As usual, mainstream media coverage of the U.S./Israel/Iran fracas ignores one of the most important facts at the heart of it all… the U.S./U.K./British Petroleum 1953 overthrow of Iran’s great democratically-elected leader, Mohammed Mosadegh, which led to decades of a U.S.-backed Iranian government that terrorized the Iranian population, gave away Iranian oil for a song, and was a friend to Israel. That act of imperial hubris was also responsible in part for the blowback of 9/11.
Stephen Kinzer’s book, All The Shah’s Men, should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the first thing about broader Middle East politics.
Answer to the current "Iran crisis"? (Which is also a nuclear weapons and Israel/Palestine crisis, it’s all tied together.) The U.S. should:
1) Apologize to Iran fully and unconditionally for overthrowing their government 57 years ago, and offer significant reparations (yes, many Iranians are still angry about it — wouldn’t many Americans be if Iran had assassinated JFK in order to essentially steal American oil, or something similar?) (what Obama said in the Cairo speech on this topic was vastly insufficient to create healing for this epic crime against Iranian society);
2) Agree that Iran has the same right to non-weaponized nuclear power as every other state (I hate nuclear power but we can’t tell Iran no if we’re using it);
3) Insist that Israel immediately dismantle its entire nuclear weapon arsenal under U.N. inspections, and get Iran to agree to U.N. inspectors/no nuclear weapons in exchange;
4) Condition future aid to Israel on justice and equality for the Palestinian people, for example, per the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative;
5) Take immediate steps towards zero nuclear weapons, worldwide.
That would be sane foreign policy. But with AIPAC and CUFI‘s destructive lunacy running the show, I’m not holding my breath.
P.S. – My friend Daniel Burwen’s team at Cognito Comics is adapting Kinzer’s book for iPad as an interactive graphic novel under the title Operation Ajax. Check it out!
P.P.S. – This is my favorite cover of any magazine ever, with a great story about the history of U.S. abuses against Iran… we are indeed a nation of amnesiacs:
P.P.P.S – Here’s the path to 9/11, h/t to U.C. Berkeley political science Prof. Dariush Zahedi…. Overthrow of Mosadegh -> The Shah’s terror against Iranians -> Iranian Revolution -> Iraq’s war against Iran -> Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait to pay off war debts -> Gulf War I -> U.S. troops on holy soil in Saudi Arabia -> 9/11 -> U.S. invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq.
This is a causal chain of events, although you can definitely throw in U.S. support of Israel as one but not the only cause of 9/11. (Osama Bin Laden mentioned the troops on holy soil and support for Israel as his reasons.) So if you drew a complete map of how we got to where we are today in the U.S./Israel/Iran standoff, you’d throw in the whole history of the Zionist/Palestinian conflict, too, going back to Europe’s oppression of the Jewish people. Wow, converging world histories, so sad.
Where’s the Hope and Change when we need it?
