by Col. W. Patrick Lang (Ret.)
"FARS News Agency reported on September 6 that the Islamic Republic Guards Corps [IRGC] spokesman said: "When the White House is [too] miserable to deal with a natural disaster, how can it enter into military confrontation with a [powerful] country like the Islamic Republic of Iran that has the valuable experience of an eight-year sacred defence [Iran-Iraq war]?"
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Mas’ud Jazayeri said: "Unlike the impression it gives, America’s management and leadership power is like a balloon that can be deflated very easily." He said what happened during America’s military actions against Afghanistan and Iraq confirmed his statement. He added: "The incompetence of America’s self-made giant in Iraq shows the inefficiency of the US Defence and State Departments and security apparatus more than the strength of the opposite side."
Asked whether America would take military action against Iran, the IRGC spokesman said: "A small mistake by America will turn each of its states into a crisis zone. Mismanagement and severe psychological problems that occurred during Hurricane Katrina openly explain that other countries have the power to turn different parts of America into war-hit zones at any point of time. …
"Insider information reveals a lack of coordination among military, security and political bodies of America. This information can help others deliver a blow against the US and cause many damages. Therefore, predictions of the collapse of America and its turning into a number of smaller states is completely realistic and possible from practical and logical points of view. … Never forget one thing about that incident [September 11, 2001], and that is the fact that the US president and other official fleds and took a shelter.""
– FARS News Agency, Iran
Let’s keep our "eye on the ball, folks." Iran is a resolute enemy of the United States.
Continued BELOW:
Iran is and has been the major state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, sedition, and violence ever since the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979. The hostage takers who once virtually ruled Lebanon were a small group of Lebanese and Iranians operating directly under Iranian government control.
You didn’t like the Shah? Look what you got instead! Governments are faced continuously with decisions that must be made between unpalatable alternatives. The Shah was a tyrant? What do you call the regime that is running Iran now?
Like all Islamic zealot groups, the Iranian government sees the world in "apocalyptic" terms. Like AQ, the Islamic Republic seeks a future world in which Islam is a world theocratic state, a universalist "Ummah."
Their negotiations with the Europeans are strictly tactical in nature. They have no intention of giving up their nuclear program. I am sure that they find the evident sincerity of European efforts at peace mongering to be amusing. You can also be sure that they find our more or less unintentional progress in installing a Shia government in Iraq to be evidence of our incomprehension and weakness.
"other countries have the power to turn different parts of America into war-hit zones at any point
of time. …" FARS
People should not let their dislike and suspicion of the Bush Administration blind them to the danger that is Iran.
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PART II: Qajar and Pahlavi
(History Lesson)
Someone wrote to me yesterday that he thought Iran was a republic at the time of Mossadegh and that the US and Britain had removed the constitutionally elected head of the Iranian Republic and installed a king (the Shah).
Wrong.
Khomeini did much the same thing forty years later. He won his bet.
Let’s get the facts straight before discussing a present situation which is based on past history.
“To remain in power Mossadegh knew he would have to continue consolidating his power. Since Iran’s monarch was the only person who constitutionally outranked him, he perceived Iran’s 33-year-old king to be his biggest threat. In August of 1953 Mossadegh attempted to convince the Shah to leave the country. The Shah refused, and formally dismissed the Prime Minister, in accordance with the foreign intelligence plan. Mossdegh refused to quit, however, and when it became apparent that he was going to fight, the Shah, as a precautionary measure foreseen by the British/American plan, flew to Baghdad and on from there to Rome, Italy.
Commentators assumed it was only a matter of time before Mossadegh declared Iran a republic and made himself president. This would have made him the full head of state and given him supreme authority over the nation, something Mossadegh had promised he would never do.
Once again, massive protests broke out across the nation. Anti- and pro-monarchy protestors violently clashed in the streets, leaving almost 300 dead. Funded with money from the U.S. CIA and the British MI6, the pro-monarchy forces quickly gained the upper hand. The military intervened as the pro-Shah tank regiments stormed the capital and bombarded the prime minister’s official residence. Mossadegh surrendered, and was arrested on August 19, 1953.” Wikipedia
Pat Lang
Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
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“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
I agree that both Iraq and Katrina revealed terifying weaknesses of the US (expected in the case of Iraq, less so in the case of Katrina), but I disagree with your assessment that Iran is dangerous.
Bush made them dangerous by threatening them needlessly.
on Iraq being a sign of weakness for the USA.
I’ve been writing on this since 2002, so this is not a post hoc assessment. My take on the Iraq war is that, after 9/11, there was a desire to “kick some Ay-rab ass”, whether genuinely held by the administration or cynically proposed to the traumatised US population. Iraq was the ONLY country that the US had a chance to beat up easily. It had a somewhat justifiable argument (Saddam bad, history of lying, WMD in the past, possibility of finding some vaguely UN-proof legal arguments for it), it was unfinished business, and it had been weakened by the first war and 10 years of sanctions and no-fly zones.
Did the USA attack Iran, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, which would all have been more justified in terms of danger to the US or link to 9/11? Nope, because it would not have been a cakewalk just to invade. Iraq was all the US Army could manage, and it did (of course, it could not manage the occupation, but that’s another issue, political and not military).
Now Katrina is a scary sign of domestic weakness as well. A lot more unexpected. I am in the habot of saying that after having spent so much time in the former Soviet Union, no human behavior can surprise me anymore, but I must admit that I was really surprised to see that in your country.
The comparison to the Soviet Union is, I think, quite apt. An Organizational Behavior professor at Texas A&M once pointed out to me that the Soviet Army attempted to motivate its troops by using Communist ideology, whereas the U.S. military had studied and used the social science of organizational cohesion. Needless to say, the U.S. military was a much better organization man-for-man.
The American conservatives make the same mistake the Communists in the USSR did. They select and promote based on perceived ideological purity rather than competence. They get incompetent ideologues running things.
Bush has been in office nearly five years now. He put strong ideologues into the political appointee jobs, and they have selected the members of the senior executive corps for ideology (they are all on one year contracts.) Then they have selected promotions in the military and civil service for ideology. I understand that Runsfeld personally interviews every officer up for promotion to flag rank, for example.
Select for ideology rather than competence; you get incompetent ideologues. That was a major reason for the failure of the Soviet Union, and the American conseratives are falling right in line. Only the words of the ideological catechism are different.
There should be no surprise. It is clearly predictable.
Any nation threatened by a capricious empire is a dangerous nation, and the Iranians especially so. Their network of assassins has long planning cycles, and their bitterly-mastered calculus of consequences is on display in the wins and losses columns for Iraq.
And the Iranians are no tougher than anyone else in demanding technology transfers. What pulls them away from the table is not pride but distrust. Distrust of dependence, distrust of controlling foreigners, and especially distrust of foreign operations. Once Rove has cleared out all of our covert private-sector operatives and those of the British as well, you’ll find the Iranians more welcoming.
“Any nation threatened by a capricious empire is a dangerous nation.”
I suggest a daily meditation on this for all Imperialism fans and Manifest Destinistas.
Once Rove has cleared out all of our covert private-sector operatives and those of the British as well, you’ll find the Iranians more welcoming.
What in the hell are you saying? (I’m almost afraid to ask.)
a la Plame.
I’ll say: that idiot spokesman really shouldn’t be talking smack like that. Even if he is right, it just encourages the warmongers and gives them invaluable propaganda.
As for Iran’s intentions, I have no doubt that aspire to develop a nuclear weapon. But I am far more concerned about Pakistan’s program than I am about Iran’s. Frankly, if we can live with Pakistan having a bomb why exactly should we care that Iran has one?
As I see it, the number one thing we can do to improve our security vis-a-vis Iran is to normalize relations with them. The Persian people are not fanatics and are in no way as incompatible with our culture as the Pashtuns or the southern Arabs. We should be able to develop better relations by ending this 25 year standoff.
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Spread Freedom and Democracy – unless you are a woman!
Afghanistan stays backward, risk of being stoned to death.
Iraq constitution will be primarily based on Sharia family law.
Therefore the freedom gained under Saddam’s rule be be turned back for the veil and burka, no alcohol, films and theaters.
Our friend and ally Musharraf, President | Dictator from Pakistan was interviewed by the WaPo ::
“It was shocking to read that General Musharraf had publicly aired his low opinion of women,” opposition MP Sherry Rehman said.
In the southern port city of Karachi, nearly 100 women demonstrated outside the local press club and demanded an apology. “He must withdraw his remarks if he really thinks he is a liberal and a moderate,” Women Action Forum activist Nuzhat Shireen said at the protest.
Musharraf made the comments after being asked about the high-profile case of Mukhtaran Mai, who was gang-raped on the orders of a tribal council in 2002 as punishment for her brother’s alleged love affair with a woman from another tribe. Her treatment by the Pakistani government, which tried to bar her from addressing US rights groups about her ordeal, earned the conservative Islamic country international wrath.
“You must understand the environment in Pakistan,” Musharraf told the Post. “This has become a money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped,” he said.
For penitence – a nice contract to Lockheed
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Pakistan is under fire for what human rights groups say is rampant violence against women.
Martin said he had raised the matter with Musharraf during a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations. “I stated unequivocally that comments such as that are not acceptable and that violence against women is also a blight that besmirches all humanity,” Martin told a news conference at the United Nations.
Pakistani womens rights activists hold a protest rally in Karachi, Pakistan to condemn their President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's remarks to a US newspaper that some women viewed being raped as a way to acquire a foreign visa, Friday, Sept 16, 2005. AP Shakil Adil“And the statement that was made — we did not appreciate (it) and we felt we had to deal with this… (Musharraf) took the position that that was not a statement he had made,” Martin said. The news conference was televised live in Canada.
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Then they would do well to communicate this to their warlords in Washington, who installed him.
Then they can explore their new discovery of just how much they have in common with Pakistanis.
As for Iran’s intentions, I have no doubt that aspire to develop a nuclear weapon
Based on what? The IAEA in 2 1/2 years has found no evidence to support your “fears”. The only thing that this “Iran wants nukes” claim is based on is American, European and Israeli suspicion. The evidence however strongly suggest that there program is purely peaceful. Of course they can switch at any moment but that is purely speculative and is no basis for invasion of sanctions.
If, as all the evidence suggest, Iran’s program is purefly peaceful then they absolutely have the right to pursue the technology as many western nations already have it and are, as we speak, continuing to enhance their nuclear energy capabilities.
Nukes are the only deterrent that Iran or any country has against US aggression.
U.S is the strongest military that’s no doubt but I am not so sure that Iran would be a push over. They’ve got some good technology to defend against the American navy (Which the U.S is sure to use in th event of an Iranian invasion).
Obviously in the end the U.S military is still far superior but I think it’s safe to say that America would go home with many American body bags. Also, good luck occupying Iran without a coalition if you can’t successfully occupy Iraq. I think reseaching Iranian capabilities is a worthwhile project. I will most likely look into it with greater detail and get a diary up
Halliburton, Raytheon, et. al. Body bags are not a concern, they are under press cover ban, and And Americans are willing to make any sacrifice necessary to defend the freedom of US defense and energy companies to continue to enjoy even more spectacular quarterly numbers.
Mothers with their new babes are at this very minute, smiling down on the sweet sleeping faces, already proud to think of his future as an Abu Ghraib guard.
what most of the world has to be thinking. The swaggering bully, like all bullies, is revealed to be an incompetent, frightened weakling. Now the bully wannabes are gonna line up to take their shot at king of the hill, or at least of a regional hill. You seem to forget, Boo, that this country’s “leader’s” chief spiritual advisor just agitated for the murder of an inconvenient freely elected foreign head of state. I see no difference between that, and between the “axis of evil” crap, and what this fundy creep said about us. What goes around comes around.
Bush is not a disaster just because he’s stupid, self-obsessed, and embarrassing. He’s a disaster because he has placed this country in real and urgent jeopardy. The religious nut from Iran is just reflecting back what he sees in his enemy.
Their government is just as nakedly, belligerently arrogant as ours!
Makes Hugo Chavez look like Winnie The Pooh.
I’d like to see what a majority of the real people in Iran believe, though. I once had a roommate in college who grew up in Iran during the revolution, and it obviously scarred him for life. He sought complete order in all things because he grew up in evil and chaos. He hated Saddam & Iraqis but he hated the ayatollahs just as much if not more. He was a very brilliant engineering student.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t a total pain in the ass prick, as a roommate, but then OCD occurrs in all humans.
But yes, Iran frightens me. Any government run by hyper-religious extremist nutcases does.
I cannot wait for 2008
Huh? Why do we have to do that? We elected Jean Schmidt to take care of that for us.
But isn’t the point that he lost this bet BECAUSE of the backing the Shah had from the US and Britain? Still seems to me the US had a big hand in creating the Islamic Republic of Iran.
indication that he would have put US-UK business interests above those of the Iranian people.
Whatever imperialists wish to speculate that he would or would not have done, he was not an Ibn Al Saud, or even a Saddam Hussein.
The last thing western warlords want are democracies, or democratic republics in lands with petroluem resources.
Mossadeq was a terror as the Comptroller of (I think) Fars Province. He insisted on absolutely clean and exact accounting. He was sixteen.
simultaneously reduce a target population, maintain the proud American tradition of plausible deniability, and maintain complicity of the general public.
Iran’s remarks may sound good to an Iranian public whose enthusiasm for being invaded and occupied by the US has never been high, but you can be assured that Iran and every other nation are privately saying the same thing they would say if any other nation with a penchant for invading weaker countries implemented an operation against its own people: In case the atrocities in Afghanistan and Iran haven’t convinced you, look how they treat their own.
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Pakistani nuclear spy AQ Khan stole essential blue prints in the Netherlands in the seventies. The Dutch secret service BVD was on to the espionage and uncovered the role Khan played to remove documants from nuclear facilities of UCN/URENCO ultracentrifuge process for enriched uranium and NIKHEF research institute.
Ruud Lubbers reveals today that on two occasions to his personal knowledge, the decision to arrest Khan for espionage was twarted by the CIA and America. The reason was the CIA and US was following Khan in his effort to obtain nuclear materials and sophisticated nuclear test equipment, in order to uncover the countries and persons involved in world-wide nuclear proliferation. Therefore on both occasions, Dutch government and Justice stepped back and let Pakistani nuclear spy travel out of the Netherlands.
~ Cross-posted at dKos ~
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Has Pakistan become a synonym for a religion during my absence?
Or do you mean that only nations with a majority who follow some other religion should have nuclear weapons?
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is seen as the father of the Islamic nuclear bomb.
Pakistan shared all nuclear secrets with Iran, even today Musharraf defends the right of Iran to possess a nuclear bomb as deterrant to Israel’s massive nuclear bombs and chemical weapons.
Watch the rhetoric and semantics in the Islam World.
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Do you mean to tell me that those dangerous Muslims are actually suggesting that they should have the right to defend themselves against Israeli aggression TOO?
Forgive me but after taking your advice and checking out some of that rhetoric in “Islam world” I am still reeling that some of the more uppity ones think they should be able to defend themselves against AMERICA!
And if this sort of notion gets over to Iraq, well, at least it won’t affect Halliburton’s profits, so that’s some comfort.
Where is Charles Martel when you need him?
Oh, right. He’s in Washington.
Ductape. What Israeli aggression? I can’t follow the logic that Iran needs a bomb because the Palestinians are oppressed. That’s absurd.
The only justification for Iran having the bomb is to protect against American, Russian, or perhaps, Pakistani aggression. And it is the very act of trying to acquire the bomb that makes it necessary in the first place.
Do you think that Americans would be enthusiastic about being invaded and occupied by Iran? Pakistan? Israel? Lichtenstein? How about Somalia?
Israel and the US have established policies of both military aggression and “covert operations” outside their borders.
Pakistan, like any other nation, is not going to be any more excited about being invaded by predator “states” than the US would be.
I know it is nearly impossible for Americans to grasp this, but other nations believe just as strongly that they have the right to defend themselves as the US believes that they do not.
Now this is not to say that Americans do not have the right to believe this, to cleave to their cherished doctrine of Manifest Destiny like a Marian to the Immaculate Conception.
However, Americans are also practical people, and practically speaking, it does not really matter whether US considers that the right to self defense is a privilege that can only be bestowed by the US if other nations do not agree.
It would be better, in my opinion, for Americans to transition this belief to a higher level of sacredness, to be held dear, and revered, but not profaned by attempting to taint its purity with real world application.
here’s the thing.
It’s not just America. No one in their right mind thinks it is a good idea for Pat Robertson to lead a nuclear armed nation. It’s a terrible idea. Pat Robertson should be watched carefully and disarmed if he makes threatening gestures.
The same is true of any other lunatic.
It’s not about national defense. It’s about jackass thugs with powerful weapons.
In the East, the difference between Pat Robertson, George Bush, and any other pro-Imperialist politician of either “party” you wish to insert is every bit as delicate and subtle as the West’s perception of the difference between Ayatollah Khomanei, Sayed Hassan Nasrullah, and Muqtada al-Sadr.
There is a perception of unbalance due to the Israeli atomic bomb. I think that an iranian bomb would bring stability in the region by forcing both sides to deal realistically with the other.
Today, the Arab countries (and Iran) still won’t recognise Israel’s right to exist, and Israel rightly feels threatened. Israel is oppressing the Palestinians somewhat and this is used by the Arab countries (who do nothing to alleviate the situation of the Palestinians, quite the opposte, they are quite happy to keep that sore festering) to whip up public opinion against Israel and create diversions from their own incompetence and corruption.
If both sides had the bomb, I think they’d both be forced to acknowledge each other’s rights and grievances.
by this one Jerome.
Iran has no intention of recognizing Israel’s grievances and having a bomb is not going to make them more favorable to Israeli occupation (or less most likely). I don’t see any relationship between these two things.
If anything, Israel will flatten Iran BECAUSE they don’t trust the Iranians to have a bomb. How is that going to help?
If Iran has the bomb, Israel CANNOT flatten them. That in turn will make Iran possibly more open to compromise, as they feel rightly or wrongly, threatened today and maintain a belligerant posture.
Nuclear bombs force you to be responsible is my point.
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From the days of Egypt’s Nasser, the Arab nations still have emotions to be united. This plays a role in negotiations for Iraq’s constitution.
Pakistan developed the bomb as deterrent to India’s nuclear bomb. Proliferation of nuclear know-how and materials to Libya, Iran and North Korea. For the Middle-Eastern Arab nations, the focus of an enemy was and is Israel. Under George Bush and Bolton’s rampage against North Korea plus the Iraq invasion, Iran changed focus towards big satan.
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…your take what happened in 1953 is about 75% bullshit.
Not a word about how the British had gotten rid of the previous Shah and stuck the irresolute, lazy, playboy Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in power?
Not a word about how the British were utterly unwilling to negotiate a new deal with Iran over its share of oil revenues, or to meet its promises to improve appalling circumstances of its Iranian workers in Abaddan – this intransigence leading to Mossadegh’s nationalizing of the oil industry, something which was approved by a majority of the Iranian parliament?
Not a word about Mossadegh’s successful appearance before the International Court of Justice in The Hague when the British tried to get back its nationalized company?
Not a word about the British blockade of Iran after nationalization so they could – as Nixon later said of Chile – make the economy scream?
Not a word about how Mossadegh was chosen by the Majlis – the Iranian parliament by a wide margin – which forced the shah to pick him as “his” prime minister?
Not a word about how Mossadegh did resign once, but was, because of popular support, back in his post within five days?
Not a word about how the CIA, using Kermit Roosevelt, selected a general to lead the coup against Mossadegh, a general who had been imprisoned by the British during World War II because he had been prepared to assist the Nazis in a thrust into Iran?
Not even use of the word “coup” to describe what happened?
Not a word about how Roosevelt repeatedly met secretly in the backseat of a car with the shah, bolstering this coward at crucial moments?
Not a word about how the CIA handed over tens of thousands of dollars to Iranian thugs organized by the Rashiddian brothers to run mobs in the streets, undertake bombings they blamed on the Tudeh (communists) and otherwise destabilize the country?
Not a word about how the first coup failed because loyal members of the army found out about it and jailed some of the ringleaders?
And, lastly, not a word about how, when the shah came back into power, the secret police unit Savak was established (and trained in all its refinements by the CIA), nor a word about how the shah allowed Iran’s oil concessions to be split among the Brits, U.S., French and Dutch?
Yes, indeed, let’s get the facts straight before discussing a present situation which is based on past history.
Your recitation of the “facts” leaves out quite a bit of that history.
Instead of Wikipedia, I recommend, for starters, CIA operative Donald Wilbur’s 200-page history of the coup.
but the critical question is whether (in the context of Soviet intentions and goals) the Shah served the interests of the Cold War?
And that question is a very interesting one. I suspect that you, Meteor Blades, and me would ultimately say the coup was a bad decision and Pat would probably say it was a net good. But I think it would be an interesting conversation.
To me, even if the coup prevented an eventual intervention by the Soviets, or an internal communist revolution (assumptions that are by no means assured) our tolerance and support for SAVAK methods undermined what was gained. As for the economic imperialism, I can’t really get upset about it. It’s not like the Soviets were not playing the same game. I find it more unseemly than anything else. What I find offensive is the nature of the result of the coup: the Shah’s regime.
…have engineered a takeover, although by ’53, with Stalin just dead, they were more than a bit hamstrung. And Mossadegh was certainly not their friend.
Soviet opportunities for intervening effectively required some help from inside, as in Afghanistan. But, in Iran, as for the Tudeh, they had zero chance of engineering a coup and no other way of gaining power. They had no support even in the rank and file of the army, and rather little among the civilian citizenry.
As for that economic imperialism, “unseemly” is not how I define theft.
Much to the Brits’ chagrin, when the U.S. demanded its share of concessions after the coup, it offered the Iranians 50% of the revenue, the same as they had given the Royal House of Saud earlier, and the very deal that the Brits could once have made with Mossadegh if they hadn’t been so stubborn. As it was, the Brits only got 40% of their half of the revenues from the oil, 40% going to the Americans, and the other 20% split between the French and Dutch. All in all, a rather big loss due to Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s and Winston Churchill’s imperialist hauteur.
although I would agree the Brits were insisting on a unfair deal.
Calling it theft (‘it’ being oil concessions) ignores the economic development the oil-rich nations received in the 20th-century that could not have occurred without Western technology.
It is something less than theft. However, when you bundle everything together (political, economic, etc.) there is no question that having oil has been at least as much of a curse as a blessing.
Like munitions to sink the British warships blockading their exports in Abadan?
Snark aside, the precious wizzardry excuse doesn’t hold water, despite what Jerome a Paris contends.
In every technology-intensive activity, there is a natural migration of expertise to the host country. And Iran had the world’s largest oil refining operation.
Even today, while the world abounds with technical expertise for extraction, the consolidating industry maintains a global hold on those services, themselves now consolidating.
The biggest of course is Halliburton, now diversifying into battleground services, since the customer bases overlap.
I wish the last remark were snark.
(and I think it is essential that we keep that context in mind) the question arises what good did the Shah do?
For instance, I believe Pat would argue that the Shah marginalized the influence of the mullahs and presided over a period of serious economic growth and modernization, in addition to being staunchly anti-Soviet and friendly to Israel. And I think he would further point to the regime that replaced the Shah as even worse.
The question then arises, what would Iran have been like if we had left it to its own devices?
Would the Soviets have left it to its own devices?
I refuse to apologize for every example of our meddling within the Cold War context. Context is everything. Was the Iran policy ultimately a failure or not?
I don’t think Pat is 75% full of bullshit. I think he is taking a different view that has little sympathy for the current regime as an alternative to the Shah.
His history of the coup was obviously brief and not comprehensive, but his greater point was that the alternative to the Shah was no godsend.
…regime either. And I didn’t say Pat was 75% full of bullshit. I said Pat’s recap of how Mossadegh was toppled was 75% bullshit. Two very different things.
And by the way, just because one detests the coup and its aftermath doesn’t make one an apologist for the current regime.
Context is important, but it is NOT everything. Unnuanced use of “context” is how people justify behavior like bombing Dresden (because the Germans started the war so their civilians deserved to die.) Let’s not get caught up NeoImp Jeane Kirkpatrick’s argument about moral equivalency here: CIA murders and coups aren’t comparable to KGB murders and coups.
Was our Iran policy a failure? Well, it certainly was for the tens of thousands of people the Shah had imprisoned, tortured and/or murdered. It certainly was for the incipient democracy of the Mossadegh era. Had we not initiated that coup, there is a good reason to believe that we might never have heard of Ruhollah Khomeini.
although I’m not sure whether we would know another Ayotollah instead.
Karen Armstrong makes a strong case that fundamentalism generally, and Islamic fundamentalism in particular, is a reaction to modernity and not necessarily explainable as blowback for political decisions.
I’m not sure how it would have developed in Iran without the Shah to tamp it down and I am not sure how the Shah tamping it down contributed to its rise.
I also think the Iraq war distorted the Islamic Revolution into something different than it might have been.
My intuition is that we created a new virulent Islamic fundamentalism in the very sect that opposed any connection with the government.
We forced the Shah to choose between a blanket immunity from civil and criminal law for all American personnel, or the right of the top Iranian Cleric, Khomeini, who would not shut up about the appearance of occupation, to live in Iran. We won.
So instead, Khomeini stewed in Najaf, thinking up reasons why Islam should in fact sully itself with governmental duties — through control of the judiciary.
all of that is true.
I think we should be careful about how we assign blame though. The people that made the decision to reinstall the Shah aren’t the same people that made all the Shah’s blunders. He should have been a better leader than he was, and he should have used less brutality. However, the Shah was not more repressive than other regimes in the region. I think the reason SAVAK is focused on so heavily is not because they were crueler than say Saddam’s mukhabarat, or Mubarak’s henchmen, but because we trained SAVAK and we didn’t denounce their excessses.
That made us complicit in their torture and murder. And we are supposed to be better than that. The current regime is not known for it’s dedication to human rights either. And I’m not sure Mosaddeq’s government would have been a paragon of virtue either.
We’ll see when Iran has a LNG project, shall we?
This is not just technology. it’s the ability to manage complex projects, including the interactions wth the clients in the rest of the world, under long term contractual frameworks.
without the strict but guiding hand of the magnanimous and long-Burdened Lord Bountiful of the West. They may whine, but deep down they know we need a firm hand and respect Uncle Sam for making sure they are kept in line.
One finds this sad condition in so many places outside US borders. With the exception, of course, of Europe. And maybe Australia.
Just look at China, for example. 5000 years of history and look how many of them still cannot speak even the simplest English.
The Burden is heavy, but Resolve surely lightens it, and makes any sacrifice a joy.
DF – I am not making a comment about their civilisation, only about their ability to run some particularly complex projects.
The fact that Iran or China do not manufacture airplanes does not make them lesser civilisations, but it does make them less advanced industrially. China is being smart about it, encouraging Western presence and investment in order to learn from what we do – and quite possible then overtake us. Iran (like Russia) is being much more prickly, refusing any foreign involvement and thus losing any opportunity to learn.
Again, I am NOT saying that they should learn everything from us, but LNG, yes they do. And I wish we would learn from them as much as we can.
That actually was one of the great characteristics of America: a magnificent curiosity about others, and a desire to take the best from everywhere. It’s clearly not the spirit of the Bush administration, and it is not the logic of the current Iranian leadership either.
And yours is a very popular view, with quite a long history.
Ever since the west got hold of written language, architecture, etc (and don’t think the rest of the world is not impressed with that accomplishment, recent though it may be) they have been deeply concerned that the people of the Majority World are simply unable to run particularly complex projects.
Jerome, the plea of complexity, as often as it is used in major negotiations, never inspires trust. It implies a permanent advantage in geographic range and operational scope and quality of personnel. The other side hears: “We will tell you how big you can get, and over time we will decide what’s yours.”
it’s the ability to manage complex projects, including the interactions wth the clients in the rest of the world, under long term contractual frameworks.
Gosh, it sounds awfully like an internationally co-ordinated oligopoly. Access to markets. Access to technology. The Iranians know what they are trying to do. Rent short, buy long. Like Japan. Like everybody.
Complex project management is not a trade secret. Hyman Rickover created the genre, and he was a dedicated public servant without a laptop. But he was still at it in 1953, when Iran was the showcase for international petroleum production.
Iran by rights should be center of this technology. It was the most receptive to development, led the world first, and spent a great deal of its income sending its (sons only) to American technical universities. But it has been iced out by governments.
Instead BP, formerly British Petroleum, which began as the Iranian operations nationalized by the British government, has all that “technical capability” that we should instead be buying from Iranian engineering firms.
Who are the world champions today of “managing complex projects”? Bechtel. Halliburton. There used to be so many. And what is their core competence? Government relations.
And those oil-services firms, to accommodate the American and British governments, occasionally fronted “employees” whose primary duties were not consistent with Iranian sovereignty.
If you want to know whether Iran will ever get LNG, check with the Chinese:
There’s the contract. It addresses the complexities of maintaining sovereignty in a country cursed with mineral wealth and a central trading location.
And I am telling you that this contract is just not happening. I advised the Iranians on one of their LNG projects in 1999 and that project is still not happening, despite all the obvious incentives and advantages for them to do so.
And no, Halliburton and Bechtel are contractors to the Shells or ExxonMobils who run these projects. So far, not a single LNG project has happened without an oil major, despite numerous attempts by the producing countries to contract directly with said Halliburtons & co. They are not strong enough to do them, believe it or not.
A LNG plant is a 3 to 5 billion dollar investment – all of it upfront. Not many companies or countries find such amounts easily.
Big oil companies as primary contractors: that is what I meant, a few posts up, by this : the consolidating industry maintains a global hold on those services, themselves now consolidating. Sorry I wasn’t clearer.
Obviously something is inhibiting the Iranians here. It is not their failure to appreciate the advantages of working with the big majors. While it may appear to be pride to you, I am certain that it is grounded in reason and experience.
Let’s agree to disagree…
A number of countries have negotiated very good deals for them vs the oil majors, while recognising the need for their presence.
Iran has an ideological block against any kind of active involvement of foreigners in their industry. It’s their right, and one can argue that they are competent enough to manage their oil fields on their own.
But the fact remains that Iran is very late in the development of its gas potential, and it is doing nothing offshore, another area where bigoil involvement seems unavoidable.
to agree.
To thwart war and change the subject to overlapping interests: formidable and visible defense.
But stern hostility toward Iran will stack the deck in favor of mutual killing.
What we see is what we will get. Iran has the capacity to share a great friendship, and it is not too late to try to live up to the standards of political freedom that we failed to heed when so many Iranians were our friends.
Never did we let the Iranians down more than when we took instruction from the British, who had lost their diplomatic credentials in Teheran, on how to handle Mossaddeq.
Fitfully since 1906 Iran had been a constitutional monarchy, in rough imitation of European models, but with governments determined as much by foreign powers as internal.
In 1953, Mossaddeq’s status as a Qajar was not a birthright to office. Kermit Roosevelt’s relationship to Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not make his leadership of the embassy basement group in Teheran a family enterprise, nor did the Dulles brothers inherit their positions, nor for that matter, did General H. Norman Schwarzkopf the Elder, our brassiest Iranian operative, bestow the rank of general on his son along with the duty of exercising American military power in the Persian Gulf. All of these actors in that drama — Mossaddeq and the American aristocrats — benefited from talent and wealth and education and connections and useful dinner-table conversations, but they all held office as a direct or indirect result of elections.
Perhaps Iran was not a republic, but Mossaddeq had taken every opportunity to push it toward constitutional democracy. Mossaddeq’s grab for control of the military — without which his office would be a sham — took the form of his resigning. Nearly the opposite of a coup, that technique of resigning allowed Mossaddeq to live to fight another day in case it failed. But the Majlis, the parliamentary body, insisted that he resume power, as he calculated it would, and the Shah relented.
Mossaddeq would have stayed in power had he known just how much the Americans had fallen into line with the British, or had he known that editorials bursting into newspapers were written by American artists and printed in exchange for bribes, or had he known that staged street protests were being used to pursuade Eisenhower of endemic instability. Even then, Mossaddeq would have retained power if the communications line from Washington had not delayed delivery of orders to end the operation after the initial plan failed.
Self-determination may be hard for the powerful to witness without interference, but we could not have asked for a more promising or friendlier scenario than Iran in 1953.
Not all is lost. What we have squandered by way of good will and impetus we have spent on a still unopened textbook on restraint.
Jihad Soldier
Length: 00:30 Type of program: Documentary
Broadcast Times
Friday, September 23 5:00 PM
Friday, September 23 11:00 PM
Saturday, September 24 5:00 AM
Saturday, September 24 12:00 PM
Sunday, September 25 3:00 PM
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