Iran Faces Greater Risks Than It Knows
Stephen Kinzer's book, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, tells the story of the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected leader, Muhammad Mosaddeq, by the CIA and the British MI6 in 1953. The CIA bribed Iranian government officials, businessmen and reporters, and paid Iranians to demonstrate in the streets.
The 1953 street demonstrations, together with the Cold War claim that the United States had to grab Iran before the Soviets did, served as the U.S. government's justification for overthrowing Iranian democracy. What the Iranian people wanted was not important.
Today, the street demonstrations in Tehran show signs of orchestration. The protesters, primarily young people, especially young women opposed to the dress codes, carry signs written in English: "Where Is My Vote?" The signs are intended for the Western media, not for the Iranian government.
More evidence of orchestration is provided by the protesters' chant, "Death to the dictator, death to Ahmadinejad." Every Iranian knows that the president of Iran is a public figure with limited powers. His main role is to take the heat from the governing grand ayatollah. No Iranian, and no informed Westerner, could possibly believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a dictator. Even Ahmadinejad's superior, the Ayatollah Khamenei, is not a dictator, as he is appointed by a government body that can remove him.
The demonstrations, like those in 1953, are intended to discredit the Iranian government and establish for Western opinion that the government is a repressive regime that does not have the support of the Iranian people. This manipulation of opinion sets up Iran as another Iraq ruled by a dictator who must be overthrown by sanctions or an invasion.
On American TV, the protesters who are interviewed speak perfect English. They are either Westernized secular Iranians who were allied with the Shah and fled to the West during the 1978 Iranian revolution or they are the young Westernized residents of Tehran.
Many of the demonstrators may be sincere in their protest, hoping to free themselves from Islamic moral codes. But if reports of the U.S. government's plans to destabilize Iran are correct, paid troublemakers are in their ranks.
Some observers, such as George Friedman, believe that the American destabilization plan will fail.
Many ayatollahs feel animosity toward Ahmadinejad, however, who assaults the ayatollahs for corruption. Many in the Iranian countryside believe that the ayatollahs have too much wealth and power. Amadinejad's attack on corruption resonates with the Iranian countryside but not with the ayatollahs.
Amadinejad's campaign against corruption has brought Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri out against him. Montazeri is a rival to Khamenei. Montazeri sees in the street protests an opportunity to challenge Khamenei for the leadership role.
So, once again, as so many times in history, the ambitions of one person might seal the fate of the Iranian state.
Khamenei knows that the elected president is an underling. If he has to sacrifice Ahmadinejad's election in order to fend off Montazeri, he might recount the vote and elect Mir-Hossein Mousavi, thinking that will bring an end to the controversy.
Khamenei, solving his personal problem, would play into the hands of the American-Israeli assault on his country.
On the surface, the departure of Ahmadinejad would cost Israel and the United States the loss of their useful "anti-Semitic" bogeyman. But in fact it would play into the American-Israeli propaganda. The story would be that the remote, isolated Iranian ruling ayatollah was forced by the Iranian people to admit the falsity of the rigged election, calling into question rule by ayatollahs who do not stand for election.
Mousavi and Montazeri are putting their besieged country at risk. Possibly they believe that ridding Iran of Ahmadinejad's extreme image would gain Iran breathing room. If Mousavi and Montazeri succeed in their ambitions, one likely result would be a loss in Iran's independence. The new rulers would have to continually defend Iran's new moderate and reformist image by giving in to American demands. If the government admits to a rigged election, the legitimacy of the Iranian Revolution would be called into question, setting up Iran for more U.S. interference in its internal affairs.
For the American neoconservatives, democratic countries are those countries that submit to America's will, regardless of their form of government. "Democracy" is achieved by America ruling through puppet officials.
The American public might never know whether the Iranian election was legitimate or stolen. The U.S. media serve as a propaganda device, not as a purveyor of truth. Election fraud is certainly a possibility—it happens even in America—and signs of fraud have appeared. Large numbers of votes were swiftly counted, which raises the question whether votes were counted or merely a result was announced.
The U.S. media's response to the election was equally rapid. Having invested heavily in demonizing Ahmadinejad, the media are unwilling to accept election results that vindicate Ahmadinejad and declared fraud in advance of evidence, despite the pre-election poll results published in the June 15 Washington Post, which found Ahmadinejad to be the projected winner.
There are many American interest groups that have a vested interest in the charge that the election was rigged. What is important to many Americans is not whether the election was fair, but whether the winner's rhetoric is allied with their goals.
For example, those numerous Americans who believe that both presidential and congressional elections were stolen during the Karl Rove Republican years are tempted to use the Iranian election protests to shame Americans for accepting the stolen Bush elections.
Feminists take the side of the "reformer" Mousavi.
Neoconservatives damn the election for suppressing the "peace candidate" who might acquiescent to Israel's demands to halt the development of Iranian nuclear energy.
Ideological and emotional agendas result in people distancing themselves from factual and analytical information, preferring instead information that fits with their material interests and emotional disposition. The primacy of emotion over fact bids ill for the future. The extraordinary attention given to the Iranian election suggests that many American interests and emotions have a stake in the outcome.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
No American interests are at stake in the Iranian dust-up, but American emotions definitely are involved, not least Dr. Roberts' emotions. The American media have homed in on this because it is an entertaining story and appeals to the obsession which Americans have had with Iran since the "hostage crisis" of the Carter regime. Mousavi's supporters are hip enough to play to this American obsession with their English language signs. Some of them might be naive enough to think that BHO will do something to help them, but he and the American ruling establishment he is fronting for are smart enough to want neither a war with Iran nor a second Iranian revolution. And Israel will not act alone without assurance of American support. The Iranians are on their own which is as it should be and they should thank God for it.
I am doubtful that most Americans care very much, or at all, what kind of government Iran has. Americans who care much about Iran are pretty much confined to Bill Kristol, Michael Ledeen and a couple score other neo-conservative armchair warriors. Rest assured, Dr. Roberts, Barack Obama does not want to intervene in Iran, not only because that is not what liberals like to do, but because President Obama wants to spend his political capital intervening in the American economy.
It's laughable to read the little pipsqueak with a big mouth, Mr. Kristol, try to goad Mr. Obama into seriously intervening in Iran's internal affairs. Does Bill Kristol even believe that he has Barack Obama's ear or that Mr. Obama even reads Mr. Kristol's scribblings? More than likely lil'Bill is putting on a show for the donors of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, his Murdoch paymasters, and create more publicity for himself as the market for public speechmaking events declines with the rest of the American economy.
Absolutely correct! To call Ahmadinejad a dictator is completely ludicrous. To claim Ahmadinejad is a dictator, but at the same time a powerless puppet, as many talk-radio hosts have done, is insanity.
Normally, I defer to Mr. Roberts' knowledge of the dark works of the U.S. government, as he has seen it from the inside. In these last two columns on Iran, however, I think he has jumped the shark, with his hatred of the government clouding his opinion. I think what's going on is an internal dispute between two factions of the ruling mullahs, with the so-called reformists manipulating the desires of many "progressive" Iranian women and young people, and world and U.S. opinion, for their benefit. My hope, however remote, is this strategy will backfire and the women and young people will win out. More likely, we will see a blood bath. Obama is right to keep clear, and stay clear, of Iran.
I think Mr. Stonehouse is correct; both about Dr. Roberts columns on this subject (which somehow imply that any American who may sympathize with demonstrators is a neocon puppet) and that the US best steer clear of the conflict (which really seems to be between ruling factions) until it settles out.
The notion Ahmadinejad is other than a demagogic politician on behalf of one of those factions (and the one more/most hostile to the US and bent on retaining autocratic power) is silly.
The fact that American media outlets even take note of what goes on in Iran shows that the American empire is tottering about on its last legs.
A great empire would take no official notice whatsoever of a little country which cannot help or harm its interests.
I agree with Mr. Roberts. Why in the world do we give those pipsqueaks the satisfaction of knowing that we are paying so much attention to them. It must make them very proud. We don't even pay that much attention to Canada or even Mexico.
Roberts is on the mark and Stonehouse -and by implication of agreement Wilder, take a post-Christian/Western (American) modernist stance on Iran in spite of themselves. Stonehouse's hope that "young people" and "women" will win out betray his directionless and at the same time liberal tendencies as juxtaposed with Roberts' realism-and healthy anti-imperial impulse.
@7: My question is, why isn't the U.S. government paying attention to the needs of its own citizens in this time of economic crisis? The jobless rate is increasing; prices are increasing; home foreclosures are increasing; manufacturing is decreasing; the agricultural sector is decreasing; crime is on the rise; corruption in government, financial institutions, and other mainline corporations is continuing. Who gives a d... about Iran or any other country at this time? If we implode it doesn't matter who runs Iran or Inner Mongolia.
@9 "My question is, why isn’t the U.S. government paying attention to the needs of its own citizens in this time of economic crisis?"
You asked and then answered your own question. The US government fixation on Iran is another of its weapons of mass distraction.
While concurring with everyone who believes that what goes on in Iran is no business of ours, I cannot concur with the characterization of Iran as a "pipsqueak." It's a large, populous country with (as PCR has oft pointed out) an ancient and sophisticated culture. More to the point, it abounds in oil. Our government has used this last fact to meddle in Iranian affairs. Clearly, with the CIA/NED script playing out (as it is everywhere the same, and predates the neocon influence), this meddling is not yet over. #1, if you are right that BHO will not go to war with Iran, hooray! But there is intervention short of war, and I see no sign of that abating.
To Mr. Bass. You are correct - I meant pipsqueak in the sense of the immediate threat Iran poses to North America
I notice that Ron Paul was the only Congressman to vote against a feel-good resolution which condemned Iran's election and treatment of protestors. Dr. Paul correctly pointed out that the US Congress lacks both the authority and sufficient information to sit in judgment on the internal affairs of foreign countries. Newsmax reports that the BHO administration has removed taxpayer funding from projects to promote democracy in Iran. This had run into the scores of millions annually under the Bush regime. Granted that's small change compared to numerous other things the government is spending our money on and granted that there may be covert ops going on against Iran that BHO himself doesn't know about. Nonetheless, it is another indication that BHO may be turning away from the mad imperial Wilsonianism of the Bush regime. And not a moment too soon - it's bad for the US, bad for the world, and we can't afford it.
@9 "My question is, why isn’t the U.S. government paying attention to the needs of its own citizens in this time of economic crisis?"
Because the needs of the American Empire outweigh those of the Republic's citizens. We're small potatoes, and everything we now see our government doing (and not doing) points precisely to this.
If anyone doubts this, he has only to remember what Conan-Doyle wrote: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
Dr Roberts blames the Jews, not matter what. On the Holocaust I would not be surprised to hear him say that we need to consider the Nazi point of view.
Mr. Hoop
So I take it you side with Mullahs?
It's clear from your post you side with Iranian women and
youth as long as they are Westernizers or leaderless enough to create an anarchy opening the doors to Wall Street.
@15 Arius
You are so right. Israel has nothing to do with US policies towards Iran.
It is obvious to me ACORN has a chapter in Tehran.
PCR paranoid writings belong in alex jones's prison planet not on a serious conservative blog such as this. Why this issue bugs him so that he writes 5 articles in 5 days on the subject is a point of interest in itself. And again it is all about Bush. We are facing a juggernaut of government intervention in our lives but he wants us to worry about Bush, neocons and imperialism abroad. Couls it be that PCR does not want us to see what big O is doing to us at home? Talking about black ops, PCR should be their poster boy.
Mr. Hoop
Yes, I side with the women and young people on the street desiring more control over their own lives. As for Wall Street, not so much.
How about you--do you side with the Mullahs?
I am a little confused. What and who exactly is meant by "and that the US best steer clear of the conflict (which really seems to be between ruling factions) until it settles out." - I wholeheartedly agree that our country should not only steer clear of the conflicts but run like Hell away from that region. We can always count on CNN to call it strategic, well planned withdrawal - as if it were a sexual congress or a bank transaction. But I do truly fear that "the US best do this or that" - half of the times (in retrospect) it seems like Rummy was the US and Bush was a figurehead. The other half of the times the CIA didn't consult either. So who is it that runs our country (into the ground)? Let him/her speak or forever hold his silence. This type of a revealing article is very welcome, we'd better wait and see what sorts of nasty little tricks will have surfaced in 10 years (Noriega, Hussein, Milosevic, et all.). But dad, I really want to know who is deciding these issues of vital importance, more than I want to know why is the sky blue. Pardon the sardonic tone, but we have a ways to go (the CIA training camps in Athens, Greece), the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, JFK killing, RFK's demise, Ted's Chapaquidick etc. etc. Really dad, who is steering our country? As a voter, (I think) I have the right to know.
What is this "side with the Mullahs" question? Hasn't anyone noticed that there are Mullahs, indeed senior Ayatollahs, on both sides of this Iranian conflict? So any American or other who wishes to take sides in this internal Iranian matter is siding with the Mullahs. It's just a matter of which ones.
@23: Nice distinction, Kirt. It needed to be said. Too many people are confusing the picture by either their ignorance or their malice.
Mr. Higdon/Mr.Ming
In an earlier post #8 I expressed the opinion that the struggle in Iran was between two competing Mulla factions (as you gentlemen have) and that the women and young people on the street were being manipulated by the so-called "reformist" faction for their own ends. I commented that my (remote) hope was this strategy would backfire and the people on the street would prevail, but that Obama was correct to keep out of it. Mr. Hoop, the self-appointed keeper of conservative orthodoxy, called me a directionless liberal. In response, I asked him if he supported the Mullahs to which he responded by calling me an anarchist and Wall Street shill. So I again asked him if he supported the Mullahs? No big thing.
Mr. Higdon/Mr.Ming
I meant comment number 4
My apologies