America’s
Interventionist Middle East Policy Started 66 Years Ago
As the late-summer date of
August 20th passes stateside, very few Americans will recognize the significance
of it in our nation’s history. It marks the 66th anniversary of a sinister turn
in the history of American foreign policy, and while neocons and hawks of all
sorts will tell you history started on September 12th, 2001, a quick visit to
the Tehran Times will remind you this
is not the case.
In 1953 following a request
for assistance by Great Britain, and enthusiastic support from Ike Eisenhower,
the United States overthrew the democratically-elected leader of Iran, Mohammed
Mosaddegh, in what was the first major coup d’état the United States would
carry out since the end of World War II.
Dubbed Operation Ajax, it
would set the stage for future decades of America’s sandpaper relations with
the greater Middle East.
Dust and echoes
In cutting Britain out of
the Iranian oil market, Mohammad Mosaddegh made not one but two terrible
enemies as the British asked the Americans for help in reclaiming the oil
supply. August 19th comes around and out goes Mosaddegh, his heinous crime
being that he thought Persians should be able to elect whom they wish, and
decide what happens with the resources extracted within their own borders.
Installed in his place, the
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and General Fazlollah Zahedi – members of a
monarchical ruling class directed their efforts into the business of
oppressing, torturing, killing, and turning what was becoming a prosperous and the democratic country into a tyrannical Bronze Age satrapy.
Two decades later the
Islamic revolution sends the shah and his secret police force packing,
establishing what is now the Islamic Republic of Iran. Incensed by the attack
on American interests, the United States brokers an agreement with neighboring
Iraq to invade and repress the popular uprising, setting off the Iran-Iraq War,
a horrible conflict that’s been likened to World War I because of the
large-scale trench warfare, chemical weapons, bayonet charges, and massive
casualty figures, which much like the first World War, all amounted to a
steaming pile of nothing in terms of achieved geopolitical objectives.
Iraq started the war on the
offensive, attempting to take advantage of the chaos following the Islamic
revolution. Saddam Hussein, America’s ally at the time also had the logistical
support of the Gulf States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France, while Iran
stood alone.
The root of the problem
Ever since the Islamic
Republic of Iran stood up against the American-backed dictator, the goal of
every presidential administration to take of residence in the White House has
been vengeance. Nothing as of yet has stood in America’s way of a Mongol-like
destruction of the Shiite Middle East beyond the weapons of Persia herself. Not
even our former ally Saddam Hussein was spared from the directive to place the
Islamic Republic under the highest degree of geopolitical, military, and
economic pressure.
No matter how many times
Saddam assured the west that the only WMDs under his belt were the
decommissioned chemical weapons which NATO countries had given him to use
against the Iranians, he and his Baathist regime would have to go. And thus the
United States wrongly invaded Iraq, wherein about four and a half thousand
Americans died.
Throughout the 21st century
the names of the countries have changed but the victims are always those among
her neighbors who Iran might look to for help. Meanwhile, the Sunni states all
around her pledge in unity to fight the Iranians until the last American, as Obama’s
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates famously told the French foreign minister in
2010.
Operation Ajax’s legacy
As Iranian Foreign
Minister, Mohammad Javad Zariff tweeted today: "66 years ago today, a coup
instigated by the US and the UK overthrew the democratically-elected Government
of Iran. This atrocity followed years of ‘maximum pressure’ on Iranians".
The maximum pressure levied
now against the Iranians is breathtaking in scope. Upon the denizens of this
ancient land the United States has placed crippling economic sanctions; upon
her borders, an armada of military bases; upon her shores, the crosshairs of
the most powerful navy in the world; and upon her neighbors, utter devastation.
President Barack
Obama saw a need to "knock Iran
down a peg," with a regime-change war containing all sorts of despicable
behavior, such as arming "moderate
rebels" like Jabot al-Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, and using the
armed-forces of the United States to bomb sovereign Syrian military targets
under the justification of preventing future chemical weapon attacks which have
now been widely reported to have been
conducted by non-governmental forces.
Not to be outdone,
President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear treaty, as Javad Zariff
claimed, "without even reading it," instated further sanctions, and
has managed with the help of Iran’s eternal antagonist John Bolton, to press
America as close to the brink of a war with Iran as we’ve yet seen.
Americans must remember
August 20th, 1953 as the day when America dipped her toes into the water (or
sand) and thought it good. President Eisenhower thought it was a great way to
affect positive change in the world that didn’t involve land invasions. Ike is
not unique in holding that perspective, since many presidents have felt the
same way about coups, and have since enjoyed playing the coup card in countries
like Nicaragua, Guatemala, Libya, Egypt, and most recently Venezuela.
The overthrowing of
Mosaddegh was a major step on America’s dangerous path to premier imperial
world superpower in the sense that it reminded her that she could get away with
murder and political terrorism, and demonstrated how greatly she could affect
the world without bothering the American people over the details.
The collapse of our towers
on September 11th was one large entry in a long-running history of western
interference in the lands of Islam, and if any more oil tankers get attacked in
the Strait of Hormuz, it’s worth remembering that it was not Persia who cast
the first stone.
Andrew Corbley is founder
and editor of World at Large, an independent news
outlet. He is a loyal listener of Antiwar radio and of the Scott Horton Show.
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