| |
Iran and the forgotten
anniversary
By Arnold Oliver
(Posted with permission from Foreign
Policy in Focus)
The talk of regime
change in Iran that now fills the air in Washington is
not new. Although very few Americans are aware of it,
August of this year marked the 50th anniversary of a
vital, yet little-known chapter in American foreign
policy - a military coup against the elected leaders of
Iran orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA).
Before hostilities with Iran once again
expand past the point of no return, we really ought to
have the kind of informed, reasoned national debate that
was so notably absent prior to the invasion of Iraq. In
order to begin to do that, we will have to review the
momentous events of 1953, and some of their far-reaching
consequences.
For several years after World War
II, the US had a positive image with many Iranians.
After helping to convince occupying Soviet forces to
leave the country, and attempting to mediate an
agreement between Iran and Great Britain, the American
government was generally well regarded. But these good
relations were not to last.
During the summer of
1953 - in an eerie parallel to today's events - a major
crisis developed between Tehran and Washington. At that
time Iran was an emerging democracy with elected
leaders. Led by the popular premier Mohammad Mossadeq,
it was embroiled in a conflict with the British over
oil. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was owned by British
interests and supported by the British government. In a
grossly unequal colonial-style arrangement, the Iranians
were not even allowed to examine the ledgers.
As
the dispute with the British intensified, the Iranians
finally became determined to nationalize their country's
oil industry. The British responded by freezing Iranian
assets, imposing a worldwide embargo on Iran's oil, and
pulling their technicians out of the country. Oil output
slowed to a trickle, Iran's economy went into a
tailspin, and unrest grew. Britain's destabilization
efforts were working.
Although the Truman
government had been sympathetic to Iran, in 1953 the new
Eisenhower administration accepted the British view that
the Iranian regime had to go. On July 11, Dwight D
Eisenhower secretly signed an order to overthrow Iran's
young democracy. The die was cast.
On August 19,
the US-orchestrated military coup emerged triumphant,
and the exiled monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was
installed on the Peacock Throne. A secret history of
this CIA operation, written in 1954 by agent and
participant Donald Wilber and leaked to the press a few
years ago, leaves no doubt as to the central role played
by the US.
Had the Shah been a benevolent ruler,
the image of the US in Iran might not have become so
tarnished, but benevolent he was not. And to make
matters worse - much worse - American and Israeli
intelligence agents organized SAVAK, the Shah's personal
secret security force. Before long, Iran developed into
a full-blown police state, complete with thousands of
informers, censorship, arbitrary arrest and
imprisonment, and widespread torture and assassination.
Of course, none of this was a secret to the Shah's many
US advisers.
According to the Harvard Human
Rights Journal, many of SAVAK's 15,000 full-time agents
were "trained in the United States and Israel where they
learned 'scientific' methods to prevent unwanted deaths
from 'brute force'." Electrified chairs fitted with
metal masks were used "to muffle screams while
amplifying them for the victim". Another historian
called the Shah's methods of torture "horrendous", and
"equal to the worst ever devised".
Aiming to
terrorize an entire population, SAVAK repression was
both extreme and widespread. Few Iranian families were
spared, and among the victims were family members of the
Shi'ite clerics who would later overthrow the Shah's
regime in 1979, and spark the seizure and hostage-taking
crisis at the US embassy.
An honest assessment
of these events would lead to an understanding of why
the US government is loathed by so many Iranians. They
are fully aware of American complicity with the Shah's
25-year reign of terror. The pundits who are now
predicting that the Iranian people will welcome
"liberation" by American arms (many of them said the
same thing about Iraq) could hardly be more in error.
Iran has already suffered one horrific "regime
change" at the hands of the West. Far from being
threatened with another one, its people are morally and
legally entitled to compensation as well as a formal
apology. The US trade embargo against Iran should be
lifted as well. The issue of weapons of mass destruction
can only be resolved in the context of recognizing that
Iran has legitimate, real and rational security
concerns.
For its part, Iran also needs to make
changes. Its government must show far more respect for
the rights of dissidents and demonstrators. All
political prisoners should be released. The internal
security agents who recently murdered Canadian
journalist Zahra Kazemi must face justice.
A
judicious mix of honest atonement by both sides, along
with other confidence-building measures, can lay the
foundation for a new and mutually beneficial
relationship between the two countries.
But above
all, Americans need to acknowledge that the overthrow of
the Iranian government in 1953 was a dark chapter in the
history of the US, and we must resolve that it not be
repeated.
Arnold Oliver (soliver@heidelberg.edu) teaches
political science at Heidelberg College in Ohio, and is
the director of the college's international studies
program. A Vietnam veteran, he has written extensively
on American foreign policy. He wrote this for Foreign
Policy in Focus.
(Posted with permission
from Foreign Policy in Focus)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
