And there you have it. After reading this blog, I’m sure you’ll all agree that the history of the modern Middle East is long. But the important thing is that you learned something. What’s that? Oh, well, the important thing is that you tried to learn something; that’s pretty much almost just as good as actually learning something. Just remember, the next time you throw a brick through the window of an Arab-owned convenience store, make sure you know if the owner is a Sunni or a Shi’ite, lest you offend them.

Oh, and to answer the question from the beginning, Yemen is a country.

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(1) Why would a culture intolerant of both women and other races release hostages that were both women and other races? That’s not a lead-in to the answer; I was asking honestly because I would like to know.
(2) In their defense, they did feel really, really bad about it.
(3) The 1st Greatest President was Lincoln, because if you don’t vote for Lincoln, you’re a racist.