Democracy
for the Middle East?
Bah, Humbug!
by
Firas Al-Atraqchi
Dissident Voice
February 23, 2003
Mainstream
media, talk shows and online columns in the past few weeks have been festooned
with the urgent call to liberate Iraq from dictatorship and install democracy
in the region. "Liberating the Iraqi people," we are told, makes for
a sound moral and legal argument. "Other Arab nations will become
democratic," we are also told.
However, to the informed
reader and Middle East analyst, the call to liberate Iraq is a thinly veiled
hypocrisy that is as much an insult to the intelligence as it is to the people
of the region.
History provides ample proof
that no undertaking in the Middle East has been for the liberation of the
peoples of the region.
Iraq's eastern neighbor,
Iran, is perhaps the most illuminating case in point. In 1906, an intelligent,
nationalistic, and affluent character by the name of Mohammed Mossadegh worked
diligently to bring constitutional reform to Iran. Mossadegh was most concerned
with Russo-Anglo attempts to carve up Iran as a chessboard for early twentieth
century imperialism. He sought to create a free and stable Iran, free from tyranny
and oppression.
In 1951, the Iranian people
held their first, and last, truly democratic elections and chose Mossadegh to
lead Iran. His first act was to nationalize the oil industry, which had been
under British colonial rule.
In 1951, journalist J.H.
Carmical, reporting for the New York Times, wrote "Since Anglo-Iranian is
owned by British interests, with the British Government holding a majority of
the stock, nationalization of the Iranian oil properties would be a severe blow
to the British economy." (New York Times Archives, March 25, 1951)
Sensing that it would lose
all-important oil revenue, the British government sought U.S. help in staging a
coup to overthrow Mossadegh and return the pivotal oil fields to Western
control.
On August 19, 1953, the New
York Times reported that "there has been considerable speculation here
over General Schwarzkopf's recent visit to Iran. He returned to the United
States last week after a trip to Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and Iran. State
Department officials said the department had arranged for General Schwarzkopf's
visits to Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan, but that he had made the Iranian visit
on his own initiative 'to meet old friends' there."
The Soviets charged that
Schwarzkopf (father to Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf of the Gulf War) had
secretly paid 5 million dollars to a General Zahedi who led the coup, and that
the CIA and British SIS had helped funnel the funds. It was revealed later
(this is all well documented history now) that Iranians covertly working for
the CIA and posing as communists harassed Iran's Shiite religious leaders and
staged the bombing of a prominent cleric's home in a campaign to turn the
country's Islamic religious community against Mossadegh's government.
After much legal wrangling
and an initially-failed coup attempt, Mossadegh was ousted on August 20, 1953
and the Shah of Iran once again ruled Iran with an iron grip. Mass executions
of Mossadegh loyalists followed as Iran was returned to serfdom and a virtual
vassal state.
Rather than protest the
overthrow of a democratic institution, an August 6, 1954 New York Times
editorial charged that "underdeveloped countries with rich resources now
have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their
number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism." Message: Iran got
what it deserved for wanting to control its own oil resources!
However, the Shah's hold on
Iran was untenable, at best, as Iranian society admired and supported
Mossadegh. Consequently, to ensure that no harm would come to the Shah and oil
interests in Iran, the CIA and the Israeli Mossad in 1957 began to train,
equip, and mentor a new police force in Iran, the Savak, who came to be known
as one of the world's most brutal security forces. Its main task was to
suppress opposition to the Shah's government and keep the people's political
and social knowledge as minimal as possible. Amnesty International would later
report that the Savak had the worst human rights record, far outpacing the
loathed East German Stasi, and the Soviet KGB.
From an Amnesty
International report in 1976: Iran, under the CIA-backed Shah, had "the
highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian
courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world
has a worse record in human rights than Iran."
What are we to surmise from
the above? A democratic election, the first of its kind in the Middle East, is
thwarted and overthrown for oil interests. And the result? Less than 25 years
later, a fundamentalist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini would rise to power in
Iran and extremism would spread throughout the Middle East.
Revolutionary Iran, having
overthrown the Shah, would then turn its hatred and bitterness on Israel and
the U.S., accusing them, and rightly so, of having supported the Shah's brutal
treatment of his own people.
Freedom for the Middle East?
Hardly. More like freedom to siphon oil from the Middle East. Ask any Iranian
and they will proudly tell you that Mossadegh brought a shining moment to
Iran's modern history.
Within a year of the Iranian
revolution, a war erupted between Iraq (former U.S. "friend" in the
region) and Iran.
Could this be punishment for
overthrowing the Shah?
Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism and
Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of experience
covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry. He
is a columnist for YellowTimes.org,
where this article first appeared. He can be reached at: firas6544@rogers.com