With the killing of Qasem Soleimani, one of the Iranian generals by an American air attack the other day has sparked rumors of World War 3. Iran has now responded with at least 30 ballistic missiles at US bases in Iraq. Soleimani is thought to be responsible for many American soldier. He also thought to be responsible for an attack on an US embassy in Iraq. The problem is that Iran is not and has never been a “problem country”. This is a myth perpetuated by the American government. The country of Iran otherwise known as Persian throughout history has been around for over 2000 years. Iran’s “problems” started recently only in late 1930s less than a hundred years ago. At first it was the British who tried colonize the country. Also Russia has a heavy involvement with Iran as it sits within their sphere of influence.
This post will not be a chronological full-detailed history but rather some points that counter the narrative that Iran is an “evil” country. Iran is a theocracy (Muslim). I want to focus specifically on the US involvement in Iran starting with the coup in 1953 and moving forward to other events such as the Iranian hostage crisis. Then I will cover some of the current events in the past few years.
The 1953 Iranian Coup D’etat
If you didn’t realize that before 1953, Iran had a democracy under Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. As Prime Minister Mosaddegh was installing democratic reforms such as social security, taxes on land and the state ownership of the oil companies. When PM Mosaddegh took over the oil companies and made them state owned this angered both British and American interests in oil. The coup later became known as Operation Ajax. This joint operation of the CIA and the British intelligence agency MI6 was simply an effort to stage an overthrow of Mosaddegh and replace him with someone more agreeable to US and British oil interests. That somebody happened to be General Fazlollah. In Operation Ajax, the Shah of Iran, the monarch was to make a decree replacing Mosaddegh with Fazlollah. Fazlollah with the blessing of the Shah made agreeable contracts with the US and Britain over oil. (Click for Source)
The whole overthrow started because of the oil in Iran. Maybe you were alive at the time to experience it first hand. One of the reasons why Iran’s oil became so important because the car industry was really taking off. In addition to the making of plastics with the leftovers of oil production. The world economy had a large demand for cheap oil. Yet we see war hawks both in congress and on social media arguing that Iran is a bully and evil. The CIA quite literally cooked up a protest against a perfectly fine leader. They replaced Iran’s democracy with a monarchy. As one would expect, this monarchy didn’t last more than 30 years. Here is a little timeline of the Coup, so you get an idea of how it all went down.
Iranian Hostage Crisis
Some people may be familiar with the hostage crisis especially if you lived through it. The crisis was a diplomatic standoff between the US and Iran. The standoff occurred in part because of the overthrow coup that occurred in 1953. Iranian’s never forgot that the US incited the overthrow which saw jailing and eventual killing of all Mosaddegh’s associates. The story of the crisis is as follows: a group of Iran college students that were pro-revolution (aka against the Shah), had stormed the US embassy in Tehran. They took the 52 staff hostage for nearly a year and a half. Embarassingly enough, Jimmy Carter could not get the hostages released. After a failed military rescue attempt, named operation Eagle Claw, it took the election of Ronald Reagan to free the hostages. The important thing to note is that this storming of the embassy was a response to the American presence in the middle east.
America has military bases everywhere around Iran in the middle east especially now. The America meddling in the Iranian political system caused them to become more extreme. After the crisis, the Iranian people took a harder line and elected politicians that reflected the renewed anti-American views. One politician Ayatollah Khomeini who came to prominence had his biographer summarize the crisis as:
“a watershed in Khomeini’s life” that transformed him from “a cautious, pragmatic politician” into “a modern revolutionary single-mindedly pursuing a dogma.” In Khomeini’s statements, imperialism and liberalism were “negative words,” while revolution “became a sacred word, sometimes more important than Islam.” (Click for Source)
Even though, the Iranian political movements had some negative elements such as socialist-Islamic or communist backed groups. I still fail to see where Iran was originally evil? If it wasn’t for US intervention starting in 1953 then installing a monarch that the Iranian people never wanted. The US has framed Iran as evil for its oil.
Iran Contra and Obama Iran’s Deal
In the mid-1980s, Ronald Reagan’s administration illegally sold arms (Guns) around an arms embargo by former President Jimmy Carter because of the Iranian hostage crisis. The money from the illegal arm sales was used to help the contras in Nicaragua fight their left wing government. The more important point here was why Iran needed weapons in the first place was because next door neighbor Iraq decided it would take advantage of Iran’s revolution during the hostage crisis. The conflict which lasted eight years was very much against Iran. Nearly all the outside powers sided with Iraq including the Soviets. This was still during the cold war era so part of Reagan’s motivation for selling arms to Iran was to push back on the Soviet influence. The conflict eventually ended with a UN cease fire after 500,000 causalities. In fairness, Iran was attacked by Iraq not the other way around. Let’s not forget who incited Iran’s anti-western, anti-american sentiments, it was the US in 1953, 1979 and now in 1985! (Click for Source)
The next event I want to cover very briefly is the Obama’s Nuclear deal with Iran. The deal in which the US and UN security council agreed to lift sanctions both economic and nuclear on Iran in exchange for Iran giving up its nuclear weapon program. Of course, the fallout that made headlines was Obama giving away a billion dollars in cash. While this event wasn’t as blatantly interventionist or imperialistic, it did show how deep the divide between Iran and the US. The amount of sanctions that have been imposed on Iran is pretty unimaginable. (Click for Source) Of course, we have to look at the bigger picture to see why America’s bullying created this need for nuclear weapons in Iran.
Conclusion: Big Picture
I just explain in a concise way the timeline of the rise of tensions between the US and Iran. To put it simply: America under Eisenhower decided to have the CIA overthrow the democratic PM Mosaddegh for US and British oil interests. This resulted in the installation of the Shah. The Shah, a monarch was in power for 30 years against the people of Iran’s will. Following that a revolution starting with the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran sparked another overthrow. This time, the Iranians elected to make a hard line toward an Islamic theocracy. It also saw a rise in anti-western and anti-American views. In 1980, Iraq tries to take advantage of a supposedly weakened Iran. Despite most of the western powers siding with Iraq, the Iranians repel the attack. Keep in mind that thus far the Iranian’s haven’t provoked any wars or attacks. The hostage crisis although not the best way, was a protest against the American imperialist in the middle east. From the contra scandal to the Iran Nuclear deal we see that Iran once again is just trying to find independence from the influence and imperialistic intentions of western powers.
Its hard for one to justify war with a country that in reality has only tried to keep to itself. One might think that Iran is the equivalent to Germany in early and mid 20th century trying to conquest the world. But the reality is that Iran is only trying to protect itself with nuclear weapons. No rational government would use nuclear weapons unless there was an immediate threat. Even so, the US is still the only country to drop two nukes. Before we sent bombs and troops to Iran that will likely kill innocent people lets remember that the US actually created the Iran we see today. Personally I’d like to see what happens if we leave them alone and take our bases out from around them.
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