Thank you for sharing! It was a very interesting documentary. Some thoughts:

• I share the sentiment of others that it was too long and with too many unnecessary "artistic" flourishes, it could easily be edited down to 1 hour without losing any of the actual content or message
  
  
• it misses quite a lot supporting argumentation for its main thesis - especially egregious when you consider the length of the program!
  
  
• just as an example, it completely missed the fact that the very occupation and the inevitable supply management requirements for bases and other military installations meant that the West was in effect funding their enemy and increasing corruption. in effect becoming an ouroboros
  
  
• how? every convoy had to pay "protection money". this protection money was paid by the security companies which were hired to guard and ensure the supply trucks got to their destination safely. the largest of these was owned by Karzai's brother! so the US/European countries were actually paying the Taliban and other groups they deemed as "enemies" - this is factually documented and indisputable and yet 99% of people still to this day do not know about it sources
  
  
• another very important example of the missed opportunity was exploring and educating about Afghanistan's tribal group history and how that has played into the current war. there really is no "afghanistan" but a very loose group of very diverse groups and tribes without any cohesive identity or loyalty anchored to a country or state.
  
  
• just to show you how complex this is, there are about 10 main ethnic groups, of them the pashtun are the largest and they are sub-divided into 4 main tribal groups. The Westerners had no idea about the existence of this very complex maze or how to navigate it.
  
  
• Curtis also completely avoids mentioning anything about Iran and the role it played in all this. During the historic events outlined in the documentary Iran went through major transformations and was a key player. This included the Shah's tenuous grip on power, his modernization schemes, the backlash against him by Islamists (shia as opposed to the sunni wahabi), the rise of the shia theocratic political power base, Khomenini's version of shia which was a distortion of previous shia theology and included a new shia version of the 'caliphate': velayte faqih, the export of this ideology similar to the export of wahabism (we see this in Hizbollah, and more recently the Houthis in Yemen) and the powerstruggle between wahabism and Iran's version of shiah
  
  
• the sections of the documentary which touched on the 2008 financial crisis were shoehorned in and not really an accurate description of what happened or why - if you're interested in wtf happened I suggest you watch frontline's documentary
  
  
  edit: added links incl. sources/documentation

You might want to have look at this. Great book.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oil-Kings-Arabia-Changed-Balance/dp/1439155186

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-05-30/the-untold-story-behind-saudi-arabia-s-41-year-u-s-debt-secret

https://www.amazon.com/Oil-Kings-Arabia-Changed-Balance/dp/1439155186

That book is best read with

https://www.amazon.com/Oil-Kings-Arabia-Changed-Balance/dp/1439155186

How some interests in America and the kings of Iran and Saudi Arabia f'ked up the world for their benefits.

Sorry, but it is your attitude that is wrong. Which can be seen here.

There is a big difference between discussing and randomly ranting without evidence.

Regarding the Islamic Republic

Every government needs a mirror of their actions. If we forbid criticism, we are not able to improve as a society nor in terms of economics.

Thinking that Iran is doing perfectly fine, is a mistake many people on this sub are doing. Yes, Iran is doing great in some areas. But also doing utterly bad in others. Because we Iranians love to make some metaphors:

>If you are studying and you forbid someone to give you feedback about your work. How are you able to improve?

There are many areas where Iran needs to improve. So we should allow criticism:

• Fuel Smuggling in Iran is costing billions of dollars each year.
  
• Renewables are helping Iran to reduce water usage and reliance on oil & gas.
  
• Why letting China in Iran is not a good thing.
  
• Iran's water crisis due its self-sufficiency policy.
  
  

  Regarding Shah
  

  
  Talking about the time of Shah is always very complex, since information is only in books, statistics or through hearsay available. It is not like the time of the IR where you are whelmed with information.
  
  When you look at every discussion about Shah, people often look at the arguments as "Pro-Shah" or "Anti-Shah" - which prevents having meaningful discussions. These are exact the same group that we have today: "Pro-IR" or "Anti-IR". We need to start to look at the facts instead of letting our emotions in.
  
  Shah's time was a very difficult one. People always forget that Iran was at war back then and often don't understand the economic situation Iran was facing. Saudi Arabia was also playing a significant role in the IR revolution.
  
  The Oil Kings is a good starter for those, who are interested in the time of Shah with a relation to Iran's current situation. It looks at the economic point of view. Here is an excerpt of the last years - thanks to u/FirstMaybe
  
  >In 1977, one year before the outbreak of revolutionary unrest in Iran, oil markets had been paralyzed by a bitter split among members of OPEC over how much to charge consumers. The Shah of Iran had proposed a 15 percent price hike for the coming year. King Khalid of Saudi Arabia had resisted the Shah’s entreaties and argued that no price increase was warranted at a time when Western economies were mired in recession. The Shah won the day and persuaded the rest of OPEC to join him in adopting a double-digit price increase for 1977.
  >
  >The Saudi response was swift and ruthless. Riyadh announced it would take drastic steps to ensure that Iran’s new price regime never took effect. It would do this by exceeding its production quota, pumping surplus oil onto the market, and undercutting the higher price offered by its competitors. Overnight, Iran lost billions of dollars in anticipated oil revenue. The Shah’s government, reeling from the blow, was forced to take out a bridge loan from foreign banks. It made deep cuts to domestic spending in an attempt to balance the books and implemented an austerity plan that threw tens of thousands of young Iranian men out of work and into the streets. The economic chaos that ensued helped turn Iranian public opinion against the royal family.''
  
  And here is why the Shah wanted to increase the oil price:
  
  

• Why the Shah was not backed by the West anymore. (which includes some interviews and statistics)
  
  

  Conclusion
  

  
  Again: We need to look at the facts instead of letting our emotions in and preventing us from having a meaningful discussion. Almost every user on r/Iran needs to get approval from the moderator to be able to post something. If it contradicts the view of the mods, it will be deleted. I don't see that here u/faloodehx and I hope I won't see that, since it helps us to improve our understanding of our history by discussing about it.
  
  ​
  
  Just want to have some input from you guys, am I right or wrong about my view?
  
  u/ralad
  
  u/Freak2121
  
  u/Probably_A_Box
  
  u/Mr_Pollos
  
  u/CYAXARES_II

The American government has been doing that for many decades. Did you know the US also used to sell weapons to Iran and gave them everything short of the nuclear bomb. Try reading The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East for a bit of relavent history.