Iran and the West
Sir, –
...David Morgan notes that “it probably was the British who initially told the Americans what to do about Prime Minister Mossadeq after his nationalization of the Iranian oil industry in 1951” (February 6)...It might be helpful to clarify that one of the companies nationalized was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, later known as British Petroleum), whose own profits were greater than the entire Iranian government’s oil revenue – £170 million in 1950...The diplomatic record has demonstrated that MI6 and the Foreign Office teams met with the CIA in 1952 and Churchill himself authorized the action of overthrowing Iran’s head of state and replacing him with the Shah...
...Finally, in highlighting Iran’s nuclear capability rather than its possession of nuclear weapons, Morgan might have noted that it was during the Shah’s rule that the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, held that the “introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals”.
Moreover, American universities offered training to Iranian nuclear engineers, and the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld played significant roles in assisting these efforts. However unpalatable these facts may be to Morgan, they should be brought to light so that readers may judge for themselves how Anglo-American military and diplomatic history has informed modern-day relations between Iran and the West.
One never knows, eh?
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5 comments:
Is it strange that we helped an ally (as Iran then was) with its energy capabilities? We also trained Iranian military on bases right in the U.S. in those days.
What do you mean "you never know"? In fact, you always know! It is the same idiots, never able to see beyond the tip of their noses, who armed Saddam and facilitated creation of Taliban and Al Qaida (just as their Israeli counterparts with Hizballah and Hamas) and later had to incinerate Afghanistan and Iraq to supposedly get rid of the Golems "she-kamu al yotzram".
What is amazing is that you and others are still able to keep a straight face pretending that American and Israeli policy is about promoting democracy and human rights and other such stupid claims. You and anon above may also open their minds a little bit and learn, for example, that American and Israeli ally the Shah ran an intelligence service that was one of the most sadistic the last century had known, next to which anything that happened in Iran since the Islamic Revolution is child's play.
You never know only if you don't want to know...
The US supported the Shah for good reason during the cold war, as Russia's interest in a warm water port and ally with the Shah's successor pretty much made it NECESSARY to keep Iran in the western sphere and keep Russia from the waters of the Middle East. The person who could not see beyond his nose was Jimmy Carter, who outsted the Shah. It Teddy Kennedy who accused the Shah of being the most terrible tyrant since Hitler, Teddy and the FAR-leftists like Jimmy Carter. It appears that Peter is stuck back in the 70's.
Remember that Islamic extremists torched theaters (with people inside) during the 70's, protesting modernization in Iran. Guess that is not sadistic? We all know that there is always greater tyranny under Islamic extremists, despite what Peter thinks.
Peter, like all backward looking people, hates that we sometimes have to pick sides, and in the war against Iran (which has been at war with the US since 1979), arming Iraq was not a bad idea at all, since our Arab friends are scared of the Iranians and wanted a regional power to help contain them. As to Afganistan, we also helped the Taliban fight the Russians, which also made sense at the time. Hey, even Uncle Joe Stalin was an ally during WW2. Get real, Peter.
What is amazing is that leftists like Peter can claim that the US is responsible for Islamic extremism, never blaming the backward, ignorant savage people who are the Islamic extremists.
Clearly the Shah's intelligence service was not sadistic enough, or he would not have been so easily overthrown. Duh!. Only weak tyrants are overthrown, not strong ones.
Anon, if you are wished to be taken seriously, please, try not to write stuff like "Jimmy Carter, who outsted [sic] the Shah".
Oops,something happened to my English. In the above, it should say "if you wish..." not "if you are wished".
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