Harry Targ : The CIA's Iranian Coup and 60 Years of 'Blowback'

Supporters of Mohammed Mossadegh demonstrate in Tehran, July 1953. Placard depicts an Iranian fighting off Uncle Sam and John Bull. Image from The Spectator.

The overthrow of Mossadegh:
Sixty years of Iranian 'blowback'

The overthrow of Mossadegh and the backing of the return of the Shah to full control of the regime led to U.S. support for one of the world’s most repressive and militarized regimes.

By Harry Targ /The Rag Blog / August 21, 2013

Chalmers Johnson wrote in The Nation in October 2001, that "blowback"

is a CIA term first used in March 1954 in a recently declassified report on the 1953 operation to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. It is a metaphor for the unintended consequences of the U.S. government's international activities that have been kept secret from the American people. The CIA's fears that there might ultimately be some blowback from its egregious interference in the affairs of Iran were well founded... This misguided "covert operation" of the U.S. government helped convince many capable people throughout the Islamic world that the United States was an implacable enemy.

The CIA-initiated overthrow of the regime of Mohammed Mossadegh 60 years ago on August 19, 1953, was precipitated by what Melvin Gurtov called “the politics of oil and cold war together.” Because it was the leading oil producer in the Middle East and the fourth largest in the world and was geographically close to the former Soviet Union, President Eisenhower was prevailed upon to launch the covert CIA war on Iran long encouraged by Great Britain.

The immediate background for the ouster of Mossadegh was Iran’s nationalization of its oil production. Most Iranians were living in poverty in the 1940s as the Iranian government received only 10 percent of the royalties on its oil sales on the world market. The discrepancy between Iran’s large production of oil and the limited return it received led Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a liberal nationalist, to call for the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951.

Despite opposition from Iran’s small ruling class, the parliament and masses of the Iranian people endorsed the plan to seize control of its oil. Mossadegh became the symbol of Iranian sovereignty.

Ironically, Mossadegh assumed the United States would support Iran’s move toward economic autonomy. But in Washington the Iranian leader was viewed as a demagogue, his emerging rival the Shah of Iran (the sitting monarch of Iran) as “more moderate.”

After the nationalization, the British, supported by the United States, boycotted oil produced by the Iranian Oil Company. The British lobbied Washington to launch a military intervention but the Truman administration feared such an action would work to the advantage of the Iranian Communists, the Tudeh Party.

The boycott led to economic strains in Iran, and Mossadegh compensated for the loss of revenue by increasing taxes on the rich. This generated growing opposition from the tiny ruling class, and they encouraged political instability. In 1953, to rally his people, Mossadegh carried out a plebiscite, a vote on his policies. The Iranian people overwhelmingly endorsed the nationalization of Iranian oil. In addition, Mossadegh initiated efforts to mend political fences with the former Soviet Union and the Tudeh Party.

As a result of the plebiscite, and Mossadegh’s openings to the Left, the United States came around to the British view; Mossadegh had to go. As one U.S. defense department official put it:

When the crisis came on and the thing was about to collapse, we violated our normal criteria and among other things we did, we provided the army immediately on an emergency basis... The guns that they had in their hands, the trucks that they rode in, the armored cars that they drove through the streets, and the radio communications that permitted their control, were all furnished through the military defense assistance program... Had it not been for this program, a government unfriendly to the United States probably would now be in power. (Richard Barnet, Intervention and Revolution, 1972)

The Shah, who had fled Iran after the plebiscite, returned when Mossadegh was ousted. A new prime minister was appointed by him who committed Iran to the defense of the “free” world. U.S. military and economic aid was resumed, and Iran joined the CENTO alliance (an alliance of pro-West regional states).

In August 1954, a new oil consortium was established. Five U.S. oil companies gained control of 40 percent of Iranian oil, equal to that of returning British firms. Iran compensated the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company for its losses by paying $70 million, which Iran received as aid from the United States. The Iranian ruling class was accorded 50 percent of profits from future oil sales.

President Eisenhower declared that the events of 1953 and 1954 were ushering in a new era of “economic progress and stability” in Iran and that it was now to be an independent country in “the family of free nations.”

In brief, the United States overthrew a popularly-elected and overwhelmingly-endorsed regime in Iran. The payoff the United States received, with British acquiescence, was a dramatic increase in access by U.S. oil companies to Iranian oil at the expense of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

The overthrow of Mossadegh and the backing of the return of the Shah to full control of the regime led to U.S. support for one of the world’s most repressive and militarized regimes. By the 1970s, 70,000 of the Shah’s opponents were in political prisons. Workers and religious activists rose up against the Shah in 1979, leading to the rapid revolutionary overthrow of his military state.

As Chalmers Johnson suggested many years later, the United States' role in the world is still plagued by “blowback.” Masses of people all across the globe, particularly in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and East Asia, regard the United States as the major threat to their economic and political independence. And the covert operation against Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran is one place where such global mistrust began.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University and is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. He lives in West Lafayette, Indiana, and blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : Iran and the Coup of Coups

Abrahamian's 'The Coup':
Shah of Shahs on the Peacock Throne

As Abrahamian tells the reader, in the eyes of London and DC, there was no room for genuine negotiations in their dealings with the Mossadegh government. The struggle was about control of Iran’s resources and regional geopolitical power.

By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog / February 20, 2013

[The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations by Ervand Abrahamian (2013: The New Press); Hardcover; 304 pp; $26.95.]

If there is one nation whose political situation has been omnipresent and important to the history of the past 75 years, it would be Iran. Much to the dismay of those imperial powers that have tried to subdue and manipulate them, Iran’s people have refused to go along.

Islamic revolutionaries or leftist revolutionaries, military men and civilians, it doesn’t matter. The imposition of foreign restrictions and regimes have consistently failed to withstand the desire of the Iranians to be free of foreign domination. Britain, Russia, and the United States; all have tried and all have failed to make Iran do their bidding for more than a generation. None have tried harder than the United States, which took over from Great Britain after World War II.

What ranks as the most flagrant attempt to impose Washington’s will on the people of Iran has to be the 1953 coup engineered by Kermit Roosevelt and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This coup, which overthrew the elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, continues to define the relationship between Washington and Tehran. Furthermore, it ranks as one of the twentieth century’s top examples of colonialist arrogance underpinned by dismissive racism and outright contempt for the subject people and their will.

Until recently the story of that chapter of history was told in the West by those who traditionally frame history -- the victors. In other words, the history of the 1953 U.S. coup in Iran was told by the CIA and its media supplicants. Like with most other tales told by these elements, the overthrown government was characterized as dictatorial, unpopular, communistic, and even fanatic. Therefore, goes the narrative, the CIA did the Iranian people a favor, just like they did in Guatemala around the same time.

In the year 2000, The New York Times published a series of articles based on classified documents detailing the workings of that coup. After receiving heavily redacted files which were written as a summary of the coup by a CIA operator, the Times re-summarized the material.

Even though a good deal of information was missing, and the Times itself had cheered the coup when it occurred, this series began to provide Western readers with a glimpse at exactly how intimately involved Washington was in the overthrow of the Mossadegh government. Furthermore, the Times report indicated that a primary reason for the coup was control of Iran’s fossil fuels, not any threat of communism (as had been previously reported) and not because Mossadegh was a fanatic dictator.

Still, there were several aspects of the story that were missing. Some of these were filled in with the publication of Kermit Roosevelt’s self-glorifying history of the coup titled Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran. Most however, were not, largely because Roosevelt remained convinced that the coup he engineered was the right thing to do for Iran and the world at large. Therefore, he ignored remarks and findings that claimed something else.

A new book changes all that. Titled The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations, the book is authored by the Iranian scholar Ervand Abrahamian. A learned historian, his 2008 book A History of Modern Iran provides a reappraisal of modern Iranian history unfamiliar to most U.S. readers. The Coup does that and more.

Indeed, it takes the familiar history -- a history that is primarily lies -- and debunks almost every bit of it. Mossadegh was not a communist; the Tudeh (Iranian Communist party) did not control the government and did not intend to overthrow Mossadegh; the Islamists under Imam Khatani did get bought off by the CIA; and the coup was not only cheered, but supported by a comprador class of Iranians concerned primarily with their wealth and not with the nation or the Iranian people.

As Abrahamian tells the reader, in the eyes of London and DC, there was no room for genuine negotiations in their dealings with the Mossadegh government. The struggle was about control of Iran’s resources and regional geopolitical power. Reading this argument, I was reminded of the lack of compromise from Washington and London prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. If one recalls, no matter what they said publicly, Bush and Blair were not interested in making a deal with Iraq; their governments wanted complete control.

Abrahamian also dispels the myth that the crisis and eventual coup were the fault of the Iranians, a premise put forth by observers as venerated as Daniel Yergin, the author of the classic work on oil politics of the mid-twentieth century, The Prize. Instead, through his reading of recently discovered documents and his own insights, Abrhamian makes it clear the crisis was engineered and brought to its fruition by Washington, DC.

While reading the last section of this book describing the procedure leading up to the actual coup, the reader might well be struck by how little has really changed when it comes to the West’s dealings with Iran. In fact, when reading about the British-backed and enforced oil embargo against Iran after the Iranians nationalized the industry, one cannot help but compare that historic attempt to destroy Iran’s economy to the current embargo led by Washington.

Abrahamian describes sanctions, ultimatums presented as negotiations, lies about the Iranian leadership, and CIA subterfuge. It is almost like reading today's New York Times and its coverage of U.S.-led operations against the current Iranian government. Not only is this book important because of its presentation of history. It is also important because it might be predicting the future.

[Rag Blog contributor Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. He recently released a collection of essays and musings titled Tripping Through the American Night. His latest novel, The Co-Conspirator's Tale, is published by Fomite. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. Ron Jacobs can be reached at ronj1955@gmail.com. Find more articles by Ron Jacobs on The Rag Blog.]

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Danny Schechter : Is Iran Shifting its Message?

Diplomacy, Murdoch style. Image from Twitchy Media.
Is Iran trying to tell us
something we won’t hear?

The rhetoric of the well-orchestrated anti-Iranian crowds outside was even bloodier than the Iranians had ever been...

By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog / October 2, 2012

NEW YORK CITY -- Sometimes major media are the last to recognize shifts in policy positions. Iran is a case in point.

In the lead up to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s annual speech to the General Assembly, the American TV stations were preparing their audiences for another provocative Israel-hating rant.
Brace yourself, we were told; it is his last appearance in office so he would go off and all out in denouncing Israel and the world’s Jews.

Secretary General Moon cautioned him publicly to restrain his rhetoric even as right wing media outlets like Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, that has never seen a far right wing Zionist cause it hasn’t embraced, went into full deionization mode with a front cover featuring his picture and the words, “Peace of Sh!t.” (It was reminiscent of the Saddam baiting in U.S. media in the run-up to the Iraq War.)

The rhetoric of the well-orchestrated anti-Iranian crowds outside was even bloodier than the Iranians had ever been, with former Republican speaker of the House and GOP presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich calling for immediate U.S. airstrikes. Gingrich sounded like his main financial backer, right-wing casino mogul and supporter of Israeli settlers, Shedon Adelson, who poured millions into his failed campaign before shifting his resources to Mitt Romney.

But, surprise, surprise, the Iranians shifted tack, and offered a subdued and non-inflammatory, even analytical, speech indicting big power pressure and capitalism but with no quotable excesses. Its tone may have reflected the fact that Iran is now leading the Non-Aligned Movement.

What is going on? The latest Iran Review, a respected policy journal, carries an article calling for dialogue with The U.S., not more diatribes. The magazine describes itself this way:

Iran Review is the leading independent, non-governmental and non-partisan website -- organization representing scientific and professional approaches towards Iran’s political, economic, social, religious, and cultural affairs, its foreign policy, and regional and international issues within the framework of analysis and articles.

On Monday, just as UN week was beginning, Nasser Saghafi-Ameri wrote:

After talking to several top diplomats and international security experts from different countries in a couple of meetings that I attended during the past two weeks, I am now more convinced than ever that the normalization of relations between Iran and the U.S. should be a top priority of the leaders of both countries if they wish to avert a military clash that could easily turn into a regional or international conflagration. These direct and comprehensive talks could also set a better understanding between them to work more effectively in bringing peace and stability in the crisis ridden region of the Middle East.

Focusing only on Iran's nuclear program as premise for confrontation with this country has practically deprived the U.S. to seek Iran's much prized assistance on some critical issues that both countries have shared interest such as the stability in the post-occupation Iraq and Afghanistan, peace and stability in the wider Middle East region following the Arab Spring’s upheavals, and preference for a "soft landing" of revolutionary fervors in the region and especially if it spreads to Saudi Arabia with all consequential effects including on the world oil markets.

Note, also, that the new Egyptian President Morsi suggested that Iran could play a valuable role in dampening tensions with Syria. When Kofi Annan, suggested something similar, the idea was rejected by the United States and he later stepped down as a mediator.

I was recently at a TV appearance by a negotiations expert on Saudia Arabian TV. He told me that he is involved in two back-channel negotiations on the issue. Iranian nuclear experts are also offering compromise proposals reported by IPS journalist Gareth Porter but not yet any major media outlets:

Iran has again offered to halt its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, which the United States has identified as its highest priority in the nuclear talks, in return for easing sanctions against Iran, according to Iran's permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, who has conducted Iran's negotiations with the IAEA in Tehran and Vienna, revealed in an interview with IPS that Iran had made the offer at the meeting between EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton and Iran's leading nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Istanbul Sept. 19.

And so, there are clearly initiatives underway to build bridges, but so far, media outlets, eager to fan the flames of confrontation and polarization, have ignored them. Is it ignorance or something worse?

[News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs at Newsdissector.net. His latest books are Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street and Blogothon (Cosimo Books). He hosts News Dissector Radio on PRN.fm. Email Danny at dissector@mediachannel.org. Read more articles by Danny Schechter on The Rag Blog.]

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Danny Schechter : When is a Terrorist No Longer a Terrorist?

Mujahedin-e-Khalq. Image from Institute for the Study of Violent Groups.
Strange story of the Mujahedine-Khalq:
When is a terrorist no longer a terrorist?

The 'bad guys' became 'good guys' with the swipe of a pen.

By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog / September 25, 2012

Question: When is a terrorist a terrorist?

Answer: When the U.S. government says so.

When the mujahideen in Afghanistan were assassinating members of their government and the Russian troops dispatched to support it, they were, in Washington’s view, freedom fighters, even as their enemies branded them terrorists.

When they turned against an Afghan government imposed by the United States or revolted against a U.S. invasion, they were once again branded terrorists.

When armed groups battling Gadaffy’s govermment were supported by NATO, they were called freedom fighters. When some recently and allegedly turned violently against the United States, which is now dominating Libyan politics, they are once again castigated as terrorists.

And now, the United States Government, through a decision by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has decided that the Iranian group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, that has been on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list for years, should been taken off the list.

That means they will no longer face financial and legal sanctions.

One day they were feared terrorists, the next day they are not. The “bad guys” became “good guys” with the swipe of a pen.

The New York Times says this feat was accomplished through what it describes as an “extraordinary” lobbying effort costing millions over many years.

Reports the Times:

The group, known as the M.E.K., carried out terrorist attacks in the 1970s and 1980s, first against the government of the Shah of Iran and later against the clerical rulers who overthrew him. Several Americans were among those killed. In the 1980s, it allied with Saddam Hussein, who permitted it to operate from Camp Ashraf.

But by most accounts, the M.E.K. has not carried out violent attacks for many years. While it is described by some critics as cult-like and unpopular with Iranians both inside and outside the country, the group has been able to gather large crowds at rallies in the United States and Europe to press its bid to reverse the United States’ terrorist designation, imposed in 1997.

The decision comes just before an October 1 cut off date ordered by a Federal appeals court.

US News explains:

As recently as 2007, a State Department report warned that the M.E.K., retains "the capacity and will" to attack "Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond."

The M.E.K., which calls for an overthrow of the Iranian government and is considered by many Iranians to be a cult, once fought for Saddam Hussein and in the 1970s was responsible for bombings, attempted plane hijackings, and political assassinations. It was listed as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.

If the State Department does decide to delist M.E.K., whose name means "People's Holy Warriors of Iran," it will be with the blessing of dozens of congressmen.

No less than 99 members of Congress -- Democrats and Republican alike -- signed to a Congressional resolution to take the “holy warriors” off the list.

Just last week at a rally in Paris, none other than former House speaker and hyper-conservative Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, now scurrying to pay off his campaign debts, was caught on camera bowing to the French-based movement’s leader Maryam Rajavi.

Top lobbying firms have been paid high fees for rounding up support for M.E.K.

Accprdomg to US News:

Victoria Toensing of DiGenova Toensing, a lobbying shop famous for its involvement in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, was paid $110,000 in 2011 to lobby for the resolution. The firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld dedicated five lobbyists to getting signatures for the resolution, and was paid $100,000 in 2012 and $290,000 in 2011 to do so. Paul Marcone and Association similarly lobbied for the resolution, and received $5,000 in 2010 and $5,000 in 2011 for its efforts.

Glenn Greenwald has reported at Salon.com ,

That close association on the part of numerous Washington officials with a Terrorist organization has led to a formal federal investigation of those officials… paid MEK shill Howard Dean (a former Democratic liberal presidential candidate) actually called on its leader to be recognized as President of Iran while paid MEK shill Rudy Giuliani has continuously hailed the group’s benevolence.

The ProPublica not-for-profit media organization has also revealed that a very prominent liberal journalist known for his Watergate reporting was paid to speak up for M.E.K.

On a Saturday afternoon last February, journalist Carl Bernstein got up on stage at the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan and delivered a speech questioning the listing of an obscure Iranian group called the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) on the U.S. government list of officially-designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The speech, before a crowd an organizer put at 1,500, made Bernstein one of the few journalists who has appeared at events in a years-long campaign by MEK supporters to free the group from the official terrorist label and the legal sanctions that come with it. He told ProPublica that he was paid $12,000 for the appearance but that, “I was not there as an advocate.”

Bernstein told the crowd that, “I come here as an advocate of the best obtainable version of the truth” and as “someone who believes in basic human rights and their inalienable status.” He also challenged the State Department, saying that if the agency “has evidence that the MEK is a terrorist organization, have a show-cause hearing in court, let them prove it.”

Listening to the talk was a bipartisan group of prominent pols including ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former congressman Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

This is a lineup that is hard to rent, much less buy, but M.E.K and its well-connected lobbyists have shown how money makes things happen in Washington.

It shows how porous the terrorism issue is, how subject it is to changes in political fashions, how little the media knows or remembers, and how open it is to being influenced by insiders, especially when there’s money to be paid for a few hours work.

It also shows the politics of provocation in action, part of a larger strategy of escalating tensions. The tactics range from sending a naval armada to menace Iran, perhaps in hopes of staging a contemporary “Tonkin Gulf” incident in which any Iranian defensive maneuver -- or attack by “militants” -- could be projected as an act of aggression justifying air strikes and drone attacks.

Even the decision to refuse visas to Iranians coming to a UN meeting seems part of the same strategy designed to show critics in Israel, and Republicans, that the U.S. is ready to get tough.

The delisting of an Iranian terror group fits right into an approach that could lead to an “October Surprise” designed to get voters to rally behind the flag and their Commander-in-Chief.

[News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs at Newsdissector.net. His latest books are Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street and Blogothon (Cosimo Books). He hosts News Dissector Radio on PRN.fm. Part of this piece appeared on PressTV.com. Email Danny at dissector@mediachannel.org. Read more articles by Danny Schechter on The Rag Blog.]

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Jack A. Smith : What's Really Happening in Syria?

Free Syrian Army fighter near Idlib, Syria. Photo by Khalil Hamra / AP.
What's really happening in Syria?

The principal Obama Administration target in this complex affair is Iran, not Syria. The Syrian government must fall because it is Iran's main Arab ally.

By Jack A. Smith / The Rag Blog / July 26, 2012

After several months of talking diplomacy while simultaneously strengthening rebel forces in Syria and demonizing the Damascus government, the Obama Administration has openly decided to go for the kill. Violent regime change will not happen immediately, but it is obviously President Obama's goal.

The White House is now "redoubling efforts to rally a coalition of like-minded countries to forcibly bring down the government of President Assad al-Assad," The New York Times reported July 21. "Administration officials have been in talks with officials in Turkey and Israel over how to manage a Syrian government collapse."

McClatchy Newspapers stated July 23 that,

Despite reports last week that suggested rebel forces were on the verge of major triumphs in Syria, the last few days of fighting there show that a long battle still looms. Forces loyal to Assad in recent days have tightened their grip on the Lebanese border, re-established control over at least one neighborhood in Damascus and perhaps reached an accommodation with the country’s Kurds that will free up more troops for battle.

According to the U.S. and its NATO allies, the Damascus regime is engaging in a one-sided, murderous war against its own people, who simply seek democracy. At the same time, the Tehran government is characterized as a "terrorist" regime intent upon building and using nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel and rule the Middle East. The U.S. news media, as expected, propagates without question Washington's campaign against Syria and Iran.

The United States suggests that its principal reason for seeking regime change in Syria is to promote "democracy" -- a tarnished rationale often employed in recent decades to undermine or destroy governments that displease the U.S. superpower, such as in Iran in the 1950s, the Dominican Republic in the 1960s, Chile in the 1970s, Nicaragua in the 1980s, Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Iraq in the 2000s, and Libya in the 2010s, among other instances.

Democracy has nothing to do with Washington's objectives in Syria. America's closest regional ally in the anti-Assad endeavor is the repressive anti-democratic monarchy of Saudi Arabia, which finances and arms the rebel opposition in Syria along with resource-rich Qatar. Both Arab countries played a similar role last year in the U.S./NATO overthrow of the Gaddafi government in Libya.

Having learned a bitter lesson after agreeing to support a no-fly zone in Libya -- and seeing that mandate illegally expanded by U.S.-NATO forces in order to wage a vicious war for regime change -- both Russia and China have three times exercised their right to veto U.S. measures in the UN to escalate the conflict in Syria. The Security Council approved a 30-day extension of the UN monitor mission July 20, but Susan Rice, Washington's ambassador to the world body, implied it may be the last continuation.

Both Moscow and Beijing seek to bring about a negotiated solution to the crisis based on a cease-fire, talks and reforms. According to Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, "the only way to put an end to this tragic conflict is to get to the negotiating table." The Syrian government agrees, but the opposition forces -- aware that Washington and its allies seek a swift regime change -- reject negotiations.

Churkin warns:

Don’t be duped by humanitarian rhetoric. There is much more geopolitics in their [U.S.] policy in Syria than humanism... Our concern is that the Syrian people have to suffer the consequences of this geopolitical struggle.

There are two principal and interlocking reasons the U.S. and its NATO and Mideast coalition allies are conspiring to oust the Assad government.

The first is to secure Washington's geopolitical position in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), particularly as President Obama prepares to focus additional military and economic resources on East Asia to contain the rise of China, and on Eurasia reduce Russian influence.

British news analyst Patrick Seale, whom we consider an objective source, wrote July 19:

The keys to the Syrian crisis lie outside Syria. Indeed, the Syrian crisis cannot be separated from the massive pressures being put on Iran. President Obama is now fully mobilized against both regimes. He seems to have given up trying to secure a win-win deal with Iran over its nuclear program, and he is sabotaging Kofi Annan’s Syrian peace plan by conniving in the arming of the rebels. He seems to want to bring down the regimes in both Tehran and Damascus -- either because he sees Iran as a rival in the Gulf region or to win the favors of Israel’s American supporters in an election year.

According to a July 10 report from Stratfor, the non-government commercial intelligence organization close to certain U.S. spy sources:

Human rights interests alone do not come close to explaining why this particular uprising has received a substantial amount of attention and foreign backing over the past year. The past decade enabled Iran to wrest Baghdad out of Sunni hands and bring Mesopotamia under Shi'ite control. There is little question now that Iraq, as fractured as it is, sits in the Iranian sphere of influence while Iraqi Sunnis have been pushed to the margins. Iran's gains in Baghdad shifted the regional balance of power.

The second reason is to enhance the power of Sunni Islam in MENA and limit the possibility of a larger regional role by the Shia Muslim minority.

There are about 2 billion Muslims in the world today. Statistics vary somewhat, but about 87% are said to be Sunnis, and the remainder are Shia -- a minority that has suffered discrimination from the majority. Iran has the largest Shia population in the world -- up to 95% of its 75 million people. Iraq has the second largest Shia population -- over 60% of its 30 million people.

About 87% of the 26 million Syrians are Muslims -- 74% of these Sunni and 13% Shia -- but members of the Shi'ite Alawite sect, led by the Assad family that dominates Syria's Ba'athist regime, have essentially controlled the country for over 40 years.

The principal Obama Administration target in this complex affair is Iran, not Syria. The Syrian government must fall because it is Iran's main Arab ally (as it also is Russia's, a not insignificant factor). Washington has been intent upon gravely wounding Iran after the Iraq war blew up in its face, resulting in the Shia assumption of power in Baghdad.

Until the 2003 U.S. overthrow of the secular Ba'athist regime in Baghdad led by President Saddam Hussein, Iraq's 30% Sunni minority historically dominated the state. Sunni Iraq was in fact Iran's biggest enemy. President Hussein launched a mutually devastating, unnecessary eight-year war against Iran in 1990 with tacit U.S. support. Now, while not yet an official ally, Baghdad is friendly to Tehran.

President Obama labored long to compel Shia President Nouri al-Maliki to allow tens of thousands of U.S. troops and government "advisers" to remain in Iraq after the bulk of forces were to withdraw at the end of 2011. One purpose was to monitor and reduce future Iranian influence. But the Iraqi leader ultimately refused at the last moment -- a huge setback for the administration, though Washington no doubt is continuing its efforts to manipulate Baghdad covertly while crushing Iran's ally in Damascus.

The U.S. now views Iraq as positioned within neighboring Iran's sphere of influence, a significant shift in the regional balance of power. This can only be perceived as a serious danger to American hegemony throughout the region and particularly the Persian Gulf/Arabian Peninsula, from whence much of the world's petroleum issues. Washington's greatest fear is that Iran and Iraq -- two of the world's principal oil producers -- might develop a genuine alliance.

This is a chief reason why the Obama government has contrived pretexts to impose heavy sanctions and threaten military action against the Tehran government. This also explains why ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia so enthusiastically backs sanctions and threats against Iran and is investing heavily in overthrowing Assad. The Saudi royal family, devotees of a fundamentalist brand of Sunni religion, wants to expunge Shia influence throughout the region, as well as keep its own discriminated-against 15% Shi'ite minority under tight control.

One payback for the Saudis is Washington's indifference to the cruelty toward the Shi'ite majority demanding a modicum of democracy in Bahrain, which is ruled by a dictatorial Sunni monarchy under the protection of Saudi Arabia.

Obama's immediate goal is to break up the developing relationship between three contiguous Shia-led countries -- Persian Iran and Arab Iraq and Syria -- covering some 1,600 miles from the Afghan border to the Mediterranean.

All other states in MENA circulate well within Washington's hegemonic orbit. The Arab Spring has not diminished U.S. hegemony in the region where regimes were overthrown -- Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen. Indeed, U.S./NATO control of Libya and now the Syrian situation appear to have enhanced Washington's regional power. Last week the Arab League, representing all the Arab states, proposed Assad should resign and that the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which leads the armed struggle, should form a transitional regime. Iraq dissented, declaring that it was for the Syrian people alone to decide his fate.

Most Arab countries, and non-Arab NATO member Turkey as well -- which flaunts the opportunity to flex its Sunni credentials as it strains to reassert its influence and even leadership in the Middle East -- are part of the regime change coalition. Turkey is playing a key role, providing a reliable rear area for the FSA and as a transmission point for arms bound for the opposition.

Even Israel shows public signs of getting directly involved in Assad's downfall. Last week right-wing Prime Minister Netanyahu told Fox News Israel "was ready to act" in Syria. Over the years, Tel-Aviv had been more than willing to tolerate the Assad government rather than a Sunni regime until the recent period when Tehran and Damascus began developing much closer ties.

Interestingly, Hamas -- the Islamic organization elected to govern the Palestinian territory of Gaza -- has recently announced its support for the Sunni rebels in Syria, after receiving decades of solidarity and support from the Assad government. Hamas is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood now leading Egypt which recently guaranteed it would maintain peace and commerce with Israel. Another branch of the Brotherhood is expected to acquire greater political power in Syria if regime change succeeds.

Syria is a strongly nationalist capitalist country which promoted pan-Arabism when it was in vogue in the 1960s. It has been ruled by the Ba'ath Party for over four decades. There are a number of other parties but they are subordinate to the Ba'athists. It is not a Western-type democracy and the government is repressive toward dissent. Further, Syria dealt harshly with peaceful demonstrators before the armed opposition was a major factor.

The Damascus government also has positive aspects. The Assad regime is secular in nature, is opposed to colonialism and imperialism, and does not bend the knee -- as so do many Arab governments these days -- to the U.S. The Assad government strongly opposed America's war in Iraq. It materially and politically backs the rights of the Palestinian people and the Shia Lebanese political party Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran.

In addition, the government appears to have the allegiance of a substantial proportion of the population, including the several minority sects -- Christians (10% of the population), Druze, Turkmen, Jews, Yazidis, and others. All seem to prefer a secular government to the possibility of a more religious Sunni state, perhaps led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The oppositional forces include various often contending civil and exile organizations and individuals associated with the Syrian National Council (SNC), the main opposition group, and the approximately 100 different armed urban guerrilla groups broadly identified with the Syrian Free Army.

Disunity characterizes the relations between many of these groups, virtually all of which are Sunni. Major rivalries have been reported between a number of military commanders, and sharp splits have taken place within the SNC and between leaders within Syria and influential exiles largely based in Turkey and Egypt. The U.S. has been working for months to identify and promote the leaders it wishes to put into power.

According to Middle East correspondent Pepe Escobar, writing July 24 in Asia Times,

There's no way to understand the Syrian dynamics without learning that most FSA commanders are not Syrians, but Iraqi Sunnis. The FSA could only capture the Abu Kamal border crossing between Syria and Iraq because the whole area is controlled by Sunni tribes viscerally antagonistic towards the al-Maliki government in Baghdad. The free flow of mujahedeen, hardcore jihadis and weapons between Iraq and Syria is now more than established... As it stands, the romanticized Syrian "rebels" plus the insurgents formerly known as terrorists cannot win against the Syria military -- not even with the Saudis and Qataris showering them with loads of cash and weapons.

Repeated reports from many sources indicate that contingents of fundamentalist jihadists have joined the anti-Assad campaign. Stratfor comments that "The Syrian rebellion contains a growing assortment of Sunni Islamists, Salafist jihadists, and transnational al Qaeda-style jihadists. Foreign fighters belonging to the latter two categories are believed to be making their way into Syria from Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq."

According to a report this week in the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, German intelligence estimates that "around 90" terror attacks that "can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups" were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July.

Despite such attacks, the Damascus government announced this week that it would not use its chemical weapons "against the Syrian people or civilians during this crisis, under any circumstances.” It did, however, suggest it might deploy such weapons against foreign military intervention.

In the U.S. most liberals and Democrats support Obama's Syrian adventure as well as Republicans, just as they approved of what little they knew of the White House involvement in the Libyan regime change. GOP candidate Mitt Romney and some Republican politicians demand "tougher action," but that's just for show.

Sectors of the U.S. left are split over America's role in Syria. Some groups support the uprising in the name of democracy, ignoring that Washington and the royal family in Riyadh will be the biggest winners. Those who identify with the anti-imperialist perspective strongly oppose U.S/Saudi involvement.

Our view is that it is the responsibility of the people of a country, such as Syria -- and not outside forces -- to determine the political character of their government, up to and including armed revolution.

And the anti-Assad international coalition is not just any "outside force." It takes orders from the United States -- the most powerful military state in the world responsible for violent aggression and millions of deaths in recent decades -- and is also backed by a couple of anti-democratic monarchies and NATO, including two of the region's former colonial overlords, France and Great Britain.

The extent of American involvement with the opposition was partially exposed by The New York Times July 21:

American diplomats are also meeting regularly with representatives of various Syrian opposition groups outside the country to help map out a possible post-Assad government. "Our focus with the opposition is on working with them so that they have a political transition in place to stand up a new Syria," Patrick Ventrell, a State Department spokesman, said last week.

As such, in our understanding, the principal aspect of the struggle for power in Syria is not popular forces fighting for democracy but an international coalition led by imperialism seeking to overthrow a government allied to Iran in order to serve Washington's geopolitical objectives and Saudi Arabia's sectarian goal of diminishing Shia influence in the region.

[Jack A. Smith was editor of the Guardian -- for decades the nation's preeminent leftist newsweekly -- that closed shop in 1992. Smith now edits the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter. Read more articles by Jack A. Smith on The Rag Blog.

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Harry Targ : U.S. Imperialism and Our 'Special Relationship' With Iran

An artist's take on U.S. imperialism. Cartoon from Iran Review.
Targets of U.S. imperialism
and the danger of war with Iran

Given the troubled history of U.S./Iranian relations spanning at least 60 years, the current threats of war expressed by both Israel and the United States are not surprising.

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / March 28, 2012

U.S. Imperialism in the beginning

Modern imperialism is intimately connected to the globalization of capitalism, the quest for enhanced military capabilities, geopolitical thinking, and ideologies of national and racial superiority.

The rise of the United States empire occurred as the industrial revolution spread to North America after the civil war. Farmers began to produce agricultural surpluses requiring overseas customers, factories were built to produce iron, steel, textiles, and food products, railroads were constructed to traverse the North American continent, and financiers created large banks, trusts, and holding companies to parley agricultural and manufacturing profits into huge concentrations of cash.

Perhaps the benchmark of the U.S. emergence as an imperial power was the Spanish/Cuban/American war. The U.S. established its hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, replacing the Spanish and challenging the British, and became an Asian power, crushing rebellion and planting its military in the Philippines. The empire has grown, despite resistance, to this day.

While U.S. expansion occurs wherever a vacuum of power exists, and an opportunity to formally or informally control a regime and/or territory, particular countries have had enduring salience for the U.S. Iran is such a country.


Scale of significance for U.S. imperialism

To help understand the attention U.S. policy-makers give some countries, it is possible to reflect on what is called here the Scale of Significance for U.S. Imperialism (SSUSI). The SSUSI has three interconnected dimensions that relate to the relative importance policymakers give to some countries compared to others.

First, as an original motivation for expansion, economic interests are primary. Historically, United States policy has been driven by the need to secure customers for U.S. products, outlets for manufacturing investment opportunities, opportunities for financial speculation, and vital natural resources.

Second, geopolitics and military hegemony matter. Empires require ready access to regions and trouble spots all around the world. When Teddy Roosevelt, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Vice President, and President of the United States, articulated the first warning of the need for global power he spoke of the development of a “two-ocean” navy.

The U.S., he said, must become an Atlantic and a Pacific power, thus prioritizing the projection of military power in the Western Hemisphere and Asia. If the achievement of global power was dependent upon resources drawn from everywhere, military and political hegemony in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and parts of Africa also required attention.

Third, as the imperial project grows, certain political regimes and cultures take on particular importance for policymakers and the American people. Foreign policy elites claim that the U.S. has a special responsibility for them. If these roles are rejected by the targeted country, the experience burns itself into the consciousness of the people.

For example, Cuba was seen by U.S. rulers as far back as Thomas Jefferson as soon to be part of the United States. Cuba’s rejection of this presumption of U.S. tutelage has been a scar on the U.S. sense of itself ever since the spread of revolutionary ferment on the island.


The danger of war with Iran today

Reflecting on the SSUSI adds to the discussion about current United States foreign policy toward Iran. The history of U.S./Iranian relations has been long and painful. Before the dramatic United States involvement in that country, Iran’s vital oil resource had been under control of the weakening British empire. In 1901 the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now British Petroleum) consolidated control of much of the production, refining, and export of Iranian oil. Local oligarchs received only 16 percent of the oil revenue from the global sale of the oil.

After World War II, with a young monarch Mohammad Reza Shah serving as the Iranian ruler and Iranian masses living in poverty, Iranian nationalists mobilized to seize control of their valuable resource. Upper class nationalist Mohammed Mossadegh became Prime Minister and asserted the power of the parliament over the monarchy. The parliament voted to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

The British government enlisted the United States in 1953 to overthrow the Mossadegh regime using covert operations directed by the CIA. After Mossadegh was imprisoned and the Shah given full power to impose his will on an angry population, a new oil consortium agreement was established in 1954 which allowed five U.S. oil companies to gain a 40 percent share of Iranian oil. Anglo-Iranian would retain another 40 percent, and the rest would be given to rich Iranians.

Over the years, the Shah’s regime became the bulwark of U.S. power in the increasingly vital Persian Gulf region. In the Nixon period, Iran was defined as a key “gendarme” state, which would serve as a surrogate western police power to oversee the region. Presumably Iran would protect the flow of Gulf oil to the United States, Europe, and Japan. By the 1970s, the Shah’s military was the fifth largest in the world.

To the great surprise of left critics of the Shah’s dictatorship, the CIA, and the Carter administration, the Shah’s regime began to crumble in the summer of 1978 as large strikes were organized by oil workers against the regime. In January, 1979 secretly organized massive street protests led by the religious community doomed the regime.

As Iranian soldiers refused to fire upon street demonstrators, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, urged the president to send troops to Iran to save the U.S. regional policeman, the Shah, from overthrow. That proposal was rejected by Carter.

After jockeying for power in the post-revolutionary period, religious leaders consolidated their power over the political system. To add embarrassment to loss of economic and geopolitical control over the vital Persian Gulf region, Iranian students took 52 U.S. diplomats and military attaches hostage and held them for 444 days.

In 1980 Carter authorized a military rescue effort that failed. The bungled military operation further damaged the image of infallibility that American foreign policy elites, and the public, held about the nation’s power and destiny.

In the 1980s, to challenge Iran’s potential for becoming the hegemonic power in the Gulf, the Reagan administration sided with Iraq in the brutal war between it and Iran. In 1988, shortly before the end of the Iraq/Iran war, U.S. planes shot down a civilian Iranian airliner killing 290 people aboard.

Subsequent to the ignoble history of U.S. support for the Shah’s dictatorship, militarization, the overthrow of Mossadegh, the embarrassment of the hostage taking, funding Iraq in the brutal Gulf war of the 1980s, the United States has maintained hostility to Iran despite occasional signals from the latter of a desire to establish better relations.

U.S. policy has included an economic embargo, efforts to create region-wide opposition to the regime, expressions of support for a large and justifiable internal movement for democracy and secularization in the country, and encouragement, more or less, for growing Israeli threats against Iran.

Given this troubled history of U.S./Iranian relations spanning at least 60 years, the current threats of war expressed by both Israel and the United States are not surprising.


Returning to SSUSI and Iranian relations

As an emerging global power, United States needs for natural resources, customers for consumer and military products, investment opportunities, and outlets for energy companies grew throughout the twentieth century. One of the significant historical junctures in the transfer of economic and geopolitical power in the world from the declining British empire and the rising U.S. empire was the agreement to redistribute control of Iranian oil in 1954. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was obliged to share Iranian oil with the then five U.S. oil giants.

As U.S. oil needs and those of its friends in Europe increased, control of the Persian Gulf region and access to its oil became more vital. Furthermore, since a hostile Iran could control the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian revolution of 1979 posed an increasing geopolitical problem for American dominance.

The impulse in 1979 to send U.S. troops to save the Shah’s regime was driven by both economics and geopolitics. It was only because other Carter advisers disagreed with the National Security Advisor on the possibility of saving the Shah that a U.S. intervention stalled in 1979. But in 1980 an Iraq/Iran war provided an opportunity, it was hoped, to weaken Iran’s potential control of the region.

Finally, the U.S. decision-makers since 1953 saw a special relationship between this country and Iran. The U.S. put the Shah in power, plied him with enormous military power, encouraged and facilitated significant cultural exchanges, and defined his regime as a junior partner in policing the region.

The rapidity of the Shah’s overthrow and the anger expressed by the Iranian people about its historic relationship to the American people communicated to the world declining U.S. power. Consequently, U.S. hostility to Iran in subsequent decades using a variety of issues including processing uranium is not surprising.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. He blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical -- and that's also the name of his new book which can be found at Lulu.com. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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Danny Schechter : Trashing 'Hollywoodism' in Iran

"Hollywoodism and Cinema" at the 30th Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran. Image from Islamic Republic News Agency.
In Iran: Meeting Ahmadinejad,
trashing 'Hollywoodism,' and eating Kabob

By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog /February 7, 2012

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran seems to many to be next in line for the Iraqi freedom treatment, the latest in a long line of “enemy” nations menaced by overt and covert military threats by the United States and its allies.

As the Psy Ops operations and media propaganda intensifiy, you might think war is imminent, and that Iran is doing what countries under threat do in these circumstances such as mobilizing their people and preparing for a bombing onslaught.

Think again. While I have been told that military targets have been or are being moved around, the atmosphere in Tehran is relaxed with more talk of a cultural battlefield than a military one. There’s a commemoration under way of the 33rd anniversary of the Iranian Revolution and an international conference on “Hollywoodism and Cinema” as an extension of an annual Fajr film festival

And that’s what I am doing here, as a guest participant in an event that sees Hollywood as a bigger enemy than the Pentagon. It has become for them an "ism" and is the subject of discussions over its global role in shaping positive attitudes towards what passes for American “civilization,” its relationship to the awakenings and uprisings throughout the world -- Iran’s Press TV probably devotes more coverage to Occupy Wall Street than any TV channel -- and its alleged support for Zionism and Israel, a country that’s only cited here as “the Zionist Regime.”

Israel, in turn is even more hostile seeing Iran as an “existential threat.” Sometimes it looks like both countries -- both under the influence of religious fanaticism -- need a stereotyped enemy to rally their own populations. It is Israel that is banging the drums loudest for war.

The conference was opened by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who didn’t have much good to say about Hollywood -- which, paradoxically, celebrated its 125th anniversary on February 1.


"All those who work in Hollywood push ideas based on getting maximum of profit and pleasure using any possible methods," Ahmadinejad said. "We do not expect anything from Hollywood."



Speaking softly and philosophically, Ahmadinejad noted that people must "deliver truth and facts," so that "masses would follow up"


About 48 foreign scholars are here, and one News Dissector. Most of the President’s speech was really about values more than politics, emphasizing the importance of the cultural environment. He believes it is impacted negatively by a movie industry that does little to educate customers about the world’s crises.

He rejected Marxism and liberalism, speaking of man as a creation of God who is caught between conflicting pressures to be selfish or to serve humanity.

I am not sure that the President knew that one of the Hollywood companies leading the charge against Iran is owned by Disney and one I used to work for -- ABC News.

Fairness and Accuracy in Media singles out a recent ABC newscast as an egregious example of propaganda:

“America's top spy warns that Iran is willing to launch a terrorist strike inside the U.S.," announced anchor Diane Sawyer at the top of the program. "We'll tell you his evidence."

The ABC report was actually very light on evidence. It did, however, pass along numerous incendiary allegations from government officials -- without the skeptical scrutiny that is real journalism's primary function.


Echoing the government, Sawyer set up the report with an assertion that Iran is "more determined than ever to launch an attack on U.S. soil." Correspondent Martha Raddatz, claiming that the "the saber-rattling coming from Iran has been constant," told viewers that Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr delivered "a new bracing warning... Iran may be more ready than ever to launch terror attacks inside the United States."


Reports like this are barely criticized in Iran because there have been so many of them for so many years, with ABC’s earlier “America Held Hostage” series a well known example of reporting as incitement.

After his talk, an Iranian friend pushed me into the President’s path where I tried to engage him, asking if would be willing to talk to American leaders.

He smiled, responding, “Washington does not want to have any dialogues.“ So that was a non-starter.

I then smiled back and asked if the American people have reasons to fear him and an Iranian nuclear bomb.

This time, he laughed as if I was being naïve. (I was trying to be provocative.)

Looking up at me, he asked if I thought he was scary, and then denied that Iran was building bombs or threatening the American people. He was very calm as he spoke

Admittedly the evidence for Iran doing so is not very strong and, in fact, a recent report indicated that the U.S. military wants Israel to chill out its agitation and bombing threats.

(Gareth Porter reports on IPS: “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Israeli leaders Jan. 20 that the United States would not participate in a war against Iran begun by Israel without prior agreement from Washington, according to accounts from well-placed senior military officers.”)

I then told the President I have been covering Occupy Wall Street and asked what his advice would be to them.

As a charter member of the Iranian student movement, he was quick to express admiration for those in the streets struggling for justice in America, but added, “The Wall Street movement has to deepen its work” by intensifying its organizing efforts.

At that point, his security intensified its presence, and -- after the President welcomed me to his country -- I was pushed gently to the side as he went back to work. My “interview” was over.

The conference continued in the afternoon with more reports on the Occupy Movement and analysis of Hollywood’s impact. On hand to receive an award for his father was Oliver Stone's son, Sean, who spoke about the growing power of social media. If nothing else, his dad has proven that Hollywood can produce topical dramas and social criticism.

The Zionism issue was spoken to by three anti-Zionist rabbis and raised in an interview that I did live on Press TV Thursday night -- which I found not so much anti-Semitic as totally uninformed about many in the Jewish community worldwide who not only are not ardent Zionists but who are critical of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the suppression of the Palestinians' rights.

The host was startled by the vehemence of my views that may not have much support at high levels in the Iranian government. I was glad to have an opportunity to publicly challenge holocaust denial in Iran and combat stereotypes of Muslims, even as Hollywood legitimately stood accused of creating them.

This is my second trip to Iran, a country that is being embargoed, sanctioned, and put down in our media while given nary a chance to talk back. That’s why I came -- to learn more about Iran’s views that have been banished from the airways in Britain, and rarely, if ever, given airtime in what passes for our “free” media. Iran is escalating its media efforts with a new channel in Spanish.

There is more to come, and I am already on Kabob overload.

News Dissector Danny Schechter writes the newsdissector.com blog and edits the new Mediachannel1.org. He has just finished a book on Occupy Wall Street. (ColdType.net) Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

[News Dissector Danny Schechter writes the News Dissector blog and edits the new Mediachannel1.org. His new book is Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street. (ColdType.net). Email Danny at dissector@mediachannel.org. Read more by Danny Schechter on The Rag Blog.]

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Danny Schechter : Memories of U.S. Embassy in Tehran Still Hold Us Hostage

Outside wall of U.S. Embassy, Tehran. Photo from smoughadam / Flickr.
Memories that still hold us hostage:
A visit to the U.S. Embassy in Tehran

By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog / November 29, 2010

The latest massive Wikileaks revelations released Sunday show how the U.S. and its allies have been discussing military attacks and covert actions against Iran. If history is any judge, things don't always work out the way Washington wants, as Danny Schechter recounts in this report about his recent visit to the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, known locally then as a “spy nest.”

TEHRAN, Iran -- The building was smaller than I remembered. The fading images in my mind were grainy: angry crowds, students marching, flags burning, chants of “Death to America,” and Americans diplomats in blindfolds, It became a soap opera: Ted Koppel started his rise in TV News with ABC’s nightly “America Held Hostage” series, the forerunner to Nightline.

Back then, I was in radio news, just transitioning into TV. I remember publicly debating about what we should do with a DJ friend who had turned from a Vietnam War peacenik into a bomb-Iran hawk.

In Iran, he takeover of the U.S. Embassy -- what students called its “conquering” -- was justified as a blow against imperialism, the seizure of a “spy nest.” It was, at the time, the most globally covered aspect of the Iranian Revolution, an audacious confrontation between people power and a foreign power.

The events that followed may have been considered revolutionary in Iran, but for progressive Americans they became the nail in President Jimmy Carter’s political coffin. He angered Iranians first when he toasted the Shah, calling him a beloved figure. He then tried and failed to negotiate through third parties and later sent in a military "rescue” operation that crashed and burned, leading to his own downfall.

The Iranians held him responsible for sheltering the ailing Shah; he in turn was being pressured by the likes of David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger to protect the fleeing Monarch.

These events also helped bring on the turn to the right with the elevation of the actor we called “Ronnie Raygun.” The hostages were released in a tacit agreement after 444 days at the very hour of his inauguration.

We are still living with the consequences: wages declined, unions were broken, and military spending escalated. Reagan invaded Grenada and Beirut where the killings of hundreds of U.S. soldiers sparked what we now label a War on Terror and which Iranians see as a “Clash of Civilizations.”

The despotic Shah, our faithful servant for so many years, was driven from power by a popular revolt with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini soon becoming the man we loved to hate.

Now, 30-plus years later, I am standing in front of what was once our embassy, surrounded today by well-kept lawns as it was then.

It is as if the past is never past, with so many ghosts still around.

The tragedy is that polarization between our two countries remains symbolized by what is now a very politicized museum with photos of the activists who crawled through a basement window and tunnel to take it over. They were demanding the return of the Shah to stand trial. They were protesting U.S. interference in their internal affairs.

I didn’t remember that eight hostages -- women and black employees -- were released by Khomeini as a gesture. He urged the black men to return home and carry on the work of our most famous Muslim martyr, Malcolm X.

Malcolm was one of the Americans they admired.

There are rooms of creative if didactic art works, graffiti, and murals denouncing U.S. policy, including our news media which they see as a weapons system that has been deployed against them. (One slogan on the wall: “Information R.I.P.”) Perhaps this is why my film WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception was shown here and is popular.)

The angry art is not the building’s most popular attraction. On the second floor is the ex-Embassy’s own West Wing; behind a metal safe-like door is where the spying was done.

The offices are pretty much as they found them -- a soundproof glass-encased safe room within a room, cryptographic equipment, communications gear that allowed them to tap Tehran’s telephones and a forgery bench where they created passports and spread disinformation. (I once saw a similar room in a former Stasi secret police station in East Germany that kept tabs on everyone.)

The students found a secret document with a floor plan of the Ayatollah’s residence and other artifacts of CIA espionage including guns and coding machines.

Today, all of this is done digitally and with much more sophistication. Just last week, the U.S. launched a massive new spy satellite to upgrade our global surveillance capabilities.

You don’t need embassies anymore to do this dirty work. We have since set up a well-funded Office of Global Reconnaissance but it doesn’t seem be to making us any more secure.

These days, a small group like Wikileaks has found ways to release hundreds of thousands of documents that officialdom wants to hide.

(After the Embassy seizure, The U.S. government downplayed spying by its diplomats, calling it “routine.” The latest Wikileaks expose reveals that diplomats are spying more than ever.)

As the students muscled their way into the Embassy back then, U.S. officials were busy destroying documents, burning them in the basement, throwing them into chemical vats that turned paper into powder, and feeding them into huge industrial-strength shredders. I saw the machines.

They managed to keep the activists at bay for three hours while destroying sensitive and potentially embarrassing data before surrendering.

What they didn’t count on was that scores of students would spend weeks patiently and systematically piecing the shreds together, literally ironing and weaving the fragments into readable prose. They reconstructed the destroyed documents and published them in scores of books that topped the best-seller list in Iran (if there was such a thing).

The late Bill Worthy, a legendary African American journalist, brought some of the books back to Boston in 1980 only to have them confiscated at the airport where he was threatened with prosecution.

Most Americans know little of Iran’s 2,500 year history, its proud culture, or the role played by the CIA in toppling the democratically elected Mosaddegh government in 1953. Mosaddegh wanted to nationalize the country’s oil instead of being forced to allow the West to exploit it. (The Ayatollah Khomeini referenced this event when he told the U.S.: “You have no right to complain, because you took our whole country hostage in 1953.”) There is no evidence that the Ayatollah organized the Embassy takeover.

They don’t know that the U.S. orchestrated Iraq’s invasion of Iran, causing a half million deaths, many from chemical weapons. I met some of the still-sick victims of those chemicals, including a disfigured Member of Parliament who was a war correspondent. Saddam’s chemical attacks on Iran’s military got almost no press attention compared to his gassing of Kurds.

Our ignorance still feeds dangerous calls for war like those made recently by the pin-headed Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from the former Confederate State of South Carolina. He’s called for the sinking of the Iranian Navy. He seems to have forgotten his own state's role in launching the American civil war after a Naval battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack in Charleston harbor.

The Confederates started it, but the Union finished it, finishing them finally at a great cost. Today, the South and its attitudes have risen again.

Graham also seems unaware that if we attack them, Iran will likely block the Strait of Hormuz freezing oil shipments worldwide. Not a good thing.

Today, some U.S. personalities want a theocratic state here like the one in Iran. Our own fundamentalists, many of them end-of-timers politicized into Christian Right movements, the antecedents of today’s Tea Party, fired up by vicious Islamaphobia.

Theocratic evangelists like Glenn Beck -- posing as TV commentators -- urge us to let God Rule, the message of some of Iran’s Mullahs. George Bush denounced Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil” while they do the same towards us. There is a poster in the former Embassy building denouncing U.S. evils.

I know my Iranian hosts expected me to be excited by visiting the Embassy as a symbol of an embarrassing setback to U.S. plans.

I wasn’t.

I reminded them that when the Taliban took Iranian diplomats hostage, and threatened to kill them, Iran moved troops to the border, and was about to invade Afghanistan before we did.

The U.S. government learned from the Embassy takeover; they didn't change imperial policies, but did invest in more security. The U.S. now builds vast and far better-fortified “diplomatic” enclaves like Iraq’s Green Zone. Secrecy has become our national security state’s religion.

These symbols of our past conflicts have a way of blocking new initiatives and possible reconciliation. I am sure that the former Embassy building is on some target list for potential missile attacks on Tehran. Americans relish “payback” as much as do Iranians.

Avoiding an escalation of tension will not be easy as Jaswant Singh, a former Indian finance minister, foreign minister, and defense minister explains: “In both countries, deep and mutually paralyzing suspicion has poisoned relations for three decades. Negotiations in such an atmosphere are almost fated to failure.”

Can anything be done?

On the plane back, I watched the movie SALT where Angelina Jolie stops a fictionalized nuclear attack on Tehran at the last second in a gun battle staged in the bunker below the White House.

Hollywood pictures the story as a plot by Russian renegades who want to use nukes to outrage the whole Muslim world and trigger a more apocalyptic jihad against the U.S.

At the same time, we are doing all we can to block Iranian nuclear ambitions, even as I told an audience in Iran about my own objections to nuclear power plants in favor of green energies -- not a popular position.

There are legitimate nonfiction fears of a new war against Iran, another no-win conflict that will cause more death and sap more treasure.

The neocons are busy at work lobbying for just such a war, eager to replicate their “heroic victory” over Iraq. They are playing the fear card with lots of covert lobbying from Israel that claims Iran represents an “existential” threat.

To me, the arrogant right-wing politicians and propagandists in Israel are a far more dangerous threat to any prospects for peace. Successive American administrations, like the current one, keep shoveling sheckels at them, appeasing their contempt for and occupation of Palestinians.

The world mocks dogmatic believers in the Koran while fanatical Torah worshippers have a free pass to practice hatred.

Talk about hypocrisy.

War is a profitable business, and as our economy continues its decline, we can anticipate more calls to “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” so we can fight and spend our way to “recovery.”

Talk about insanity.

Already our sanctions are hurting the Iranian people and their businesses without seriously impacting their government, whatever the fiery pubic claims of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

We need to engage, but even the talks President Obama promised have yet to happen. Washington seems as frozen as Tehran in making a real overture.

What if Iran turned the former U.S. Embassy into an international peace and religious center for diplomatic discourse and mediation? That might be a gesture Washington could respond to. Why not recycle a relic of the past to enable a serious initiative for resolving conflict? The growing confrontation gives both countries an enemy to mobilize against while diverting attention from real problems.

Someone has to break the ice before we end up causing each other more pain!

My walk down a lane of bad memories convinced me that we need to work for a better future, not stay mired in the images and rhetorical combats of the past.

[News Dissector Danny Schechter just returned from Tehran where he was invited to be a judge in an international short film festival. Contact hem at Dissector@mediachannel.org.]

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Jack A. Smith : Israel and Palestine After the Flotilla / 4

The two wild cards. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani shown with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2009. Photo by Amir Kholoosi / ISNA.
Part 4: Two wild cards, Turkey and Iran
Israel and Palestine after the Flotilla

By Jack A. Smith / The Rag Blog / July 18, 2010

[This is the last in a four-part series in which Jack A. Smith assesses multiple aspects of the situation in Palestine, including the relations between Israel and the U.S., Israel and the Palestine National Authority, the Palestinian split between Fatah and Hamas, the action and inaction of the Arab states, the new role of Turkey, the key importance of Iran, and the future of Washington's hegemony in the Middle East.]

There are two wild cards in the region — neither of which are Arab — that are capable of complicating the U.S.-Israeli game in the Middle East.

One is Turkey, the militarily strong, largely Westernized, secular democratic republic of nearly 78 million people, with a large Sunni Muslim population. The other is Iran, a largely modernized Islamic republic of just over 67 million people, mostly Shi'ite Muslims. Both are mature societies that have at one time controlled empires -- Ottoman and Persian respectively. Both are strategically situated: Turkey between Europe and Asia, Iran between Central Asia and the Middle East.

Turkey, a NATO member and long time close ally of Israel and the United States, had kept to itself for many years. Then in early 2009 the Ankara government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan abruptly stormed onto the regional stage when Turkey sharply condemned Israel's calculatedly cruel invasion of Gaza.

A few months ago Turkey unexpectedly strode onto the international stage along with partner Brazil, announcing that they had obtained a nuclear fuel swap agreement with Iran that obviated the need for additional U.S.-UN sanctions. They believed, evidently correctly, that they had President Obama's backing for this independent mission. But when they brought back a deal that was virtually identical to what Obama originally sought, the White House backed off and treated the unofficial intermediaries like unwelcome busybodies.

In our view, what the Obama-Netanyahu cohort really wanted was intensified sanctions, not a nuclear agreement that would remove the pretext for demonizing Iran, probably in preparation for near-future aggression.

Last month -- after Israeli commandos cut down nine Turkish members of the humanitarian flotilla -- relations between Tel-Aviv and Ankara deteriorated further, and a furious Erdogan withdrew Turkey's ambassador but did not break diplomatic ties. He called on Israel to apologize for the killings and pay compensation to the nine families involved, but Tel-Aviv has refused, claiming the commandoes were defending themselves.

Erdogan announced that "If the entire world has turned its back on the Palestinians, Turkey will never turn its back on Jerusalem and the Palestinians," and took some modest steps such as banning Israeli military aircraft from its airspace.

An interview with Prime Minister Erdogan was aired June 29 on the PBS Charlie Rose program. He called Netanyahu "the biggest barrier to peace," an obvious truth about which the Obama Administration must be abundantly aware, though publicly silent. Most important, Erdogan also added that Turkey remained "a friend to Israel," but Ankara soon announced that it would break diplomatic relations with Israel unless Tel-Aviv apologized for the flotilla killings or accepted the conclusion of an international inquiry.

The next day, Foreign Minister Davutoglu met secretly in Zurich with Israeli Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer to discuss reducing tensions. Notice of the meeting was leaked by an Israeli TV station. There was no report about the outcome of the conference. Recognizing that he was intentionally kept in the dark by Netanyahu about this important event where he logically should have presided, Foreign Minister Lieberman publicly excoriated his boss for excluding him.

Netanyahu is under pressure from Washington to seek a reconciliation with Erdogan in order to keep strategic Turkey in Washington's political enclosure. Loud mouth Lieberman probably would have exacerbated tensions had he met with Davutoglu. Netanyahu needs Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party in his coalition to remain in office, which is the only reason such a hothead became Foreign Minister. Discussing the latest contretemps, the Jerusalem Post opined July 1 that "it is yet another indicator that Israeli diplomatic policy is dysfunctional."

At this point, no one really knows the extent of Ankara's geopolitical ambitions, which may determine how far Turkey will distance itself from Israel, and perhaps the U.S. as well. There's certainly a lack of dynamic leadership in the Middle East that Turkey, which seems to have good relations with all the Muslim countries, might seek to provide.

If Turkey confines itself to supporting the Palestinians and criticizing Israel, that will have an important regional impact -- perhaps sufficient to galvanize the Arab countries to take more action on Gaza's behalf, to give Tel-Aviv pause, and to induce Washington to finally get serious about ending the colonial status of the Palestinian people.

And if Turkey seeks a larger role in regional affairs beyond the Palestinian issue, perhaps in league with a couple of other regional players, this could possibly alter the balance of power in the Middle East, which is now tilted steeply toward the Washington/Tel-Aviv axis.

And where does the other wild card, Iran, fit into this scenario? Various commentators have speculated that the Islamic republic seeks to dominate the Middle East or that it wants to impose Shi'ite beliefs throughout the region, or that it seeks to destroy Israel, among other absurd speculations.

Any objective appraisal of the conditions confronting Teheran today would show that its first priority and nearly total preoccupation is national security, and its military strategy is defensive, not offensive, as Washington and Tel-Aviv are well aware. Consider this:

• According to news reports, an armada of 11 U.S. Navy warships and one Israeli ship, led by the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier and its Strike Group of 60 fighter-bombers, passed through the Suez Canal June 18 heading for the Persian Gulf, where they will join other ships positioned near Iran. Navy battle fleets with Cruise and Tomahawk missiles and air wings roam the Arabian Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Oman, and Indian Ocean, as well as the Persian Gulf.
• The immense U.S. base of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is being stocked for possible war against Iran, including nearly 400 so-called bunker-busters for deep ground penetration.
• The U.S. Air Force is at the ready to quickly thrash Iran when the signal is given.
• Israel is continually threatening to attack Iran.
• The American military machine is camped on Iran's western border (Iraq), and on its eastern border (Afghanistan). The Pentagon's Special Forces troops have been probing Iran from both directions, looking for vulnerabilities, and getting the lay of the land.
• For several years during the Bush Administration, news analysts were predicting an imminent attack by the U.S. It didn't occur, probably because of the quagmire leading to a military stalemate in Iraq. But Teheran knows it likely faces a greater danger today than during the Bush years.
• Iran is under 24-hour surveillance from U.S. satellite spying and eavesdropping technologies throughout the country that can "see" every part of the country and "hear" every phone conversation, not to mention spies on the ground.
• Iran has been laboring under ever-tightening U.S. economic and trade sanctions for several decades after the Islamic revolution dispatched Washington's puppet potentate in Teheran, the dreaded Shah.
• Iran's big power friends, Russia and China, just joined the U.S. in imposing the latest UN sanctions, after diluting them (but knowing Washington would add additional sanctions of its own to compensate). This shocked and worried Teheran, though both countries are still considered allies and are not expected to abandon Iran.
• For the last decade -- at least -- Washington has been providing material support and encouragement to the anti-regime dissident movement, and the Obama government is no doubt continuing the practice.
• Washington is trying to create an anti-Iranian coalition composed of several Sunni Arab states, exacerbating ethnic and religious tensions in order to better divide and conquer.
• America's medium and long range missiles, with both conventional and nuclear warheads, are on the alert -- patiently awaiting the signal.

For its part, Teheran is continuing to support the Hezbollah Shi'ites in Lebanon and Sunni Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah -- a political movement that leads the second largest electoral coalition in Lebanon -- criticizes Tel-Aviv as colonialist but its guerrilla defenders usually fight against Israel when it invades Lebanon. Hezbollah fighters were largely responsible for Israel's decision to withdraw its military forces in May 2000 after a nearly two-decade occupation of Lebanon, and for a second humiliation of the IDF when it returned in 2006 with guns ablaze.

Hamas is a political organization dedicated to liberating the Palestinian people from colonial domination. It is without heavy weapons, tanks, or planes to employ in its liberation struggle against the IDF so it propelled relatively primitive unguided rockets into Israel and killed up to 10 civilians over the last several years. Israel, of course, killed many thousands of Palestinians during that time.

The U.S. and Israel identify both groups as "terrorist" and Iran as "terrorist" for supporting them. In the opinion of many leftists and numbers of people in the developing (third) world, they are resistance fighters against colonial and imperialist oppression.

The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies building nuclear weapons and declares its efforts are directed at producing energy for peaceful purposes, not bombs. Even with all the spy techniques at Washington's command, there is still no evidence to convict Iran on this charge. Yet Israel -- which is said to possess some 200 nuclear weapons in defiance of the NPT -- poses as Iran's intended victim. Iran has not engaged in an aggressive war since the first half of the 1800s (a short-lived incursion over the Afghan border), and is absolutely in no position to do so now.

Neither the U.S. nor Israel is actually worried that Iran will in effect commit national suicide by preparing to attack, or actually attacking, the Jewish State -- thus triggering a preemptive offensive or instant mass retaliation from Tel-Aviv, with the U.S. near at hand to help out.

There are two other regional concerns for the U.S. and Israel to think about over the longer term:

• One is the possibility Shi'ite Iran and majority Shi'ite Iraq eventually may bloc together in one type of close relationship or another several years hence. They share a number of interests in addition to their compatible branch of Islam -- a minority often held down in Sunni-dominated lands. They both want to be independent of U.S. threats and violence and may conclude that unity enhances their defenses.
  
  As a team they could more profitably exploit their extraordinarily huge petroleum reserves. And they are both concerned about the Kurdish independence movement, among other factors. Washington will do its best to keep Baghdad and Teheran apart. It plans to retain considerable influence in Iraq after most of America's foreign legion departs for other battlefields, but the era of puppet governments and colonial masters, despite remnants here and there, is fading into history.


• The other, perhaps even more nettlesome long term concern for Uncle Sam, is the possibility Iran might bloc with Turkey and Syria to oppose U.S. domination of the Middle East. If Iraq joined in, the four countries would stretch some 2,200 miles from the Dardanelles in the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea. This might even induce Egypt to get moving again. It's a long shot, of course, but a potential game changer in the Arab world -- which is due for a change.

The Middle East often looks static, with the Americans ruling the roost, but that's deceptive. No one knows what is going to happen in the next couple of decades with any of the many possibilities for change that are swirling around the Middle East today, particularly as other world nations rise while the U.S. engages in what appears to be the start of a long decline.

Those bold volunteers who took part in the recent humanitarian flotilla have through their deeds obliged Israel to weaken the blockade of Gaza. That's an important change. And their efforts focused a bright light on the misdeeds perpetrated upon the Palestinians by Israel and its superpower enabler.

That's a good start toward further change, and may become a transitional moment that in time results not only in fruitful outcomes for the oppressed Palestinian people, but also for the entire region.

[Jack A. Smith was editor of the Guardian -- for decades the nation's preeminent leftist newsweekly -- that closed shop in 1992. Smith now edits the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter, where this series also appears.

• For the entire series, go here.

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