Against Democracy: How America Created a Radical Iran Part 1

This week United Nations started to squeeze the Iranian Republic just a little more and further increasing the control of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over the people of Iran. The reason for the newest wave of sanctions is centered on the disputed Iranian nuclear program and the inability for Iran or its western opponents to come to a consensus. Fiery rhetoric has been the weapon of choice for American politicians towards the defiant Middle Eastern country and most American probably agree that the Iran is a danger to peace. However, only President Obama has briefly hinted that the monster that has become Iran was created by the United States. At some point the U.S. public is going to have to reap what its leaders sowed so many years ago and hopefully it will be a lesson how our empire is almost never a defender of democracy.

The battle for Iranian democracy is one of the most heroic and tragic histories in the 20th century. In 1906 a rebellion outside of the British Embassy was able to persuade the middle and trading class of Tehran to form a Parliament. The aging Shah had tried to stop the constitution rebellion in 1905 but had become sick and was near death when the first Iranian parliament was formed. The parliament moved quickly and modeled their new constitutional monarchy after Belgium. The Shah signed the constitution into law and died five days later. However, the new democracy was short lived and in 1907 exiled royalty swayed the Russian and British Empires to invade and control Iran for its oil reserves. Russian and British control would remain in place until 1950.

Mohammad Mosaddegh was an aristocrat from Iran that passionately opposed the interventions by the Russian and British powers. In 1951 he was elected prime minister by a new Iranian parliament and quickly nationalized the oil industry in Iran. The main reason for British and Russian interventions had been oil and the puppet shah government gave extremely favorable terms to a British oil company that would later become British Petroleum. Mosaddegh wanted to use the oil to increase the Iranian budget to modernize the impoverished nation. When the British government refused to accept the terms of the new Iranian democracy it blockaded oil exports from Iran.

Mosaddegh cut the Shah’s powers drastically and assumed control of the military after a protest in Tehran. However, his democratic actions were being drastically undercut due to the British oil blockade and the country was suffering severe economic depression due to the lack of oil sales. Britain was extremely bitter over their loss of control of the Iran oil industry and the oil blockade was not bringing the crisis to a quick conclusion. The United States had been in favor of Iranian democracy because of Mosaddegh’s open hate of socialism and communism but as Britain became increasingly desperate to regain control of Iran Winston Churchill appealed to the new President of the United States, Dwight D Eisenhower.

Winston Churchill told his old war ally General Eisenhower that Mosaddegh was moving towards communism. Being the height of the cold war that was all the United States needed to reverse its support of Iran and denounced Iran’s policies. The CIA was given almost unlimited monetary backing to bribe the Shah and the Iranian military to create a coup d’etat. The CIA hired criminals and tribal strongmen to stage massive protests in Tehran and over 300 people died in these fake revolts. The bribed military leaders than deployed to ensure peace and arrested Mosaddegh and held him accountable for the revolt. Mosaddegh was found guilty buy the CIA agents and was held under house arrest for the rest of his life. The unpopular and oppressive Shah returned in 1953 and quickly made deals with American and British oil companies with the urging of CIA agents. In trade for almost all of Iran’s oil the CIA funded the Shah’s oppressive military and secret police force. The CIA had single handedly crushed the only democracy in Asia Minor, for oil.

As for the 1979 Iranian revolution we all know about the hostage of the American embassy workers. The new Iranian republic was democratically elected but much more aggressive and radical compared to Mosaddegh. The chance to support a real and peaceful democracy in Iran was supplanted for oil. We now have to face a radical Iranian Republic that hates America more than it hated the Shah and is trying to create nuclear weapons. Who knows how much more peaceful the Middle East could have been if we had supported Mosaddegh?

Americas should be ashamed of our governments dealings with Iran, because like it or not, we gave and continue to give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an enemy that threatens the Iranian people which he uses to oppress the people of Iran. Instead of recognizing our mistakes Americans iclaim the reason Iran hates us is because we are a democracy, that Iran hates our freedom, that Iran hates Christians. No, Iran hates us because we killed their democracy single handedly. In part two, I will describe how America helped kill millions of Iranians in retaliation to the 1979 revolution.

Sometimes America makes me sick and I am ashamed to be part of this “great democratic nation.”



Sources:

A Concise history of Iran, Saeed Shirazi

The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, Robert Baer.

Mohammad Mosaddegh and the 1953 coup in Iran, Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne

The War With Iran

For the last eight months I have been waiting to see a red flash across the TV screen that reveals Israeli fighter jets have bombed several nuclear targets in Iran. Fortunately this has not happened and I am finally breathing a sigh of relief because the probability of war with Iran is dwindling. However, there is still a loose cannon on deck that could engulf the Middle East in war. Israel has not come to terms with the possibility of a nuclear Iran and it places the United States in an uncomfortable political position.

On the surface the Obama administration still wants to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons yet many deadlines have passed without a hint of effective sanctions on Iran. This is not a sign of political weakness but rather the admission of diplomatic defeat.

Sanctions have been in place against Iran for the better part of 35 years and failed to bring Iran to the table with meaningful negotiations. Placing new sanctions would require the full support of both Russia and China. However, Russia and China benefit by having United States forces tied up in the Middle East and allows them to expand their spheres of influence with little resistance. Helping the United States would go against their incentives. So short of a full military strike there is nothing the United States can do to stop nuclear proliferation by Iran. However, Israel is in a different political situation were a military strike is an acceptable solution.

Israel’s foreign policy has always been driven by a fight for survival and little has changed since the nation’s birth. Iran has been a constant thorn in the side of Israel since the end of the Iraq/Iran war in the 1980s. Iran now has considerable influence in the Middle East through its proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah and many other militant groups. The long-term goal of Iran is to be the regional political powerhouse and build an effective and wealthy commercial petro-empire. Iran has large oil fields that it has been unable to effectively pump due to the many sanctions on oil equipment. To survive Iran imports almost half of its refined oil needs. This situation has led the Iranian leadership to use military proxies to gain influence over many of its neighbors allowing the nation to import more equipment through China and Russia.

The development of nuclear energy accomplishes two goals for Iran. First, creating effective nuclear power will drastically cut the nations reliance of imported fuels. Second, having an atomic weapon is the best deterrent bar none in the world and would force the world to lift sanctions that have been in place for decades. Iran has very little to lose at this point in history by developing a nuclear weapon.

Israel on the other hand cannot even entertain the idea of Iran developing a nuclear weapon due to the small size of the country. Even a crude weapon would cripple Israel and open the flood gates of its many enemies. The chances of Iran using an atomic weapon as an offensive weapon are slim to say the least. Iran knows Israel possesses atomic weapons and it could not hope to win an atomic firefight with Israel. The problem is what if radicalism in the Iranian leadership allows such a suicidal bombing to happen? There lies the great danger for Israel.

So what is going to happen? I have a very hard time believing Israel is going to sit around and let Iran continue to refine radioactive materials and the notion that an air strike would not be effective is ridiculous. It would take less than half of Israel’s air force to completely destroy or damage all of Iran’s nuclear sites. It is Iranian retaliation that worries the United States and Israel. Iran would use its proxies in Syria, Palestine, Iraq and in other nations to completely interrupt oil coming out of the Middle East. This could severely hurt recovering economies across the world and possibly force the United States to respond with military force, engaging our nation in a third Middle East conflict.

The situation is incredibly complicated and is on the brink of collapsing on a daily basis. How Washington responds to an Israeli air strike will test the Obama administration to its limit. Let us all hope Israel keeps a cool head for everyone’s sake.