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AntiAmericanism...Turkish-Style
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Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:54 pm Post subject:

Mills wrote:

Khomeni would have never come to power. That is a fact...

Gopher wrote:

This is not fact but assertion.

Mills wrote:

Don't quote me out-of-context. Widespread dissatisfaction with the oppressive regime of the reinstalled Shah led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the occupation of the U.S. embassy. True or false?

Sorry, I missed this issue before and did not respond to it.

You are repeating Kinzer's thesis here. His thesis alleges that U.S. actions against Prime Minister Mossadeq in 1953 caused the 1979 Islamic Revolution and therefore, no wonder they hate us and attacked us in 2001.

I've reviewed his book in Borders. It wasn't up to par with the one he and Schlesinger wrote on Guatemala, Bitter Fruit, which remains a core part of the literature on PBSUCCESS, and which I highly recommend, by the way.

Kinzer is rightly criticized for crafting a simplistic, U.S.-centric account that ignores local and regional conditions and developments between 1953 and 1979, and then again, more implicitly, between 1979 and 2001.

I agree with this criticism.

Kinzer took advantage of an opportunity to retell a story we mostly already knew, in an environment where many Americans were looking to understand how we could be so hated in the world. I disagree with Kinzer's (and others') answers. They have provided nothing more than politicized answers.

And it's more complex than that.

Some have written "what if" histories, moreover. I think they are problematic. The truth is, we don't know how things would have developed had the U.S. not executed TP/AJAX in 1953. For all we know, things might have gone worse, and sooner rather than later.

In my research and readings, I have found that, in every case I've seen, local actors and local conditions were the decisive factors in bringing events like these about. Foreign intervention, although at time disproportionate, was influential and significant, but never decisive.

So if Kinzer or you or anyone else wants to better understand how the Islamic Revolution occurred, or why its Fundamentalist soldiers had worldviews that led to hate and terrorism, I'd suggest that you start looking there, on the ground, rather than in London or Washington.

Mills

Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:20 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

And here's my last response to your posts...

Mills wrote:

Gopher wrote:

Mills wrote:

If it wasn't for the American coup...

This was a joint British Intelligence-CIA covert operation, carried out at the behest of the British govt, who was under intense pressure to bolster the Anglo Iranian Oil company's position vis-a-vis Tehran.

True, the British were upset that "Mossadeq" was nationalizing Iranian oil and asked the United States to intervene, but they [the British] backed out before the first of two actual coup attempts. The second attempt (Operation Ajax) was carried out by thugs and extremists, purchased with American ca$h.

True, it was American money, from start to finish. (And I wasn't trying to deny or conceal this, by the way -- and this is usually charged when I don't list the entire Bill of Particulars from start to finish.)

But it was a joint operation, also from start to finish. CIA used British Intelligence's intelligence net and communications infrastructure.

Fine I'll cede this point; it was an Anglo/American operation, even though it was carried out with American money, Officers, and agents (the British were kicked out of Iran before the first of the two attempts and could only play an advisory role in the operation).

So, ��if it wasn��t for the Anglo/American coup��

That does not negate the fact that the United States acted amorally in its organization and deployment of a coup against ��Mossadeq�� and I find it laughable that you or anyone else would believe that it was truly carried out in an effort to fight Communism. Wouldn��t a strong, democratically elected leader do more in that regard? Instead we chose to support a dictator whose first move was to create a secret police (SAVAK) and who would use the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners, censorship of opposition, and alienation of the religious majority to proliferate his rule. Idea

That sounds a lot more akin to Stalin to me.

As his protector and supporter, we began propagating the anti-Americanism that later revealed itself in the revolution against him and the occupation of the American Embassy in Tehran...

We helped the British because we needed their support elsewhere during the Cold War. The only reason the British truly wanted ��Mossadeq�� out was because their Iranian oil was in jeopardy of becoming the Iranian people's.

Mills

Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:27 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

So if you or anyone else wants to better understand how the Islamic Revolution occurred, or why its Fundamentalist soldiers had worldviews that led to hate and terrorism, I'd suggest that you start looking there, on the ground, rather than in London or Washington.

Clandestine Service vs. Staff Operations Officer? My nationality/ethnic background precludes me from working "on the ground" in that theatre. Are you trying to get rid of me Gopher? Wink

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:36 pm Post subject:

Mills wrote:

That does not negate the fact that the United States acted amorally in its organization and deployment of a coup against ��Mossadeq�� and I find it laughable that you or anyone else would believe that it was truly carried out in an effort to fight Communism.

I do not believe I've made claims about U.S. morality in foreign affairs, one way or the other.
If you want to say that the U.S. acted amorally or even immorally in world affairs, I would not disagree with you.

Most people and nation-states act first and last according to self-interest. I neither comment on the goodness or the badness of this. It just is. We must operate in this world, because this is the world we live in.

Clearly, you have a different take on it, though, and that's fine.

Mills wrote:

we chose to support a dictator whose first move was to create a secret police (SAVAK) and who would use the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners, censorship of opposition, and alienation of the religious majority to proliferate his rule. Idea

We chose to support, at various times, those who appeared to be allies in the war against Communism.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," the saying goes.

This does not mean that we had love affairs with these people, or approved of them.

Remember FDR's reputed comment on Somoza: "He's a sonofabitch, but at least he's our sonofabitch."

I'll point out that JFK tried to turn this around in Latin America (actually Eisenhower recognized this in 1958 and started to move in this direction, creating new banks for development, etc.) We had supported distasteful politicos and caudillos in that region, and many suffered from this.

But the region's elites and middle classes -- again the local actors are always decisive -- resisted our initiatives. The Alliance for Progress is generally viewed as a failure. The region's resistance to reform and democratization was a critical factor in this failure.

Look again at Carter's morality, esp. in Guatemala and Chile, too. When he threatened the Guatemalan military to moderate or else he'd pull out all military aid, they called him on it, and went elsewhere -- and they kept doing what they were doing.

Local actors and conditions determined how history unfolded there, not those speaking arrogant statements in the Oval Office.

Mills wrote:

We helped the British because we needed their support elsewhere during the Cold War. The only reason the British truly wanted ��Mossadeq�� out was because their Iranian oil was in jeopardy of becoming the Iranian people's.

Actually, the British needed us far more than we needed them. But we had a "special relationship," as it is called, dating back before this.

In any case, your characterization of British motives is accurate to the best of my knowledge. It was very much, but not exclusively, about oil.

But don't make "the Iranian people" into something they weren't. They had elites who would have nationalized and seized the oil fields (without compensating the British, which was the issue, by the way), but been unable to do anything with them, lacking the expertise and the equipment to properly exploit them.

These elites would probably not have used the oil "for the people."

Let's not make Mossadeq too virtuous here. He walked around in pajamas, had feinting fits for dramatic effect, and cultivated increased trade and other relations with the Soviets, who would -- just my speculation here -- probably moved in to man the oil fields and develop production.

You don't know for sure how he would have acted had the Shahanshah, the British, and the U.S. not moved against him.

Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:30 pm; edited 2 times in total

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:47 pm Post subject:

[deleted] Last edited by Gopher on Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:27 pm; edited 1 time in total

Mills

Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:00 am Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

Mills wrote:

Let's not make Mossadeq too virtuous here. The guy walked around in pajamas, had feinting fits, and cultivated increased trade and other relations with the Soviets, who would -- just my speculation here -- probably moved in to man the oil fields and develop production.

Doesn't really matter what he wore, what type of "fits" he suffered from, or who he chose to deal with... the Iranian people elected him.

That's my point.

We were supposedly fighting to promote democracy, but it would seem that only American-approved democracy was supported... like the democracy the Iranian people enjoyed under the Shah.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:30 am Post subject:

Mills wrote:

This is too simplistic, even righteous.

Mossadeq was moving to consolidate his position, overthrow the existing order by dethroning the Shahanshah, and establish a new order we can only speculate about at this point. Whether his aims were "democratic" or not is a point of contention. Like I mentioned before, Hitler, the most common example, was democratically-elected and very popular, but, as we all know, his aims were far from democratic.

Look at Hugo Chavez. He altered Venezuela's constitution to extend his presidency by several years. When that period expires, do you think he will step down? So I think we can agree that not all democratically-elected leaders are virtuous and have pure intentions.

Also, whether Mosadeq's new govt would have reformed, modernized, and democratized Iran is another point of contention. Mossadeq's populism might have unleashed the Islamic Revolution a couple of decades early for all we know.

Nevertheless, the extreme Left paints him as George Washington, a heroic resister of tyranny who acted without guile, who became a poor victim of malicious U.S. imperialist aggression. You seem to buy into this analysis without reservation. I don't agree with that.

Don't forget that Mossadeq was cultivating and beginning to rely on the Tudeh (Communist Party), which had plans of its own. This was one of the things that attracted U.S. attn independently of the British overtures.

Also, Mossadeq was moving to throw the British entirely out of Iran while at the same time rapidly increasing trade relations with the Soviets. And in 1953, it was a very bipolar world, especially in Washington and Moscow's perspective, and Mossadeq appears to have chosen sides. Whether he did or did not, is not entirely clear. Whether Washington and Moscow were interpreting it this way, however, is clear. And how it looks is usually much more important than how it is, especially when dealing with incomplete data, as they were.

On top of this, this event came on the heels of the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, a democracy which had elected a leader who was working with the Communist Party there until they turned on him and took over, which in the words of one former U.S. official, "scared the bejeezus out of Washington" and convinced the govt that Moscow had expansionist plans and was acting subversively. And Iran bordered the Soviet Union, whose oil reserves must have looked attractive to Moscow.

You cannot dismiss these strategic issues and contemporaneous perceptions and say that it was simply a case that the U.S. didn't like Mossadeq or approve of his style of democracy. This is what most critics do. But most critics have puerile tendencies, too.

Mills

Joined: 07 Jan 2006
Location: Incheon

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 3:21 am Post subject:

Stick a fork in this thread, it's done. I have not accepted defeat, rather, I have moved on with my life.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:30 pm Post subject:

[deleted] Last edited by Gopher on Tue Jun 13, 2006 3:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:03 am Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

Mossadeq was moving to consolidate his position, overthrow the existing order by dethroning the Shahanshah, and establish a new order we can only speculate about at this point. Whether his aims were "democratic" or not is a point of contention. Like I mentioned before, Hitler, the most common example, was democratically-elected and very popular, but, as we all know, his aims were far from democratic.

Also, whether Mosadeq's new govt would have reformed, modernized, and democratized Iran is another point of contention. Mossadeq's populism might have unleashed the Islamic Revolution a couple of decades early for all we know.

Nevertheless, the extreme Left paints him as George Washington, a heroic resister of tyranny who acted without guile, who became a poor victim of malicious U.S. imperialist aggression. You seem to buy into this analysis without reservation. I don't agree with that.

Don't forget that Mossadeq was cultivating and beginning to rely on the Tudeh (Communist Party), which had plans of its own. This was one of the things that attracted U.S. attn independently of the British overtures.

Also, Mossadeq was moving to throw the British entirely out of Iran while at the same time rapidly increasing trade relations with the Soviets. And in 1953, it was a very bipolar world, especially in Washington and Moscow's perspective, and Mossadeq appears to have chosen sides. Whether he did or did not, is not entirely clear. Whether Washington and Moscow were interpreting it this way, however, is clear. And how it looks is usually much more important than how it is, especially when dealing with incomplete data, as they were.

you give the man too much credit. Part of the reason he was kicked out so easily was he was inept and wasn't decesive. He realized he unleashed a beast (nationalism) that he could not satisfy, but by that point it was too late. Had he actually had a grip on reality and had a concrete plan, he might have been more successful. Instead, he did things on the fly and really had no clue what he was doing.

And hitler was very popular? What was the best the NAZI party did in any election? not even close to 50% of the vote if memory serves correctly.

Or do you mean after he came to power?

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