--------------
Of course it will come up. The whole propagandistic basis of US imperialism, that is, its cover story is all about bringing freedom, democracy, and prosperity to the suffering oppressed peoples of the world. So the well honed mantra of this cover story and its media masters will attempt to force any opposition into a defensive apologetics of countries like Iran.
What the Left has to remember, is that imperialism is a way of thinking about the world, and not just a matter of military force and economic exploitation. That kind of thinking and the logical outcomes of arguments over whether Iran is a great place to live or whether its political establishment are friends of the left or any of that kind of talk, is a form of imperialist thinking. That has to be understood, before getting into arguments or attempting to counter US foreign policy.
It has to be understood that part of the imperialist project is to promote US political ideology around the world, in order to gain power and economic leverage, which in turn paves the way to some form of neoliberal exploitation. In other words all this talk about Iran is the fore play, the advanced guard movement of US imperialism.
I am not sure how to go about framing a discourse on Iran that doesn't feed into the imperial propaganda machine. Yoshie's tactic of celebrating the Iranian Revolution does exactly the opposite of what I assume she intended to defend. Such defenses actually feed the US propaganda mill, by furthering the lines of argument about what Iran should or shouldn't do, be, become. And of course such defenses are easily countered with glaring counter examples that undermine the credibility of any left or progressive critique of the US.
The anti-imperial view has to be that there is no US argument about Iran. I think that any argument about the conditions of life in Iran is an implicit imperialist argument. We can not get out of the imperialist discursive trap and its mind set, by defending or attacking its potential targets.
About the only way out of the imperial mind set that I can think of is some mode of national self-determination: that it's both inevitable and desirable that the world has many different ways of living. Leave concern for human rights to the UN commissions who follow these things, and support or argue with the UN on these matters. And even within the UN context, the US has attempted and succeeded to some extent in turning this international body into a tool of imperial exploitation. Of course it was founded by the WWII Allies to be an western imperial institution that would give some legalistic legitimacy to the old colonial orders. But that initial plan failed miserably sometime after Korea, when its general assembly began to assert itself, probably sometime between the late Eisenhower administration and the close of the Kennedy administration.
In any event, I admit that my position is weak. We don't have to like other people's modes of living, but we also don't have the unilateral right to attempt to change these trajectories. We certainly have no intention of allowing other countries to make changes to our way of life to suit them, and therefore fair is fair.
However, it is not in our interest, that is the people's interest to be the domestic chattel of an imperial regime. And that is what has happened to the discourses of our interests and needs. We have become subjugated to the needs of US imperialism and the global spread of its economic apparatus. Almost all public discourse on whether this or that government is good or bad, and whether it violates this or that principle or right is turned into a preamble for more imperial manipulation, which takes foreign and domestic form. On the domestic front, these endless wars provide a wide range of accouterments and benefits to US hegemonic pig elites and their global strategies. They insure that the will and common sense of the domestic population is always diverted from its own interests, undermining its own power base, and given the convenient excuse for why things are not better at home base. National security and other nonsense transfers the material threats to the US elites and their interests to the interest of the commoner, as if they were threatened by these developments, when in fact there is no threat to us at all.
Everything about this new fangled imperialism makes our lives worse, not better. Our jobs, our standard of living, the diversity of our possible futures, our schools, healthcare, and all other dimenished public services are all the direct consequences of being hoodwinked into believing any of this globalized garbage about spreading the American way. We are spreading our own misery, and adding to the coffers of the rich, every time we buy into one of these great imperial plans.
So, I advocate stay focused on the internal developments of US imperialism. We will be doing ourselves plenty of justice and may actually help stop or slow down the great expansion plans of the US government and its power elite.