HarryShearer.com

The Felon-in-Chief and his acolytes are fond of the number 47. Aside from being his favorite pair of sea shells, the number is a count of the years since the Iranian revolution gave birth to the slogan “Death to America”. The implied question behind the use of this number to explain the current war is, of course, “Why do they hate us?”

And it requires a visit to the Memory Hole to find the explanation. Or at least Wikipedia:

“The 1953 Iranian coup d’état…was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. It was orchestrated by the United States (CIA) and the United Kingdom (MI6). A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mossadegh nationalized and refused to concede to western oil demands. It was instigated by the United States (under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax) and the United Kingdom (under the name Operation Boot). Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now part of BP), to verify that AIOC was paying the contracted royalties to Iran, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves.”

In short, the US and UK overthrew a democratic government to serve the interests of oil companies. It sounds so….modern. What followed was the installation of a dictatorial royalty, the Shah of Iran, who set up a rather fearsome secret police service, the Savak, to detain and punish his enemies.

The Shah’s reign lasted until 1979, when protestors forced his escape into exile in the United States. The new theocratic regime adopted the slogan shortly afterward.

There’s another wrinkle to this fabric of history. Iran and Iraq engaged in an eight-year-long war during most of the following decade. Younger people may find this hard to believe, but the United States supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during that conflict. You have to really hate someone to support Saddam Hussein against them.

And then, in the final twist (so far), the United States invaded and pummeled Iraq for more than half a decade propelled by fake “intel”. When we finally left the country, who moved troops into Iraq? Its larger neighbor, Iran.

Sounds like more than half a century’s moves to inspire fear and suspicion, distrust and disgust, in the leadership of another country,

But why do they hate us?