Shawn Amoei at Huffington Post on neocons rewriting the history of Iran to rationalize foreign intervention. Excerpt begins with 1953 American-British overthrow of democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh:
The coup reinstated the Shah whose unremitting despotism would continue for another quarter-century. Thus an all-too-brief democratic experiment was prematurely aborted by a dictatorship that would soon give rise to another.
This single act of intervention paved the way for an Islamist regime in Iran and the rise of political Islam across the Greater Middle East. The story of this coup–and its most famous victim–reminds us of the dangers of foreign intervention. Its potency at a time of growing tensions with Iran has made the history a prime target of contemporary interventionists.
One attempted distortion appeared in a Wall Street Journal review by Sohrab Ahmari. In researching this piece, I found that Ahmari’s review is essentially a reprise of his February 2009 pseudonymous review of Gholam Reza Afkhami’s biography of the Shah. Behind the anonymity of a fictitious name, Ahmari presents much of the same, but does so with the brazen language of an ideologue that expects no accountability. While a visceral contempt for Mossadegh shines through his writings, Ahmari gushes over the Shah and a paradise that never was. “Javid Shah!” is Ahmari’s proclamation when his advocacy needn’t be disguised as analysis.
Profiled recently as “the neocons’ favorite Iranian,” Ahmari has been caught twisting statistics to suit his agenda in the past. The biography of the Shah that Ahmari to construct his case was in fact written by a former minister of the Shah and criticized for, among other things, relying too heavily on the Shah’s own autobiographies.
…This brings us to another colorful character who insists that Mossadegh was overthrown by a popular uprising–Amir Taheri. The 70-year-old Iranian was editor-in-chief of one of the Shah’s primary propaganda arms until that regime’s collapse in 1979. Taheri occupies a unique place in American political discourse. As Jonathan Schwarz of Mother Jones magazine observed in 2007, “There may not be anyone else who simply makes things up as regularly as he does, with so few consequences.”
Among Taheri’s greatest hits is a story he fabricated about Iranian Jews being forced to wear distinctly colored badges à la Nazi Germany. Iranian historian Shaul Bakhash of George Mason University detailed “case after case” of Taheri’s use of nonexistent sources. Where sources did exist, Taheri “distorted the substance beyond recognition.”
…The above list is by no means exhaustive. Still, it takes a special kind of moral idiocy to defend the colonial interests of Britain’s dying empire against the “most democratic, enlightened government in Iranian history.” Those who do so deny the disaster of past interventions while calling for new ones. Unmasking these efforts may make it a little less likely for war to occur, so defenders of democracy would do well to follow Mossadegh’s famous dictum, “If I sit silently, I have sinned.”
The neocons will lie about history while the ink hasn’t even dried yet. Lucky that they have their Arab stooges to help them do it.
Iranians are Persian, not Arab.
Sohrab Ahmari is a Persian name.
At any rate, the Neo-Cons do have their Arab stooges, like the House of Sabbah in Kuwait, the House of Saud and Bahrain’s House of Khalifa, not to mention Egypt’s Mubarak and several others.
An excellent backgrounder on Iran’s revolutions, and many other salient points on ‘our’ interference in Middle Eastern politics and culture, would be Robert Fisk’s “The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East”.
link to en.wikipedia.org
It’s a hefty tome, but worth the read.
Contrary to public perceptions, America has always, given a choice of two democratic choices, rooted for Islamists.
It’s happening again with Morsi. One could argue that by now it’s all a done deal, and that is true, but the Obama administration early on supported the Muslim Brotherhood and refused to stand with liberals and help them. And this is a long-standing pattern.
The pattern seems to be to install and/or prop up a secular right-wing dictator who then, with the blessing of the US, starts a program of repression towards anyone or anything ‘leftist’ or ‘socialist’ in the country. Basically, they wipe out any viable opposition to their rule.
This tidily served as a way to ‘fight communism’ (keeping the ideologues happy) and create a nice, friendly, stable environment for Western corporations to ‘invest’ in. The Religious bloc, on the other hand, while just as a much of a danger to the dictator, is far more resilient and difficult to counter for cultural reasons. So they tend to be tolerated, more or less, and in the case of Egypt were used for decades as a ‘boogeyman’ to help extort more money from the US defense establishment.
However, when that ‘strong man’ (or his carbon copy replacement) finally dies or is ousted the only organized opposition that tends to be left to fill the vacuum, is this exact Religious bloc. With the ‘left’ and ‘center’ long gone, no one else has the organization or money, quite frankly, to make much of a showing.
Then the West sits back and makes fun of them for being so politically ‘naive’ and ‘disorganized’ and laments their ‘barbarism’ and offers ‘help’ while somehow magically being able to ignore their own political shortcomings, democratic failings and the religious fanatics that guide their own policies.
Fanatics that aren’t trying to get their hands on nuclear weapons – but only because they already have them.
One of the poorly reported facts about the overthrow of Mossadegh was the role played by the Shiite clerics. There were very large street demonstrations that turned into riots which created the political crises that allowed the Shah to return to “restore” order. These demonstrations were led by some prominent Shiite clerics. They were encouraged and egged on with some well placed rumor mongering by MI6 and CIA operatives.
So this does fall into a pattern. The US initially encouraged fundamentalist in both Iran and Afghanistan to topple secular regimes. As did Israel when they encouraged and backed Hamas in order to weaken Arafat. This is not a bug of US foreign policy but a feature.
The ungrateful Iranian wretches have yet to thank the US for bringing them political Islam.
RE: “Our intervention in Iran in ’53 paved the way for political Islam’s rise” ~ Weiss
ALSO SEE: “The CIA and The Muslim Brotherhood: How the CIA Set The Stage for September 11″ (Martin A. Lee – Razor Magazine 2004)
SOURCE – link to ce399fascism.wordpress.com
Apparently the first CIA-sponsored coup to take place in the Middle East or anywhere else was in 1949 in Syria: 1949-1958: Syria: Early Experiments in Covert Action:
Interesting to observe that among the things the U.S. sought from the new Syrian government were resettlement of Palestinians and an armistice with Israel.
In addition, this shows that whatever Israel or the U.S. do, the only solution to the so-called Palestinian problem will have to come in the form of a just and peaceful solution. No coup, no Hasbara and certainly no amount of money is going to make the horrendous injustice go away.
So great to hear how many times callers on Cspan’s Washington Journal bring up this historic fact. U.S. overthrow a democratically elected leader in Iran. Modadegh was nationalizing the energy industry. The U.S. and the U.K. and oil companies could not have that
link to en.wikipedia.org
Premier Mossadeq and his overthrow
In 1953, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq was overthrown by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-organized coup, in what has been called “a crucial turning point both in Iran’s modern history and in U.S. Iran relations.” Many Iranians argue that “the 1953 coup and the extensive U.S. support for the shah in subsequent years were largely responsible for the shah’s arbitrary rule,” which led to the “deeply anti-American character” of the 1979 revolution.[12]
Until the outbreak of World War II, the United States had no active policy toward Iran.[13] When the Cold War began, the United States was alarmed by the attempt by the Soviet Union to set up separatist states in Iranian Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, as well as its demand for military rights to the Dardanelles in 1946. This fear was enhanced by the “loss of China” to communism, the uncovering of Soviet spy rings, and the start of the Korean War.[14]
In 1952 and 1953, the Abadan Crisis took place when Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq began nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). Established by the British in the early 20th century, the company shared profits (85% for Britain, and 15% for Iran), but the company withheld their financial records from the Iranian government. By 1951, Iranians supported nationalization of the AIOC, and Parliament unanimously agreed to nationalize its holding of, what was at the time, the British Empire’s largest company. The British retaliated with an embargo on Iranian oil, which was supported by international oil companies. Over the following months, negotiations over control and compensation for the oil were deadlocked, and Iran’s economy deteriorated.
American President Truman pressed Britain to moderate its position in the negotiations and to not invade Iran. American policies created a feeling in Iran that the United States was on Mosaddeq’s side and optimism that the oil dispute would soon be settled with “a series of innovative proposals to settle” the dispute, giving Iran “significant amounts of economic aid”. Mosaddeq visited Washington, and the American government made “frequent statements expressing support for him.” [15]
At the same time, the United States honored the British embargo and, without Truman’s knowledge, the CIA station in Tehran had been “carrying out covert activities” against Mosaddeq and the National Front “at least since the summer of 1952″.[16]
“Profiled recently as “the neocons’ favorite Iranian,” Ahmari has been caught twisting statistics to suit his agenda in the past.”
It worked for Chalabi. He rode the neocons’ coat tails all the way to Baghdad. Ahmari may have similar ideas about Tehran.