A BRIEF HISTORY OF MODERN IRAN
AND OUR CULPABILITY FOR THE PRESENT STALEMATE
AND A PLEA FOR A SANE POLICY
HISTORIC THREADS WHICH GO BACK TO 1953
In the working class neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York where I grew up during the years following WWII, the kids on my block replayed the major battles of WW II over and over again---in the empty lots scattered through our community. The post-war recession of the 50s left many vacant building plots in our part of the City, each had its pre-war building excavations, piles of dirt and fill, and weedy fields which we imagined as our Roman Campus Martius, El Alamein, and Iwo Jima. We fought the hated "Japs" and the "Nazees" over and over again. But before those battles, we argued strenuously among ourselves over who was going to be the "good guys". The "good guys" were by definition, ourselves, the Americans, who stood for all that was good and noblel and too were the invariable winners. But some of us--often me and some other smaller and younger kids, were forced into being the "bad guys". Our war games needed an "enemy force" and, an adversary was necessary, for the 'mericans to finally win, but we didn't like it. In those days, we knew very well who the "good guys" were. In the modern world, we can not be so sure any longer.
It's ironic that perhaps on those very days that my gang of Brooklyn boys were glorifying American GIs ad our wish to be the "good guys" in our children war games, 500 miles away in Washington, President Eisenhower and Foster Dulles were initiating actions in Iran that were to have far-reaching and long-lasting negative effects on our nation and economy and how we would perceive ourselves as Amercans.
OUR IRAN PROBLEM
In recent days, during the seeming interminal run up to our presidential elections, and when foreign affairs are discussed, we hear a great deal about Iran. On those occasions we are sure to hear the fearful sound of loose sabers rattling and much war talk from among the Republican supplicants, and similar vitriol about Iran from an uncertain White House. The latter, perhaps, is an attempt to dull the attacks of being "weak on Iran" leveled against the President by the present gang of Republicans to whom the word "moderate" is an epithet, and who proudly arrange themselves to the right of Genghis Khan on the political scale. Today, our Congressional representatives have proposed to embargo Iranian oil sales if they don't end their nuclear program, and in response, they menace us with the closure of the Straits of Hormuz. The Obama White House and Congress worry loudly about Iran achieving the technical ability to produce nuclear weapons. That is correct, the "technical ability" to produce a weapon. We know they do not HAVE nuclear weapons! Nor could they develop them in the very near future. US policy aims to prevent Iran from the technical know-how to produce nucleaR weapons. That is quite a different matter, and in this technical age probably not possible any longer. Though, in fact, in terms of international law, they, as do other nations, who are signatories of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty--have the explicit right to pursue the enrichment of nuclear fuel. Furthermore, by agreeing to that pact (unlike Israel who has not signed) they have an established right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. As part of that agreement they have opened their facilities to inspections to the UN nuclear watchdog group IAEA. So who is in the wrong here?
ISRAEL
But these legal niceties are ignored by Congress and do not satisfy Israel--the nuclear-armed US protege-state and hegemon in the Middle East (ME). That tiny nation with it's several hundred nuclear warheads and long range ballistic missiles is not in fact threatened by Iran, which has only defensive conventional weapons. Israel's massive armory is in fact what is destabilising the ME and generating the perceived need for WMD by some nations in that quarter. In the halls of Congress we often hear the case argued, that were Iran to achieve the ability to produce nuclear weapons, it would cause a "arms race in the ME". The proponents of this blather, convieniently forgetting that Israel has introduced those weapons long ago and is indeed causing that problem. It's neighbors rightly fear what it will do. It's history of occupation and expansion as well as unprovoked attacks on Iraq, Syria and Lebanon do not engenger confidence in its well-meaning future behavior. What Israel does fear from Iran's technical development is that it may have to contend with an opponent, which at some time in the future, may be able to mount a nuclear defense. Thus, it complains and whines of Iran's threat to its "existence" and openly plans and plots about a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. These latter threats are a form of coercion against the Obama Administration (can we call it blackmail?) to encourage us to stiffen our resolve to expand sanctions and perhaps engage in another hot war in the ME. (See history of our sanctions below). But their real fear is the possible loss of their position as sole nuclear power in the region. Were that to happen they would be forced to honestly seek peaceful coexistence with their neighbors and perhaps even solve the Palestinian question fairly and equitably.
OUR THREATS ARE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
Here in the USA, since the end of the Cold War, we also are now in the habit of and making military threats. We seem to have forgotten the disaster such bluster led us into in Iraq. The latest blather of this sort targets Iran. It is common to hear our own "iron lady", Madam Clinton intoning that "we are keeping all options on the table" indicating our willingness to engage in military solutions. Under such menacing circumstances, one wonders what world leader would not wish to have a good stockpile of nuclear weapons, just as an insurance policy against the possibility of US invasion, regime change and covert attacks. Iran just has to look across the desert at what happened to its immediate neighbor, Iraq, which was subjected to a violent unprovoked invasion, ironically not because it had WMD, but very much because we were quite well assured that it was weak militarily and had no nuclear umbrella. Thus our vitriolic threats and saber rattling toward Iran only make nuclear proliferation in the region more likely not less so. But rationality and common sense are not factors that control circumstances in these cases.
SANCTIONS HURT US AS MUCH AS IRAN
For one-third of a century, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, we have sanctioned Iran. Over the years each new administration, regardless of what sense or nonsense it made has had to prove how "hard" on it was on Iran by adding to the list. Each successive administration has ratcheted up the pressure little by little. The reasons for these executive orders and Congressional directives seem to have been lost in the mists of time. But they plainly have had little impact and certainly not had the effects that the US would like...regime change, back to a pro-American despotic lackey like the last Shah. That is not going to happen, but other bad things could result.
Here below is a brief history of Iran sanctions:
1979~After the surprise eruption of demonstration in Iran and the exile of the Shah, President Carter permitted the Shah, who was seriously ill, into the US for medical treatment. His act of kindness precipitated a rumor that the US was planning another US backed coup to reinstate the Pahlavis. In response a group of radical students took action in Tehran by invading and occupying the US embassy. They embarrassed the US by parading the embassy staff in blindfolds and holding them hostage (to prevent the rumored coup) for 444 days. President Carter responded with Executive Order: 12170, which froze about $12 billion dollars in Iranian assets (gold, bank accounts, properties) in the US. Some claim about $10 billion is still held by the US.
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1984~During the Iraq-Iran War (in which Iraq was the aggressor) the US increased sanctions against Iran which prohibited weapons sales to that nation--the victim of Iraqi aggression. It also opposed any loans to that nation by the IMF.
1996~US Congress passes a complex law imposing penalties on foreign countries which invest more than $20 million dollars in Iranian petroleum resources. Later modified and eased by Presidnet Clinton.
2000~Some sanctions were eased on pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, Persian rugs and caviar in response to complaints by imort companies.
2001~President George Bush reinstates sanctions of 1996 and 2000, which had been eased by President Clinton.
2004~US Treasury rules that US scientists collaborating with Iranian scientists could be prosecuted.
2005~President Ahmadinejad is elected and he lifts suspension of the Iranian uranium enrichment program which had been in place prior to his taking office. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) reported Iran's non-compliance with UN Security council ruling.
2005~President G.W.Bush freezes assets of individuals connected with Iran's nuclear program.
2010~President Obama signs the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act which greatly increased restrictions on Iran.
2011-12 President Obama has sharply ratcheted up threats of sanctions by signing a bill that would embargo Iranian oil products and restrict other nations from
One reason for the failure of these efforts at long term punishment and coercion is that the Chinese and Russians, and other nations, rightly, will not cooperate in our act of vengeance and aggression. They see our behavior not as reasonable ans sound foreign policy to be supported, but more as a smokescreen to satisfy a politically worrisome US domestic audience. In this act they see-the "dog" (USA) being wagged by the "tail"--the Israelis and their congressional supporters.
Besides our efforts at sanctions against Iran, there is evidence that we are also conducting a secret cyberwar and even more revolting, clandestine bombings and assassinations in which Iranian nuclear scientists are targeted. (for the most recent assassination attack see the NY Times report today, January 10-11, 2012). Our Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, swears on a stack of bibles that we had nothing to do with this last heinous assassination. If we are not involved, certainly it is the Israelis who were the perpetrators. Their goal seems to be to provoke Iran's leaders into some overt military action which could become a causus belli for the west and generate a general war that would be a momentus miscalculation for the Iranians and for the US.
IGNORANCE OF IRAN
Our citizenry, here in the USA, are virtually ignorant of the Iranian nation and of its recent history. Posing the question of why they hate us so much to either my working class relatives or professional neighbors, elicits pretty much the same responses. My golf-buddy Charley F is typical. "Ain't that the fundamentalist Islamic nation that invaded our embassy in '79? They hate us because we are free and we live good lives." or another one, "They are just envious of us and our military power." or " They want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth." "They are a pariah nation ruled by fundamentalist theocrats." and the always common response. "They are sponsors of terrorism". Ahh life is so nice and simple when you are ignorant...solutions are so easy to come by....and so dangerous.
WHY DO THEY HATE US?
As noted above, Iran has been on our enemy list since 1979. Why?
WHY THEY HATE US? A FRANK HISTORY OF OUR INTERACTION WITH IRAN
The real history of our nation's relationship with Iran is not that long, but is very revealing.
The Iranians we're of no consequence to us until about 1953 when during the Cold War we joined with the British to overthrow a legitimately elected democratic Iranian parliamentary government and replace it with a brutal dictatorship. To make matters worse, after installing our handpicked man, we sent our General Norman Schwarzkopf (father of Stormin' Norman) there to train their brutal secret police force to assure us that the new man we installed as Shah would have all the necessary means to keep a lid on any problem dissidents. That worked,for us, at least, and as long as the Shah did what he was told about his oil supply and prices we were fine friends for some quarter of century from 1953 to 1979.
But when the Shah was overthrown and our embassy invaded by Iranian students who impudently took American personnel hostage for 444 days, we did not like that much. They embarrassed us. We were not able to mount a punitive military response, that made us look weak. We did not like that. We lost the Shah who was doing our bidding and we (and our oil companies) lost the sweet deal they had and the control of the Iranian oil fields. And we didn't like that either. The Iranians got away with kicking the big guy on the block in the shins and then running away. Since that time, with those thorns festering in our side, we continued our angry vengeful relationship with Iran (viewing them as irreconcilable enemies). It is time we changed these circumstances for our own benefit, as well as for world peace. Without a drastic change of our course, the road ahead leads only to war. That would be a"catastrophe" as was stated so succinctly by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just yesterday (January 18, 2012).
Here, below I offer some facts about Iran's recent history that we should all be aware of as responsible citizens.
THUMBNAIL HISTORY OF IRAN
Iran is a large mostly mountainous country, equal in area to that of the UK, Germany, Spain and France combined, and with a population of nearly eighty million. Iran (derived from) "Aryan" the land of the the Aryans, was the ancient Persia of the Greek historian, Herodotus (484 to 425 BC) who wrote of the Persian wars in his"Histories". Iran is one of the oldest nations, having been first united under a Persian King around 650 BC and has continued as a unified nation in some form or another since that time.
In terms of resources, aside from Saudi Arabia and Russia, Iran has the good fortune to have one of the largest reserves of oil and gas in the world. For that reason, and it's position in the middle east, close to major waterways, and also with a littoral on both the shores of the Caspian Sea and on the Red Sea (one of the great waterways of the modern world) which puts Iran at the center of major oil transport routes.
ANCIENT HISTORY
Iran is home to one of the oldest continuous major world civilizations, dating back to 4000BC. It has been overrun frequently by other powers, but has essentially maintained its Persian identity over time. After millennia of existence as a powerful empire, Alexander the Great invaded ancient Iran from the west and defeated the Persian Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC. Alexander ruled for a short period, and after his death, in 323 BC, he as succeded by the Selucid Empire. They were followed by successive Parthian and Sassanid rulers whose reigns lasted for over 1000 years. In 633 AD, Arab conquerors from the east swept away earlier rulers and established an Islamic caliphate. That event was followed by a period of Islamization of the earlier Persian cultures. A period of foreign occupation and minor dynasties followed during the Middle Ages when what would be modern Iran was incorporated into a larger entity. In 1501, Iran was again reunited under the Savafid Dynasty which brought the Shia branch of Islam to Iran. The nation remained a monarchy, ruled by a Shah, from that period to 1979, when as a consequence of the Iranian Revolution, Iran became an Islamic Republic.
The late 18th century to early 20th century was a time of European colonization of the Middle East, when Russia, France and Great Britain began to carve out economic realms in the region. At that time the Shia Qajar Dynasty ruled Iran (from 1796 to 1925). As a result of these incursions Iran (Persia) lost control over several provinces. In the early 20th century, the Qajar Shah was forced into granting a constitution which restricted the monarchy and established a parliament which was first convened in 1906. When oil was discovered in Persia in 1908 by the British, a contest, the so-called "Great Game", developed between Russia and Britain for control of Persia and its oil resources. The contest which pitted Russia and Britain against each other for resources has continued since then with only the name of the great power-players changing but little else for over a century of conflict.
During WW I, Persia remained neutral, but was occupied by both British and Russian forces which divided Persia up into areas of influence--in total disregard to the nation's and its leaders wishes. After the Russian revolution of 1918-1919, that nation's troops were withdrawn and Britain ruling alone attempted to establish a protectorate there, but was unsuccessful. That failed attempt destabilized the nation which, coupled with an economic downturn at the end of the War, as well as general dissatisfaction with the Shah, led to a coup by military officers. That putsch established Reza Khan, a former Persian Cossack brigade officer, (family name Pahlavi), as a virtual dictator for the next 20 years. But by 1925 Khan had consolidated enough power to declare himself Shah of Iran. He incorporated all the extravagant trappings of the ancient royalty of Persia, to whom he had no relation. Calling itself the Pahlavi Dynasty, the Shah installed a throne room and a copy of the ancient "Peacock" throne, as well as many other wasteful practices of an eastern potentate.
RECENT HISTORY
The Pahlavi Dynasty lasted from 1925-1979. Reza Khan established a strong central government that was nationalistic, anti-communist, and secular. He ushered in the modern world with trains, buses, telephones and electrical service. To maintain his authority, he established a strong military as well as strict censorship. As in other dictatorships, he suppressed political dissent and his governmente was rife with corruption. His efforts at modernization and westernization, were imposed in an attempt to impress and mollify his western supporters. To bolster his bona fides as a client state with the west, he attempted to make far-reaching cultural changes in a backward, religiously conservative population. He pressed for wide reforms in religious practices, and to force men to wear hats with brims (like the western cultures he admired) and to introduce chairs into mosques for seated worship, and he insisted that females mix with males in general public, and for women to abandon the hijab. These pronouncements were met with strong resistance from the clergy and peasant classes. In 1935 the clergy, the devout, and religiously conservative elements, particularly in the bazaars and religious shrines rose up in violent protest. The Shah's troops put down the riots with force and hundreds were hurt and dozens killed.
By 1941, as if a replay of the first world war, the combatants in WW II saw Iran as a source of much-needed petroleum--and a resource that had to be denied to the Germans. The newly completed internal rail lines were also needed as a supply link to transport vital supplies from the Caspian Sea to the Gulf for the war effort. These reasons prompted the English and Russian allies to jointly invade Iran in September 1941. The invasion destabilized the already weak government and Shah Reza Khan who resisted the invasion and was subequently forced to abdicate.
The Shah's pro-British son, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahalvi, seen as a more controllable, malleable protege than his father, was enlisted by the allies as "their man". After the British occupation, and while the war was still raging in 1941, the son was installed as the new Shah. He did not disappoint the British. For certain emoluments to his personal accounts, he permitted the Anglo Iranian Oil company great latitude in exploiting Iranian oils fields as well as a very liberal, pro-British price-structure for the oil they expropriated. The young Shah, happy with his well-financed position, and his ballooning personal wealth, permitted the Iranian parliament to operate much on its own in minor domestic matters, while he controlled the powerful secret police and made major foreign affair decisions in consultation with the British. That way (it seemed) everyone was happy. For a while at least. However, as the years passed the nation became increasingly restive and the political situation more unstable. Between 1947 and 1951 there were six new parliaments and changes of prime minister.
Much of the political unrest was a direct outgrowth of the oppressive, dictatorial nature of the regime, as well as the citizens common knowledge concerning the financial arrangements the Shah had made with the British and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company regarding oil exploitation and oil prices which were heavily slanted to the benefit of the exploiters.
MOHAMMED MOSADDEQ
Mohammed Mosaddeq, who was to play a critical role in modern Iran's history was born into a promient family in Tehran and was trained as a legal scholar, who taught Law at the University of Tehran. After this period as a legal scholar, Mosaddeq entered politics where he had a long career as a state governor, administrator, and member of Parliament. In April of 1951 Mosaddeq's party gained a large majority in parliament and Mosaddeq became Prime Minister.
In 1950, beyond Iran's borders to the north, change was coming to conservative and isolated Saudi Arabia. After observing many years of profitable exploitation of Arab oil by the American oil company, Aramco, which discovered oil there in 1933, King Saud and the royal princes were displeased. They wanted more of the proceeds of the wells for themselves. In 1950 they threatened their long-time partner, the Arab American Oil Company (Aramco) with nationalization. In the ensuing negotiations, faced with the unpleasant possibility of being pushed out of the country, and of losing their entire investment in Saudi Arabia, they had to compromise. The princes bargained the company executives into proposing a 50/50 split with Saudi Arabia (SA) for its oil resources. The offer was accepted and Americans continued operating the fields.
The results of the SA negotiations with Aramco reverberated through the Middle East and in 1951, after elections, when Prime Minister Mosaddeq found himself with a parliamentary majority, he used that political asset to press his policy against the British (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company or AIOC) firm which was perceived (accurately) as unfairly exploiting the Iranian oil reserves and paying only a pittance to the Iranians for each barrel pumped. With the recent success of Saudi Arabia in winning concessions from the Americans on their oil prices, the Iranians sought a similar deal. However, in actual negotiations, unlike what happened in SA, the threat of nationalization of the Iranian oil fields, brought a harsh British response, rather than capitulation like the Americans. The British would not negotiate. The Iranians were forced to proceed with the their threat of nationalization. At that point the Iranians probably would have agreed to a 50/50 split of profits. With the uncompromising British response raging in the public press, the concept of nationalization became enormously popular in Iran, in which the popular opinion had always been that the British were invaders who were stealing the nation's wealth. The oil funds, draining out of Iran into the hands of the British, many saw as being better used to alleviate the oppressive poverty in their own nation. On the British side their obduracy was largely based on their weak financial situation and the fact that they were recovering from a disastrous war. Nationalization was seen as the breach of a solemn contract and theft of a resource the Britiish had discovered, developed and needed desperately. AIOC's loss of Iran's oil would create an enormous impact on the British nation's balance of payments and their military effort against communism. Nationalization would have been a financial disaster for the British. They acted accordingly to protect it. They pulled all the strings they could to punish the Iranians.
When Iran fired the British technicians and oil field workers, Mosaddeq assumed that the Iranians would be able to hire others from other nations, but the British prevented that by applying pressure on oil-consumer European nations to block their workers from entering Iran. When the Iranians finally got their wells pumping again, the British placed a blockade on Iranian oil. When Italy sent workers and continued to purchase Iranian oil, British destroyers escorted the Italian tanker into a distant port and sequesterd the ship, it's crew and cargo. That action effectively closed down the Iranian oil exporting ports. And a worldwide boycott of iranian oil followed. But Mosaddeq did not relent and the nationalization proceeded.
When the oil embargo failed to get the results the British sought, they turned to clandestine acts of sabotage and a plan to overthrow the popular Mosaddeq government. At the urgings of the British, the Shah, acting outside of the law and without a parliamentary vote, summarily removed Mosaddeq from power. The nation responded to this illegal act with massive anti-Shah demonstrations. The resulting popular uprising frightened Shah Pahlavi into relenting and returned Mosaddeq to his position as prime minister. Political unrest continued and in 1952 during the nationalization, the Shah himself was forced into a brief exile as a result of another popular uprising and a palace coup by the imperial guard.
It was at this juncture that the British turned to the Americans. President Eisenhower had been recently elected and unlike his predecessor he was favorale to action against Tehran. Eisenhower, in talks with British PM, Winston Churchill and with the collusion of the exiled Reza Pahalvi agreed to enlist the USA's CIA to put into effect a secret plan to bring down the Mosaddeq government. It was the first use of the CIA to overturn a legitimately elected foreign government--but not the last.
CIA AND THE AJAX PROJECT
Known as the "Ajax Project" by the CIA and in Iran as the "Coup of 28 Mordad" a reference to the Iranian calendar, the concerted CIA attack on Mosaddeq took place on August 19, 1953. On that date, the British MI6 and Americana's CIA selected an Iranian general to cooperate with the plotters against his own government. For this person, they chose a lower echelon general, one Faziollah Zahoedi, who it turns out was a known former pro-Nazi. Zahoedi accepted more than five million US dollars from the CIA to cooperate as the prime minister to replace Mossadeq. A "royal decree" was written up by the CIA plotters removing Mosaddeq and signed by Pahlavi. CIA agents hired common thugs, criminals, as well as clergy and military officers willing to take bribes to take part in street demonstrations against Mosaddeq. The plot almost failed when CIA elements attempting to arrest Mosqsddeq at his residence, were themselves arrested by the Imperial guard. The CIA then turned to some of the most feared mobsters in Teheran who were paid by the Americans to stage more violent, pro-Shah demonstrations and acts of vandalism. During these American planned, staged and coordinated demonstrations more than 800 Iranian civilians were killed. The coup was successful and soon afterward, Mosaddeq himself was arrested, tried and convicted of treason. He was jailed for three years where he was kept in solitary confinement, and then placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. He died in 1967, never having seen the end of the Shah's illegitimate rule. Some of his associates were rounded up, tried, tortured and executed.
The coup d'état engineered by the CIA resulted in the alteration of a constitutional monarchy into an authoritarian one. After the coup the oil resources were shared jointly by the US and British. The USA trained the Iranian military and developed the internal security service SAVAK, the Shah's repressive secret police. The father of one of our nation's heroes of a later war in Iraq, Major general Herbert Norman Schwartzkopf, was tapped by the CIA to bring the Shah back from exile and to train the secret police contingent that was to become SAVAK. Shartzkopf who organized the secret police force, brought his expertise as a former Chief of Police of New Jersey to that job. Shwartzkopf's creation was to become a 5000 man secret police force with almost unlimited power to arrest and interrogate. We can imagine, from our experience with elements of our own American forces in Iraq, which had similar unlimited powers, to what levels of bestiality and depravity it must have descended. With our experiences with the US Iraqi prison at Abu Grahaib, it is easy to understand the level of fear the Iranian secret police must have engendered in the Iranian dissident population. It is claimed by reliable sources, that SAVAK under the Shah was responsible for the torture, death and disappearance of thousands of the Shah's political enemies.
This brutal and potent instrument of suppression used by the Shah, remained a potent source of discontent with the public. As well, was the public knowledge of the continued illegal exploitation of Iranian natural resources by foreigners (and now after the Ajax Coup, the oil was being shared by both British and American companies). Furthermore, the obvious heavy hand of the CIA and American business interests in the installation of the Shah, the creation and training of SAVAK by the Americans, as well as the CIA coup that brought down the popular Mosaddeq government remained issues which festered in the public's mind. These circumstances would eventually become the key causes of fear and dissatisfaction which would bring down the Shah's rule.
FALLOUT AND BLOW BACK OF AJAX PROJECT
The coup of August 1953 instigated the overthrow of a legitimately elected democratic government and saw it replaced by an autocratic, authoritarian monarchy supported by the US and beholden to the needs of Aramco and AIOC and the other oil-dependent European states which participated in the coup in some way. The Shah was correctly perceived as a puppet of the US and the oil companies. The US which had engineered the defeat of an elected democratic government and replaced it with a autocratic regime supported this new entity lavishly with military aid and financial and technical help to its secret police. The US efforts aided and abetted a brutal and oppressive regime. In Iran the US was no longer seen as a force for freedom and justice, but as the instrument of oppression, torture and brutality. The Shah did not help himself either. His regime was not only oppressive,but was corrupt and extravagant. His financial policies led to inflation, and food and other shortages. His over-ambitious domestic policies were set pieces to please his western supporters, but which greatly antagonized his own people and particularly antagonized conservative religious Iranians and the clergy. The Shah's enemies were brutally suppressed by SAVAK as were Marxists and Socialists. All these factors eventually led to the unrest which culminated in the overthrow of the Shah in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The Shah went into exile. His brutal regime and his dynasty was over. But the lingering effects of the America's exploitation of the nation's resources, the CIA led coup, its support for a dictatorial regime and training and support for SAVAK were to continue to fester in the Iranian body politic. These effects would continue to affect the perception of the US in Iran for decades to come.
AFTERMATH
In 1980, during the chaos associated with the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution the previous year, Iran's neighbor to the west, Sunni dominated Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, with which that nation had a long term border dispute, attacked without warning, taking a large chunk of Iranian territory. Iran in the throes of the revolution was unprepared for the war. Iraq's army was bigger and better armed. The US still seething from the loss of a key ally and client state in the Shah's Iran, tilted toward Iraq--the aggressor- during the war. There is some evidence suggesting that elements within the Jimmy Carter administration gave Saddam the 'green light' to go to war with iran. We supported Iraq during the eight year war, with war materiel, satellite intelligence, and overseeing transfer of war supplies from third parties that were destined to Iraq. We are reputed to have supplied the Iraqis with experimental poison gases which they used against Iran's forces. The US navy acted to convoy ships and oil tankers through the Straits of Hormuz where, when it encountered Iranian ships, it would sink them. There were several incidents in which the US and Iran clashed at sea. Later in the war, US vessels would typically cruise the Straits, within Iranian territorial waters, to lure out small Iranian gun boats which they would then target. During one such incident, the US Navy frigate Vincennes, cruising inside Iranian waters, shot down an Iranian commercial airliner carrying 292 passengers and crew, claiming at first that its target was an attacking Iranian fighter jet. That account was later proved to be untrue. The US never apologized for the unprovoked attack on a civilian aircraft. President G.W. Bush later awarded the clearly culpable commander of the Vincennes with a promotion. The war lasted eight years and cost the lives of betwwen 500,000 to a million Iranians and about a third of a million Iraqis. The war expenses topped more than a half a trillion US dollars for each country. Both countries suffered severe economic consequences after the war.
THE COVOLUTED TENTACLES OF HISTORY
That first Iraq-Iran War during which we secretly and overtly contributed arms and materiel to Iraq, ended in stalemate, but ended with an emboldened and much better-armed Iraq. These were circumstances, in part, we contributed to and encouraged. Our policies in Iran and Iraq were to have unhappy consequences. They led eventually and inevitably to the two US-Iraq wars, costing our economy trillions of dollars and thousands of young American lives (and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives). These unfunded wars, combined with the effects of lower taxes for the wealthy, and other domestic polices, generated huge federal deficits. The war costs and the bulging Bush deficits brought on by the Bush-policy of lower tax revenues for high income citizens were two of the three contributing causes of the Great Recession of 2007-8. Those problems were compounded by President Obama when he bailed out the banks and Wall Street early in his term. Indeed, our problems with Iran have led to hard times for us, as well as unhappy ones for Iran, creating enormous hardships for them and their neighbors, and unstability in the rest of the Middle East.
Looking back, one might say one of our greatest mistakes was implementing the misguided CIA plan to destabilize and overthrow Iran's stable, democratically elected Mosaddeq government. It seems almost as if God or Allah is punishing us for our misdeeds. But our hubris and inability revise a course of action once in play (even after it is obvious it is wrong and unhelpful) and the powerful role the American oil industry plays in our foreign policy decisions were also to blame.
Therefore, let us not compound our Iranian misdeeds and self inflicted wounds by further ill-advised military and/or covert CIA interventionism in Iran.
We should turn to a new policy with regard to Iran. Say no to Israel, say no to an oil embargo of Iran. Say yes to a change of direction, and a new page in our unhappy history with Iran.
As Ron Paul has said on the Republican campaign trail, "we must begin talks with the Iranians". Our goal should be a stable, Middle East. We can go a long way toward that goal by confidence boosting talks and who knows possibly a non-agression pact with Iran? Then what need would they have for nuclear weapons? What choice do we have? Our present course is set towards unrelenting war and conflict. Our nation and the rest of the world can can no longer afford that route. It's time to push that tiller way over to port and change course.
Get the picture?
RJK
