 |
Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away
Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Monday, June 22, 2009
Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. They have long embodied this struggle. It is we who need to be taught. It was Washington that orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the Middle East, and install the compliant shah in power. It was Washington that forced Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who cared as much for his country as he did for the rule of law and democracy, to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. We gave to the Iranian people the corrupt regime of the shah and his savage secret police and the primitive clerics that rose out of the swamp of the dictator’s Iran. Iranians know they once had a democracy until we took it away.
The fundamental problem in the Middle East is not a degenerate and corrupt Islam. The fundamental problem is a degenerate and corrupt Christendom. We have not brought freedom and democracy and enlightenment to the Muslim world. We have brought the opposite. We have used the iron fist of the American military to implant our oil companies in Iraq, occupy Afghanistan and ensure that the region is submissive and cowed. We have supported a government in Israel that has carried out egregious war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza and is daily stealing ever greater portions of Palestinian land. We have established a network of military bases, some the size of small cities, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, and we have secured basing rights in the Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. We have expanded our military operations to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Egypt, Algeria and Yemen. And no one naively believes, except perhaps us, that we have any intention of leaving.
We are the biggest problem in the Middle East. We have through our cruelty and violence created and legitimized the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads and the Osama bin Ladens. The longer we lurch around the region dropping iron fragmentation bombs and seizing Muslim land the more these monsters, reflections of our own distorted image, will proliferate. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that “the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.” But our hypocrisy no longer fools anyone but ourselves. It will ensure our imperial and economic collapse.
The history of modern Iran is the history of a people battling tyranny. These tyrants were almost always propped up and funded by foreign powers. This suppression and distortion of legitimate democratic movements over the decades resulted in the 1979 revolution that brought the Iranian clerics to power, unleashing another tragic cycle of Iranian resistance.
“The central story of Iran over the last 200 years has been national humiliation at the hands of foreign powers who have subjugated and looted the country,” Stephen Kinzer, the author of “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror,” told me. “For a long time the perpetrators were the British and Russians. Beginning in 1953, the United States began taking over that role. In that year, the American and British secret services overthrew an elected government, wiped away Iranian democracy, and set the country on the path to dictatorship.”
“Then, in the 1980s, the U.S. sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, providing him with military equipment and intelligence that helped make it possible for his army to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians,” Kinzer said. “Given this history, the moral credibility of the U.S. to pose as a promoter of democracy in Iran is close to nil.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Especially ludicrous is the sight of people in Washington calling for intervention on behalf of democracy in Iran when just last year they were calling for the bombing of Iran. If they had had their way then, many of the brave protesters on the streets of Tehran today—the ones they hold up as heroes of democracy—would be dead now.”
Washington has never recovered from the loss of Iran—something our intelligence services never saw coming. The overthrow of the shah, the humiliation of the embassy hostages, the laborious piecing together of tiny shreds of paper from classified embassy documents to expose America’s venal role in thwarting democratic movements in Iran and the region, allowed the outside world to see the dark heart of the American empire. Washington has demonized Iran ever since, painting it as an irrational and barbaric country filled with primitive, religious zealots. But Iranians, as these street protests illustrate, have proved in recent years far more courageous in the defense of democracy than most Americans.
Where were we when our election was stolen from us in 2000 by Republican operatives and a Supreme Court that overturned all legal precedent to anoint George W. Bush president? Did tens of thousands of us fill the squares of our major cities and denounce the fraud? Did we mobilize day after day to restore transparency and accountability to our election process? Did we fight back with the same courage and tenacity as the citizens of Iran? Did Al Gore defy the power elite and, as opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has done, demand a recount at the risk of being killed?
President Obama retreated in his Cairo speech into our spectacular moral nihilism, suggesting that our crimes matched the crimes of Iran, that there is, in his words, “a tumultuous history between us.” He went on: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.” It all, he seemed to say, balances out.
I am no friend of the Iranian regime, which helped create and arm Hezbollah, is certainly meddling in Iraq, has persecuted human rights activists, gays, women and religious and ethnic minorities, embraces racism and intolerance and uses its power to deny popular will. But I do not remember Iran orchestrating a coup in the United States to replace an elected government with a brutal dictator who for decades persecuted, assassinated and imprisoned democracy activists. I do not remember Iran arming and funding a neighboring state to wage war against our country. Iran never shot down one of our passenger jets as did the USS Vincennes—caustically nicknamed Robocruiser by the crews of other American vessels—when in June 1988 it fired missiles at an Airbus filled with Iranian civilians, killing everyone on board. Iran is not sponsoring terrorism within the United States, as our intelligence services currently do in Iran. The attacks on Iranian soil include suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, sabotage and “targeted assassinations” of government officials, scientists and other Iranian leaders. What would we do if the situation was reversed? How would we react if Iran carried out these policies against us?
We are, and have long been, the primary engine for radicalism in the Middle East. The greatest favor we can do for democracy activists in Iran, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf and the dictatorships that dot North Africa, is withdraw our troops from the region and begin to speak to Iranians and the rest of the Muslim world in the civilized language of diplomacy, respect and mutual interests. The longer we cling to the doomed doctrine of permanent war the more we give credibility to the extremists who need, indeed yearn for, an enemy that speaks in their crude slogans of nationalist cant and violence. The louder the Israelis and their idiot allies in Washington call for the bombing of Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions, the happier are the bankrupt clerics who are ordering the beating and murder of demonstrators. We may laugh when crowds supporting Ahmadinejad call us “the Great Satan,” but there is a very palpable reality that has informed the terrible algebra of their hatred.
Our intoxication with our military prowess blinds us to all possibilities of hope and mutual cooperation. It was Mohammed Khatami, the president of Iran from 1997 to 2005—perhaps the only honorable Middle East leader of our time—whose refusal to countenance violence by his own supporters led to the demise of his lofty “civil society” at the hands of more ruthless, less scrupulous opponents. It was Khatami who proclaimed that “the death of even one Jew is a crime.” And we sputtered back to this great and civilized man the primitive slogans of all deformed militarists. We were captive, as all bigots are, to our demons, and could not hear any sound but our own shouting. It is time to banish these demons. It is time to stand not with the helmeted goons who beat protesters, not with those in the Pentagon who make endless wars, but with the unarmed demonstrators in Iran who daily show us what we must become.
The fight of the Iranian people is our fight. And, perhaps for the first time, we can match our actions to our ideals. We have no right under post-Nuremberg laws to occupy Iraq or Afghanistan. These occupations are defined by these statutes as criminal “wars of aggression.” They are war crimes. We have no right to use force, including the state-sponsored terrorism we unleash on Iran, to turn the Middle East into a private gas station for our large oil companies. We have no right to empower Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestine, a flagrant violation of international law. The resistance you see in Iran will not end until Iranians, and all those burdened with repression in the Middle East, free themselves from the tyranny that comes from within and without. Let us, for once, be on the side of those who share our democratic ideals.
| Chris Hedges is the former Mideast bureau chief of the New York Times. His Truthdig column can be found every Monday. |
Prison
Planet.tv Members Can Watch
Fall Of The Republic
Right Now Online -
Don't Miss Out! Get
Your Subscription Today!
CANCER CONSPIRACY? Are
"they" suppressing the cure? Will YOU
be the next victim? Learn
the Secret Truth! - READ FULL STORY
-
- Social bookmarks
- Email this article
-
- Print this page
41 Responses to “Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away”
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | |||||||
| By N2H | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:27 am
I found this video so to the point and inspirational in terms of finding the power to stop this madness with the NWO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....annel_page
reconmarine Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
This article is of such ignorance. Despite the fact Jimmy Carter is a complete dipshit,
what he intended with Iran and what is became is 2 different things.
Again, fools please read “We are Iran”
alex hidel Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Why did Reagan “Cut & Run” from Mid East after Marine Barraks were bombed ?
Nevermind Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
You really wanna know why? Just ask anyone from Lebanon and they will tell you the reason. It’s because our wonderful troops were raping women there as well as other atrocities. Hmmmm… Sounds pretty similar to Iraq, don’t it?
reconmarine Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:59 am
Reagan rules!!! Carter sucks! Im a partisan dupe baby!!!
reconmarine Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:47 am
YES! thank you prez christ! Reagan may have been a coward who let the former CIA head and all around criminal George H.W. Bush run his foreign policy(enjoy Iran Contra like me prez Christ? dont you LOVE criminals like me?!?!) after his buddy Hinckley put a bullet in his stomach(google Hinckley,Bush connection), and sure, he spent money like a drunken sailor while pretending to be fiscally conservative, and suree, he expanded the size of government while pretending to be about small government, buut REAGAN RULES!!!!!!!! man the guy could give a great speech, i almost forgive his huge spending and blatant hypocrisy and Ollie North and the other criminals.
reconmarine Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:48 am
Hey prez christ, do you know what “partisan dupe” means?
reconmarine Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:17 am
As most of you can tell, somebody likes to pretend they are me…
it’s the only they can get attention so they use my screen name.
It’s probably the guy Chris with the dead mom.
I'm So Bored With The U-S-A Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Yeah, he should have done what Reagan did & gave them a bunch of weapons…
Don’t you ever get tired of being such a jackass?
reconmarine Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:59 am
YES AGAIN PREZ!!!!! He practically invented fake flag waving empty patriotism(or “patriotism” to people like you and me, as opposed to actual patriotism which includes demanding accountability from your leaders and not slavish devotion to them) and he “streamlined” the economy(if thats your way of saying he hugely expanded the federal deficit and spent tons of money-and the “weapons systems” defense doesnt work, though he did waste lots there as well). REAGAN RULES! PARTISAN DUPES UNITE!! FAUX PATRIOTS UNITE!!!
john wesley Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I guess you are the dipshit.. operation ajax anyone?
reconmarine Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:44 am
again, please read the same ridiculous pro-empire/pro-elite propaganda that ive bought into. Fox News rules.
Travis, Ancient Wisdom (is a link) Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
The question is who is creating this madness?
“The Israelites have ravaged this land (Palestine) through plunder and murder, they have killed their friends with whom they had drunk wine, and they have deceived and misled their fellow believers of the Jewish cult, who are truly not Israelites but merely believers in a cult.
Thus the Israelites betrayed their own friends and murdered them because of their greed, but it shall likewise be done to them by the rightful owners of this land whom they have deprived of their rights and subjugated since ancient times.” – The Talmud of Jmmanuel, the gospel of The Christ manifestation on earth that the Pharisees do not wish for us to read.
Next question; why is this madness being allowed? Is it about greed or power? Or is it part of a perfect plan to restore the service-to-others orientation within the soul of humanity?
If you do not read to understand, you have nothing to stand on but more of your own speculations.
I will not be returning to this post. Therefore, if you have comment regarding mine, please use the Contact Us on my website.
Travis, Ancient Wisdom (is a link) Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:37 pm
O’ and it was not my intent to pick on any one person here, but rather making a point that was made 2,000 years ago.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:26 am
So…should we interfere or not? Words are a good first step, to be sure. But are they enough? Why not right our previous wrongs and stand up for the oppressed Iranians? Instead, Obama is biding his time and hoping to play Mr. Nice Guy with whoever comes out on top, while carefully choosing his statements offering support of the people without outright denouncing their government. People say that Iran is waiting for our interference, due to the past history cited in this article, so that they can blame us (see http://www.newsy.com/videos/ob.....d_reaction for international perspectives). Well, they are already blaming Britain and they didn’t really do anything. Also, let’s not muddy the issue by bringing in Iraq and Afghanistan: a current withdrawal of troops would only serve to destabilize the region.
The Truth Teller Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Muddy the Issue ???
We can no longer afford the empire building !!!
Oppressed Iranians Have you been there lately??
If so please provide some proof as to this oppression
Britain did not do anything LMAO
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 am
AND they’ll do the same with our Republic if we let them. We must alert and inform and STOP using their system. We can’t beat it if we all continue to use it!
http://www.warnthepeople.org/be-prepared.html
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:43 am
Why doesn’t the USA just invade Iran and get it over with, Iran probably already some nuclear weapons which it can lob at the US to settle the matter forever.
No Idea Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 am
Do you know how Powerful an ICBM they would need for that? Iran doesnt have the technology for such a Missile. Israel our make believe ally however, does. I have no doubt Israel would nuke us.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:48 am
Well, well. I don’t agree with any clandestine meddling by Western intelligence (??) agencies. However, if you believe for one second that there is a ‘democracy’ in Iran under the mullahs, then you must be seriously deluded and continue to believe that we live in democracies in the U.S. and the U.K., et al.
What else it there to say?
I'm So Bored With The U-S-A Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
If you had actually read the article you would know that NOWHERE in it does the author claim that the current regime is a democracy.
He merely repeats what is indisputable, historic fact: That they did elect a liberal, westernized leader in the ’50s, and that we overthrew him & installed the Shah because he was going to nationalize their oil.
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Don’t forget, while Mossadeq was elected democratically, he abolished the secret ballot toward the end of his reign. I realize you guys are in an “info war” but it’s not as if there isn’t a case against interventionism without being disingenuous
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Good comment Isaac. Iran never was a democracy. They might have had a few more freedoms than a dictatorship, but not as many as we have. However, I also do not believe that western “democracies” are really that either…democracies, I mean.
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
USA & UK never left Iran alone, simply because thier interest oil interest was not surved as designed by BP. Remember the Iran Cotra fiasco of Regan.
Iran not only has a functional democracy their culture and literature is way older than most of us can fathom. Please let the people in Iran decide for themselves and if they have to get rid of the present Mollahs, let them do it by themselves without the unholy intervention of UK and USA
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
This is why all this happens around the world:
**Psycho scum elite’s own words**
“We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.”
http://www.newswithviews.com/Spingola/deanna41.htm
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
What makes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a monster? The fact that he pointed out the existence of tentacle zionist creature that corrupts countless governments, and if let to spread and feed, will one day erupt in a day of violence which the Jews will, unfortunately, be victim of.
Nice article, but please reconsider your views about MA. He’s far from perfect, but he’s certainly not the monster you make him to be.
binky11 Reply:
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:03 pm
He’s a total dick. he’s in many “Iranian Revolution” photos from the late 70’s, herding the famous American hostages he helped blindfold and terrorize. He was one of the main hostage takers and kidnappers, and he sold out to GHW Bush in the infamous “October Surprise” that kept the hostages in custody until after the Presidential election, thus insuring the defeat of Jimmy Carter. Does Ahmaddinejad work for the CIA still? The MSM and the Iranian government vehemently deny he is the same person in the hostage photos, but a quick glance will reveal that it most certainly was him.
Shahram Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 am
So what if he is? These people had the balls to steal their country back, and that is their biggest crime. I am Iranian and I stand with whatever the people want, but I do not want any western intervention, that NEVER helps the indiginous people. The Iranian revolution was a terrific anti-colonial anti-NWO act, it’s just a shame that it resulted in a theocratic regime. All you who are hoping for some nice libertarian regime here in the future are deluding yourselves. Those with angry assertiveness always prevail. If we have a revolution here, we will be honoring the Ayatollah Pat Robertson.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:56 pm
how about the Shah’s son all over network MSM, wringing his hands over the “corrupt” regime and applauding the same masses his daddy tortured and massacred for decades. Strange bedfellows crawl out from their holes..
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
its only up to each and everyone of you, what is more important your lifestyle or your freedom.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:58 pm
I have a story chi flat irons, one mother says she’s aware something is very wrong, but she doesn’t want to hear about it because she just wants to “be with her children and see them grow up happy.” I tell her runescape gold, “But, if we don’t stop this, your children may not get to grow up at all.” so basically, she’s using her kids as an excuse for her own inability to face reality.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:53 am
Let’s pray for them
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:13 am
Hey at least when the Iranians smelt something odd about this election they took to the streets and protested, WTF did you pussy Yanks do in 2000? Fuck All!!
Mars Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:15 am
But then again…AL Gore as president you would all be living in a country where your life would be monitored, calculating how big your carbon footprint is
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:19 am
step 1: infiltrate government by bribing top officials
step 2: rig election and install a doctrine “democracy and fairness”
step 3: …
step 4: bomb the living crap out of anything that disagrees with you
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:45 am
i didnt even read the article, just the headline. i dont need to read, other people tell me how to think.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:57 am
Does anybody know whos on Hannity tonight? God I love Fox News. And Ann Coulter is sexy, I dont care if she has an adams apple, in fact I think her strong manly jaw makes her look hotter. God I wish my dad didnt molest me as a kid…
reconmarine Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:43 am
Are you saying the real recomarine isnt a shill who buys into phony arguments meant to keep dumbed down citizens like me in check?!? You would be wrong! Give me 20! HOORAH.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:48 am
Finally, an article that makes sense!!! The USA needs to get out of the Middle East and stop this grand “Empire” delusion.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
Im obsessed with somebody named Chris. I seem to say his name just about every time I ome here. Somebody got under my skin……(never going to stop, should have learned by now)Im more obsessed with Pappa Bear O’Reilly though, what a mans man……….
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:24 am
oil
spy
theft
profit
aipac
goyim
opium
dance
the fed
mossad
911 liars
art students
moving company
propaganda media
The chosen the superior
Extortion blackmail bribery
By deception ye shall wage war
AIPAC’s Israel-first dual-nationals
2-3% of the U.S. population control
For-profit NotFederal NoReserve scam
How are our pet trolls president christian & wannabe reconmarine doin’?!