(DV) Hamilton: Iran Quiz

As the world lurches towards a dangerously expanded war in the Middle East, it's time for a quick Iran IQ test. Please note: With each question, it's possible that more than one of the answers is correct or that none of the suggested answers is correct.

1) List all of the countries whose borders are contiguous with Iran:
a) Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Turkey
b) Iraq, Israel, Syria, Afghanistan, Republic of Armenia
c) Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Turkey
d) Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan

2) The Mohammad Mossadeq government was overthrown by a British and US coup (courtesy of the CIA) in
b) 1958
b) 1963
c) 1953
d) 1967

3) In 2005, the population of Iran was
a) 14 million
b) 68 million
c) 22 million
d) 38 million

4) Iran's nuclear program began with the help of which country?
a) The United States
b) France
c) Germany
d) China

5) Iran's identified crude oil reserves are estimated to be
a) 69.2 billion barrels
b) 285.6 billion barrels
c) 85.7 billion barrels
d) 90.8 billion barrels

6) Iran's natural gas resources are estimated to equal what % of the total world resources?
a) 44%
b) 16 %
c) 12%
d) 28%

7) The following countries currently produce or have in storage significant quantities of enriched uranium and/or reprocessed nuclear fuel
a) UK, France, US, Russia, China, Israel
b) UK, France, US, China, Russia, Pakistan, Israel, Indonesia, India, Japan
c) UK, Germany, France, Britain, US, China, Russia, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, India, Japan, Brazil, the Netherlands, Belgium

8) After the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the Iranian government
a) Sent a letter to George Bush saying, "May Satan, the Great Infidel Fall"
b) Allowed ordinary citizens in Iran to attend street vigils expressing sympathy for America
c) Announced they were willing to resume normal diplomatic relations with the US -- cut off ever since the hostage crisis of 1979
d) Urged the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance to fully cooperate with the Americans in the war against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan

9) The 8-year-long Iran-Iraq War cost the lives of how many Iranians?
a) 220,000
b) 50,000
c) 1,200,000
d) 700,000

10) Which nation began the Iran-Iraq War?
a) Iran
b) Iraq
c) The United States

11) Saddam Hussein thought Iraq would win a war against Iran very quickly. Thus, Hussein initially called the war a "Whirlwind War." Why did the war last 8 years?
a) The US and many other countries provided aid to both sides
b) Iraq offered a favorable cease fire to Iran in 1983. It included a complete Iraqi evacuation from Iranian territory, as well as $70 billion in reparations to be paid by oil-rich Arab Gulf States to Iran. The cease-fire was rejected by Khomeini who insisted on Saddam Hussein's removal as head of state
c) Iraq's repeated offers of cease-fires to Iran between 1983 and 1988 were rejected by Khomeini whose government had mobilized thousands of young soldiers to "martyr" themselves on the battlefields

12) Who recently wrote, "Should the Middle East, or for that matter the world, consider as normal a system of nuclear apartheid -- in which a select group of nations are entitled to such weapons while others seeking to acquire them are treated as 'rogue states'"?
a) Kofi Annan
b) Nelson Mandela
c) Richard Falk
d) Noam Chomsky

Answers:

1) None of the above. The following countries share a border with Iran: Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Azerbaijan and Turkey.

2) 1953. In 2000, forty-seven years after the coup, the US publicly admitted that the US had orchestrated the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadeq.

3) The population of Iran is approximately 68 million.

4) All four countries helped Iran acquire nuclear technology. In 1957 the US urged Iran to build nuclear reactors. Subsequently, the US provided Iran with several kilograms of enriched uranium and facilitated the training of Iranian nuclear scientists at MIT. France and China helped Iran build a nuclear reactor at Esfahan. These efforts continued in 1974 with Framatome of France and Sieman's of Germany agreeing to build an additional four nuclear reactors and also to provide enriched uranium to Iran. (These reactors were never completed and repeatedly bombed by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.) It is widely believed that Pakistan has aided Iran in the acquisition of sophisticated uranium enrichment technology.

5) 69.2 billion barrels is correct. This is 6.3% of the world's identified reserves. The other listed figures are 258.6 -- Saudi Arabia's identified reserves, 85.7 -- Kuwait's identified reserves, and 90.8 -- Iraq's identified reserves. Please note: We use here USGS figures as opposed to oil industry statistics which are generally higher.

6) 16% is the correct answer. For a detailed discussion on the relationship between Iran's oil and natural gas resources and neo-conservative push towards war, see Michael Klare's excellent article, "Iran."

7) c) is correct. There is, however, considerable uncertainty in this list since the world is literally awash in enriched uranium and reprocessed nuclear fuel. Access to these materials is extremely hard to control and inventories are almost impossible to verify. The verification problem is complicated by the fact that nuclear processing often results in large quantities of nuclear materials that get "lost" in pipelines, ducts and other industrial equipment. This problem has plagued such facilities as the now- decommissioned US Rocky Flats plutonium factory. (This is where the US formerly made triggers for atomic bombs.) At least 62 pounds of plutonium were lost in the plant's ventilation ducts -- enough for seven nuclear bombs. For a more detailed discussion of this problem, see my article, "Papered Over: Rocky Mountain Exposé," in Mother Jones magazine, Nov/Dec, 1990.

8) c) and d) are true. There is some controversy regarding b) with differing assessments of whether Iranians could safely demonstrate in favor of the US after 9/11. Ervand Abrahamian, a Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College, says the Iran government did allow pro-American demonstrations after 9/11. Afshin Molavi a writer for the Washington Post and author of Persian Pilgrimages: Journey Across Iran reports that the demonstrations were broken up by Basijis, hardliners associated with Iran's conservative ruling clergy. The Basijis have informal links to security forces and the police.

9) 700,000 is the figure cited by Ervand Abrahamian in “Empire Strikes Back,” in Inventing the Axis of Evil: the Truth about North Korea, Iran and Syria, 2004, p.133. Middle East expert, Robert Fisk says how many died may "never be known." In his book, Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East, Fisk reports one Iranian source who stated 220,000 Iranians were killed and 400,000 were wounded in the War.

10) There had been hostilities on both sides with Iran providing aid to underground Shi'ite groups in Iraq and assassinating officials in Iraq. Meanwhile Iraq retaliated and attacked Iranian villages. It was, however, Iraq which launched a full-scale invasion of Iran on September 22, 1980 crossing the border in multiple locations with thousands of tanks, artillery and soldiers.

11) The complex trajectory of war cannot be adequately parsed in a multiple choice question. Still a), b), and c) are correct. The US provided aid to both sides including millions of dollars in agricultural credits to Saddam Hussein. These credits relieved Iraq's cash-flow problems, allowing Hussein to acquire costly military equipment elsewhere. The US also supplied Iraq with highly sophisticated satellite spying capability and helicopters. Simultaneously, the US sold thousands of anti-tank Tow missiles to Iran. The US was not alone in this criminal duplicity. While the French government was busily supplying Mirage jets and Exocet missiles to Iraq, a private French chemical company was selling explosives and gun cartridges to Iran. Furthermore, a secret cartel of companies in France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Spain were providing the Khomeini regime with huge amounts of explosives, while other companies made sure Iraq obtained the ingredients for chemical weapons. Meanwhile, Israel funneled an estimated $100 to $170 million in military equipment from both US and European sources to Iran. Not to be outdone, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union sent billions in aid to Iraq. China joined in with arms sales to both Iran and Iraq. The whole sordid story is discussed in detail in Dilip Hiro's The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict and in Kenneth Timmerman's The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq. Clearly, the unscrupulous decision to treat the conflict as a giant arms bazaar greatly prolonged the war, bringing untold suffering to Iraqis and Iranians alike.

12) Richard Falk in "Storm Clouds Over Iran," the Nation magazine, February 13, 2006. Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus, Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Global Studies at University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author of numerous articles and over 20 books, including Crimes of War, The War System, and the End of World Order.

Mina Hamilton is a writer based in New York City. She can be reached at: minaham@aol.com.