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Is the following infographic's comparison of Iran and the USA accurate?

Countries attacked by bombing, sabotage or attempted government overthrow since World War Two image

I'm not skeptical of the claim that the USA has attacked a lot of countries, but I am skeptical of the claim that, based on the criteria used for including countries on the "USA" list, that no countries would be included in the "Iran" list.

Text in the infographic (largely copied from this letter to the editor):

Countries attacked by bombing, sabotage, or attempted government overthrow since World War Two

Iran (none)

USA (emphasis added by original image)

China 1945-46, Syria 1949, Korea 1950-53, China 1950-53, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Tibet 1955-70s, Indonesia 1958, Cuba 1959, Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960-65, Iraq 1960-63, Dominican Republic 1961, Vietnam 1961-73, Brazil 1964, Belgian Congo 1964, Guatemala 1964, Laos 1964-73, Dominican Republic 1965-66, Peru 1965, Greece 1967, Guatemala 1967-69, Cambodia 1969-70, Chile 1970-73, Argentina 1976, Turkey 1980, Poland 1980-81, El Salvador 1981-92, Nicaragua 1981-1990, Cambodia 1980-95, Angola 1980, Lebanon 1982-84, Grenada 1983-84, Philippines 1986, Libya 1986, Iran 1987-88, Libya 1989, Panama 1989-90, Iraq 1991, Kuwait 1991, Somalia 1992-94, Iraq 1992-1996, Bosnia 1995, Iran 1998, Sudan 1998, Afghanistan 1998, Yugoslavia Serbia 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2002-2003, Somalia 2006-2007, Iran 2005-present, Libya 2011.

[Occupy London logo]

Sklivvz
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Andrew Grimm
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    The list looks as though it could be artificially narrow to avoid implicating Iran. "Bombing, sabotage, or attempted overthrow"? So a ground offensive that doesn't include bombers wouldn't count, eh? Supplying weapons (including bombers) to a third party wouldn't count. Not that I have any knowledge of Iran doing these things, but it just sounds fishy... – Flimzy Dec 27 '12 at 06:38
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    Now, let's include all the countries where Hizballah or other Iranian-directed groups committed acts of terror, or where Iran formnented insurrection (randomly picking, Argentina, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Azerbaijan, Oman, UAE, Bahrein,...) – user5341 Dec 27 '12 at 13:17
  • I suspect that the list from the US is missing quite a few as well just to be balanced... – Chad Dec 27 '12 at 14:43
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    It looks like the american list includes everywhere the US was involved even when defending civilians against foreign attack or supporting allies against foreign aggression or other human rights violations. And having nothing on the Iranian list is suspicious given their declared intent to destroy israel. – matt_black Dec 27 '12 at 15:44
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    @matt_black : No, the list doesn't include Pakistan and Yemen. It doesn't include the violence that the US did in Iraq after "mission accomplished" it's a pretty conservative list. – Christian Dec 27 '12 at 17:14
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    @Christian I don't think it can count as conservative if it includes, for example, Bosnia, Somalia and Kuwait where the USA was not fighting the local government but attempting some non-unilateral peacekeeping-like activity or supporting a government against an invader. On the criteria used to compile the list, it also ought to include France 1944-45, Germany 1942-45, Italy 1942-45, Belgium 1944-45, The Netherlands 1944-45, Japan 1941-45, loads of island in the pacific 1941-45... – matt_black Dec 27 '12 at 17:27
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    @matt_black : The list is about events after WWII so keeping WWII events outside makes sense. – Christian Dec 27 '12 at 18:23
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    @Christian my point wasn't about the time period but the criteria used for the list. Including WWII just exposes the lack of discrimination in the list since, on the apparent criteria of the article, we would have to include actions such as the liberation of france from the Nazis as hostile acts by the USA. – matt_black Dec 27 '12 at 18:39
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    `Poland 1980-81`? Srsly, financial help for [the Solidarity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarno%C5%9B%C4%87) was "attempt to overthrow government"?! Especially given that by 1981 there was no government, but [a military coup](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Poland) – vartec Dec 27 '12 at 21:44
  • Possible reference: https://twitter.com/hudaa_one/status/693879163346907136 – Andrew Grimm Feb 01 '16 at 08:55
  • Not only the criterion to include something is disturbing, as pointed out by Flimzy, but also note that the concept of "being attacked" is very vague and deciding "who started" can be highly subjective. – Kolaru Aug 10 '17 at 15:45
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    Whoever made this infographic clearly never saw 300. – Dan Staley Aug 10 '17 at 21:04

1 Answers1

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This answer predated the Yemeni Civil war, so let's prepend the fact that for several years now, Iran-backed Houthis rebels not only waged the civil war in Yemen, but also attacked Saudi Arabia (including by missiles supplied by Iran specifically for the purpose).

List of direct (not by proxy) Iranian assassinations on non-Iranian sovereign soil [2]:

  • 1983 bombing of French paratroopers' barracks

  • 1985 - France - General Gholam Ali Oveissi

  • 1987 - UK - Amir Parviz, Ali Tavakoli, and Nader Tavakoli

  • 1989 - Austria - Dr. Abdolrahman Ghassemlou, Abdollah Ghaeri-Azar, and Fazil Rassoul

  • 1990 - Switzerland - Kazem Radjavi

  • 1992 - Germany - Sadegh Sharafkandi

  • 2011 - USA+Saudi Arabia (Attempted assassination of Saudi ambassador to USA)

  • According to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Iran has been tied to at least 162 extrajudicial killings around the world since 1979 (src)

List of countries that Hezbollah [1] attacked:

  • 1983 and on - Lebanon. Up to and including assassinating a Prime Minister.

  • 1983 - USA (Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon)

  • 1983 - Kuwait - U.S. Embassy Bombing

  • 1985 - Greece (Hijacking of Athens-originated TWA flight 847)

  • 1996 and many others - Saudi Arabia, including in-country (1996 Khobar tower bombing (src)) and diplomats' assassinations elsewhere.

  • Thailand (src, src)

  • 1992 and many other times - Turkey - murder of a security chief of Israeli Embassy. Collateral damage included 2 Turks dead, and 1 Turkish child injured. Several more attacks

  • 1992, 1994 - Argentina (29 killed, 140 injured in 1992 in bombing of Israeli Embassy, 85 killed and 300 injured in 1994 in bombing AMIA building in Buenos Aires)

  • 1995 and on - Firing rockets at civilian targets in Israel

  • 2012 - Azerbaijan - Plans to attack Israel embassy and Jewish civilian targets

  • 2012 - Georgia - Plans to attack Israel Embassy

  • 2012 - Bulgaria - Terrorist attack on Israeli tourists.

List of countries where Iran fomented revolution or government overthrow, including as part of unrest in Middle East in 2011-2012:

On the other hand, the USA list is somewhat inaccurate, to say the least:

  • Kuwait wasn't "attacked by USA". It was liberated from being occupied by Iraq!
  • Neither was Korea. US was part of UN forces commissioned to defend South Korea from aggression from North Korea
  • Neither was Somalia - it was a UN military operation where US acted under Resolution 794 to support humanitarian relief.

Sources:

2 Hezbollah:

Its [Hezbollah] leaders were inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini, and its forces were trained and organized by a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Wiki, Adam Shatz (April 29, 2004). "In Search of Hezbollah". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved August 14, 2006)

3: Dr. Matthew Levitt; Director, Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence; The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; “Iranian Terror Operations on American Soil"; Testimony before a joint hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management October 26, 2011. Link PDF

user5341
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    As a note - for most part, I count attacks mounted on territory of country "X" against interests of country "Y" as attack on "X", both because of jurisdiction/soveregnity of where attack was planned and technically carried out (e.g. most embassy attacks are carried out from the outside of the embassy); and because host country's citizens are frequently victims. – user5341 Dec 27 '12 at 14:30
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    The claim is not about attacks on foreign soil. The US list doesn't include countries like Italy where the US kidnapped Italien citizens in the last decade in a way that Italian courts recognized as unlawful. If you would count all countries where the US did something unlawful the list would probably have most country on it. – Christian Dec 27 '12 at 17:05
  • Kuwait did get bombed ( http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/28/world/war-gulf-overview-us-bombs-kuwait-oil-stations-seeking-cut-flow-into-gulf-more.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm ). The Kuwaities probably didn't like their oil stations to be destroyed in the war, even if on the whole the war liberated them. – Christian Dec 27 '12 at 17:07
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    @Christian - #1: there's a wee bit of difference between "unlawful" and "act of war" (like blowing up a bunch of people). Let's stick to the question at hand, shall we? #2: the answer very explicitly includes countries where "attempted government overthrow" happened. – user5341 Dec 27 '12 at 18:35
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    @Christian - if you post a link, it helps if you don't mis-represent the crux of the article: "The United States bombed Iraqi-controlled oil installations along the Kuwaiti coastline **in hopes of stemming a huge oil spill deliberately unleashed by Iraq nearly a week ago**, the American military said today." – user5341 Dec 27 '12 at 18:36
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    @DVK that is exactly the reason why i sometimes wish we could downvote comments. – Stefan Jan 03 '13 at 13:34
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    @DVK Your first list are all about Iranians who were living in the other countries not about the other countries civilians. Iranian governments are famous in killing their own civilians as well as Americans in killing civilians of the other countries. And about your the other lists they are not directly by Iran government. Iran protects of Hezbollah and Syrian government but the list in the context is about direct actions by USA. About Afghanistan Iran government is a friend of Afghanistan government and has protected them by financial supports however it was a matter of Iranians complaints. – Persian Cat May 08 '13 at 01:39
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    I am against fundamentalist leaders of Iran and a protester but most of your information because of lacking valid sources and exaggeration remain as some rumors or propaganda news against Iran. As a protester I have learned that this kind of information can damage whole a protest against a dictatorship regime! A bad defender is the worst enemy! Iran government has never supported Taliban.It's not true.And about Israel!Are you serious?Surely Ahmadinejad is notorious in giving such ridiculous speeches but it's more ridiculous from you that you've considered it as a successful killing attack! – Persian Cat May 08 '13 at 08:26
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    If you want to consider a threatening speech as a successful killing attack so what about threatening speeches of Israelis and Americans against Iran about? I talk about war and military attack! Please add it in your list. :) – Persian Cat May 08 '13 at 09:13
  • @user5341 Could you add the 1983 bombing of French paratroopers' barracks? 58 died. This was a separate location distinct from the US barracks. – DavePhD Dec 07 '16 at 16:07
  • @DavePhD - done – user5341 Dec 08 '16 at 04:26
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    I think that @PersianCat made a good point about challenging the accuracy of the claim about Iran's support of the Taliban. The answer cites Gen. McChrystal who "said there were indications that Taliban were training in Iran, but not very many and not in a way that it appeared it was part of an Iranian government policy". That same article said that Iran generally assists Afghanistan as an ally against the Taliban. The other source, from CNN, is better evidence about Iran's support of forces in the Middle east that assisted the Taliban, but it is double linked. I will edit duplicate. – Ellie Kesselman Aug 10 '17 at 02:07
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    As for Ahmajined's hateful rhetoric toward Israel, well, a lot of it is posturing. The Reuters source quotes him saying that "Iran could launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel if it was sure the Jewish state was preparing to attack it". Netanyahu had said that Israel would attack Iran if it thought attack was imminent the week before. That sort of thing, at the UN in New York City, pales in comparison to the multiple killings of Israeli tourists that Iran was responsible for, which are actual acts of violence rather than blustering at a conference in Manhattan. The link is duplicate, I'll edit. – Ellie Kesselman Aug 10 '17 at 02:22
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    This turned out to be incorrect (also from that Reuters news story): "Ahmadinejad also said he did not take seriously the threat that Israel could launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities." Israel had already successfully launched such a strike, in the form of Stuxnet, the hardware virus that targeted industrial control systems and destroyed the centrifuges that Iran was using to enrich uranium at its Natanz (and Bushehr?) nuclear facilities. – Ellie Kesselman Aug 10 '17 at 02:32
  • -1. While illuminating on the topic of assassinations and proxy activities, it has nothing to do with confirming or debunking the list in the question, and is equally misleading because it's not like the USA has never assassinated or worked through proxies, but those are left out of this answer. Sticking to pointing out instances where the original list had to stttrrrreeeeetch to make the claim would have been more effective. – PoloHoleSet Aug 10 '17 at 13:56
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    @PoloHoleSet - you're welcome to analyze US list in terms of what it's missing. This answer was aimed at attacking the implied claim that Iran's list is empty while US list is full; and the debunking isn't centered on trying to claim US list is empty, since it obviously isn't. – user5341 Aug 10 '17 at 14:28
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    Yes, but it does so by inventing its own, completely separate criteria, so it does not, in any way, evaluate the accuracy of the claims being asked about. That would be like if someone asked "Did Jeffrey Dahmer really eat those victims?" (with list of victims and a statement that it proves that makes him the worst) and I replied with a list of people killed by Manson family and Ted Bundy. Super-duper to some possibly implied claim, but irrelevant to the fact-checking requested and the explicit claims. Providing your own selectively biased list only questions your credibility as an evaluator. – PoloHoleSet Aug 10 '17 at 14:32
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    @PoloHoleSet - actually, what my answer did is exactly what OP asked for in the question: " I am **skeptical of the claim that**, based on the criteria used for including countries on the "USA" list, **that no countries would be included in the "Iran" list.**". If you think that my list doesn't fit the criteria, you're welcome to disagree, I think it fully fits. Since it depends on semantic parsing of vague terms used in the claim, I doubt I can convince you in my interpretation. – user5341 Aug 10 '17 at 14:40
  • I like how you did not decide to bold "based on the criteria used" - which is my entire critique. You are using a completely different criteria, altogether, which makes it ***not*** responsive to the question. There was nothing, at all, that could reasonably be interpreted as "supporting proxies" or "conducting assassinations" in the criteria. – PoloHoleSet Aug 10 '17 at 15:31
  • @PoloHoleSet - "sabotage, or attempted government overthrow" includes both. – user5341 Aug 10 '17 at 15:33
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    Other events that couldn't possibly count as an 'attack' were Korea 1950 (UN mandated defense of legitimate government) Somalia 2006 (US involvement in Somalia was at an entirely different time and circumstances). – DJClayworth Aug 10 '17 at 15:54
  • @DJClayworth - added those 2, to pad US side info. – user5341 Aug 10 '17 at 16:47
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    This answer is dubious at best. The 1983 Beirut Bombing, for example, begs a question: what was the US doing in Lebanon? Ostensibly, it was there for peacekeeping, but what is undeniable is that the US was a strong Israeli ally, and the Israelis were actively involved in the Lebanese war, having been complicit in massacres like [Sabra and Shatila](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre). One could very well have argued that the bombing was anti-Imperialist. Most importantly, it hardly amounts to an actual example of Iran having invaded a country. – MathematicsStudent1122 Aug 11 '17 at 06:26
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    Moreover, there's no evidence to suggest that _all_ of Hezbollah's actions are coordinated directly by Iran. That entire list is essentially irrelevant to the question! Why are Iranian assassinations on foreign soil listed? If the Iranian government is attacking _its own_ citizens (e.g., Kazem Rajavi), but on the soil of another country, then that scarcely amounts to an act of war. It's despicable, sure, but killing an Iranian dissident in Switzerland is not actually _attacking_ Switzerland. – MathematicsStudent1122 Aug 11 '17 at 06:34
  • @MathematicsStudent1122 : "*Lebanon 1982-84*" **is** in the list of US acts of war from the claim, and not challenged by this answer. – Evargalo May 11 '18 at 10:22
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    @MathematicsStudent1122 - that's ***not*** how The Force^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H national sovereignty works. Attacking anyone on a country's soil is an attack on that country, their citizenship being irrelevant. – user5341 May 11 '18 at 12:55
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    @user5341: That would add all the countries to the US list where US-controled drones struck. Or [Operation Neptune Spear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Operation_Neptune_Spear) would then count as an US attack on Pakistan. Be careful with your definition of terms... – DevSolar May 14 '18 at 09:09
  • @DevSolar - That makes sense to be included. Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Libya were the only drone targets I'm aware of. The last 3, US was officially involved in military operations in; of which 2 or arguably all 3 were under UN auspices; and Yemen is complicated since the targets are fighting against legitimate Yemen government (although I'm unsure if US strikes are government sanctioned). – user5341 May 14 '18 at 10:56
  • Also the only thing the US did in Poland 1980-81 was to provide mild political support to opponents of the Communist regime. – DJClayworth Apr 26 '20 at 20:07