Iran: 1953, 1979, and Now

Iran is much in the news these days, mainly because of the conflicting views about the “Iran deal,” which is highly touted by the Obama administration and highly trashed by most Republicans—and some Democrats such as Senator Schumer.

And most people remember well, and with great negativity, the events of the Iranian Revolution in 1979—and the Iran hostage crisis when 52 Americans were seized and held for 444 days.

The latter was particularly a bitter pill for President Carter: it was perhaps the decisive reason he was not re-elected for a second term. Most of you will perhaps recall that the hostages were released as President Reagan was being inaugurated in January 1981.

But not so many people now remember what transpired in Iran back in 1953.

On August 15 that year, exactly eight years after the surrender of Japan, the U.S. began to determine the fate of another country. That was the start of Operation Ajax, the coup d’état orchestrated by the CIA against the democratically elected prime minister of Iran.

That prime minister was Muhammad Mossadegh, and his story is told in Christopher de Bellaigue’s notable book Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup (2012).

Perhaps few now remember Mossadegh. He was, however, widely known 65 years ago—so much so that he was Time magazine’s Man of the Year for 1951, chosen over such outstanding personages as General Eisenhower and General McArthur.

The 1953 crisis in Iran developed, not surprisingly, because of oil. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was an English firm—the first company to extract petroleum from Iran, beginning in 1908 when Iran was still called Persia. (The year after the coup, the company’s name was changed to what we know it as today: British Petroleum or BP.)

The strong dissatisfaction with Mossadegh as the political head of Iran was primarily because of his drastic act of nationalizing the oil company that was so lucrative for Britain, but which seemed exceedingly unfair to most Iranians.

President Truman refused to approve the U.S. action to overthrow Mossadegh, but soon after President Eisenhower took office, the plan was approved and executed that summer. The pretext was the necessity of combatting a possible Communist takeover of Iran.

Two powerful brothers were behind the planning and implementation of the coup: John Foster Dulles, who was Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, and Allen Dulles, the Director of the CIA. (The new airport on the Virginia side of Washington, D.C., which opened in 1962, was named for the former.)

Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, was the head of the CIA’s Middle East Department and charged with carrying out the coup. His undercover activities and details of the coup are well told in journalist Stephen Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (2003).

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the Shah (king) of Iran beginning in 1941, but his direct rule came mostly after the 1953 coup. According to Kinzer, in the 1960s and 1970s he “became increasingly isolated and dictatorial. He crushed dissent by whatever means necessary” (p. 196).

Strong dislike of the Shah’s cruel rule fueled the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Much of Iran’s current hatred of the U.S. can be traced back to the CIA sponsored coup in 1953 and to the Shah being put in power then. As Kinzer concludes, “Operation Ajax has left a haunting and terrible legacy” (p. 215).

The “Iran deal” will, we hope and pray, be the beginning of an improved relationship between the U.S. and Iran.

On the Verge of World War III?

Increasingly, it looks as if the question is not If but When. And the question is about a preemptive attack on Iran, seeking to destroy their capability for developing nuclear weapons.

Back in February a group of U.S. Senators pledged, “If President Barack Obama feels the need to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear program, Congress will back him.” Last Saturday (Sept. 22), the U.S. Senate, by a 90-1 vote, passed that non-binding resolution.

The Huffington Post headlined their news story about the Senate resolution, “Senators Offer License To Strike Iran Nuclear Program.” The resolution, however, “specifically states that it should not be interpreted as an authorization for the use of military force or a declaration of war.”

Nevertheless, on September 11 Secretary of Defense Panetta said on CBS's “This Morning” program that “the United States has the capability to prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb.” He added, “We have the forces in place to be able to not only defend ourselves, but to do what we have to do to try to stop them from developing nuclear weapons.”

Preemptive attacks, though, can go either direction. According to a September 24 story on NBCNews, “Iran could launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel if it was sure the Jewish state [was] preparing to attack it, a senior commander of its elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying on Sunday.

“Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, made the comments to Iran’s state-run Arabic language Al-Alam television, according to a report on the network’s website.”

The same story goes on to say that “Hajizadeh, who heads the Guard’s aerospace division, said any attack on Iranian soil could trigger ‘World War III’” (emphasis added).

Talk about World War III is probably a hyperbolic way of talking about the volatile situation in the Near East. But those who think that a preemptive strike on Iran, with or without U.S. approval and/or cooperation, will be a soon-finished affair (another Six Day War) are probably greatly mistaken.

If an obscure YouTube video can spark angry attacks on U.S. embassies in Libya and elsewhere, what would a pre-emptive attack on Iran do? Assuming that a quick strike on Iran’s nuclear plants destroyed their intended targets quickly, which is by no means a certain assumption, why would we possibly think that would be the end of the matter?

I have been somewhat worried over the last few months that the President would launch, with Israel, an attack on Iran. Somewhat cynically, perhaps, I thought that was a possibility partly because it would increase the likelihood of the President’s reelection.

If the President is not reelected, there is a strong likelihood that an attack on Iran will be launched much before this time next year. The Republicans have long been critical of the President’s lack of support for Israel—and vocal in their willingness to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon by military means.

As far back as the Republican presidential primary debates last November, Romney declared, “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Even though it would probably not lead to World War III, I strongly believe that a preemptive attack on Iran would be a grave mistake. One of the many reasons I will be voting for Obama again in November is because I think that such an attack would be considerably less likely with him as President.

Note: I found “What if Israel bombed Iran?” in the 9/21 Washington Post to be a quite thought-provoking op-ed article; you can access it here.

Remember the Maine

“Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!” That was a war cry widely heard in the Unites States after the sinking of the USS Maine 114 years ago today, on February 15, 1898. Even though to this day the cause of that sinking is unclear, popular opinion in the U.S. in the weeks following that tragedy blamed Spain.

That popular opinion was formed partly by the use of the slogan Remember the Maine! by William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. (Three days after the 2/15 explosion the Journal became the first newspaper in history to sell over one million copies.) That slogan, and Hearst’s use of it, thus helped spur the U.S. into the Spanish-American War, which started on April 25 and lasted less than four months (although it didn’t formally end until April 1899).

Hostilities with Spain developed over U.S. concern for how the Cubans were being treated by Spain, which claimed Cuba after Columbus first landed there in 1492 and considered Cuba its possession for the next four centuries.

In 1895 the Cubans began a war of independence from Spain, a struggle which was favored by the U.S. even though they did not become directly involved until three years later. As a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898, Cuba became an independent nation in 1902, although in 1903 Guantanamo Bay was leased in perpetuity to the United States.

The United States profited from the 1898 war in additional ways: at the close of that war Spain ceded the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam for the sum of $20 million. In spite of considerable efforts of the Anti-Imperialist League, there was a considerable expansion of U.S. territorial possessions.

But why write about all this now? I am writing about this issue because I am gravely concerned that some incident in the very near future, real or imagined, will trigger a U.S. attack on Iran. There seems to be a growing likelihood that there will be some sort of military strike by Israel, perhaps jointly with the U.S., in an attempt to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Some “incident” could easily light the fuse for such a strike.

In addition to “Remember the Maine!” helping to spur the Spanish-American War, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, which escalated the War in Vietnam, was based on claims of attacks on American warships that didn’t actually happen. (Actually, there were two separate confrontations with the North Vietnamese, one actual and one now recognized as non-existent.)

“Let there be no doubt,” President Obama declared in his 2012 State of the Union address, “America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.”

There are some politicians who are quite vocal about the possible need to engage in preemptive military action against Iran. If there were to be some incident in which American, or Israeli, civilian or military forces were attacked, or even thought to be attacked, by Iranians, that could easily become an excuse for beginning military activities against Iran. I hope that doesn’t happen, but I am fearful it might.

In the same January 24 State of the Union address, the President declared that “a peaceful resolution of this issue [Iran getting a nuclear weapon] is still possible.” Let us pray that he and Congress will make every possible effort to find such a resolution of the problem.