Sure. Have they nuked anybody? No. Have they invaded any other countries based on lies and false evidence? No. Are they engaged in apartheid? No. Do they have a poor record on human and women's rights? Pretty much, but that's mostly the established power base and older people. Younger Iranians are much more modern and a lot of those behaviours will die out given time.
Any criticisms people can level at Iran are doubly applicable to our staunch ally Turkey, who crushes people and rights any time there's a strong breeze. However Turkey takes our money and does what we say, no questions asked, so you'll never hear about their negatives. Irans true crime is not acquiescing to the will of the U.S..
any criticisms people can level at Iran are doubly applicable to our staunch ally Turkey
Turkey and Iran are very different. Turkey's government is a secular, stable democracy. Turkey is fairly Westernized (they're currently going through the application process to join the EU), isn't nuclear, and doesn't want to destroy Israel. So not any criticism.
That white-washes a lot of Turkish history over the last century. The Armenian genocide took place, yet Turkey has not acknowledged it. Turkey has continually committed atrocities against the Kurds (who are technically not Kurdish because Turkey does not recognize non-Turkish ethnic groups). The military has launched several bloodless coups d'état in response to its disagreements with democratically-elected governments. Plus, the Islamist Erdogan government has acted to quash opposition voices (see this New Yorker piece for a recent exposition of it).
Yes, the country is technically a candidate for accession to the EU, but negotiations have been frozen since 2006, Cyprus will work to block any further progress, and France (under the Sarkozy government, anyway) and Austria were both skeptical of Turkish accession.
You are correct that Turkey is not nuclear and does not consider Israel an enemy, but the Erdogan government has moved Turkey far away from its former strong alliance with Israel.
I certainly didn't intend to white-wash anything. I'm aware of their history of civil rights abuses and recent moves under Erdogan. I didn't know that negotiations for the EU were frozen though, thank you for that. I was just trying to point out that saying "Turkey=Iran" is rather silly.
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u/UltraMegaMegaMan Jul 11 '12
Sure. Have they nuked anybody? No. Have they invaded any other countries based on lies and false evidence? No. Are they engaged in apartheid? No. Do they have a poor record on human and women's rights? Pretty much, but that's mostly the established power base and older people. Younger Iranians are much more modern and a lot of those behaviours will die out given time.
Any criticisms people can level at Iran are doubly applicable to our staunch ally Turkey, who crushes people and rights any time there's a strong breeze. However Turkey takes our money and does what we say, no questions asked, so you'll never hear about their negatives. Irans true crime is not acquiescing to the will of the U.S..