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February
18, 2002
Lenni
Brenner
Life
and Death of a Folk Hero
February
17, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Lost
in a Pit of Desperation
February
16, 2002
Phillip
Cryan
Colombia
in War Time
February
15, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
From
New York to Porto Alegre
Robert
O'Brien
The
View from Porto Alegre
Mokhiber/Weissman
Resisting
the Assassins
February
14, 2002
Levy and
Easton
Ante
Pavelic
Real Butcher of the Balkans
Joan Claybrook
Dear
Jeb Bush,
About You and Enron
John Chuckman
Time
for a Woman Prez
Alexander
Cockburn
Banning
the Koran
February
13, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
War
Powers and
the War on Terror
Tom Turnipseed
Bush's
Folly
George
Monbiot
American
Imperialism
February
12, 2002
Uri Avnery
The
Great Game:
Oil, Sharon and Iran
Tommy
Ates
Black
Land Loss
February
11, 2002
Walt Brasch
The
Synergizing of America
John Troyer
Enron's
Deep Throat?
February
9, 2002
John Blair
Criticize
Cheney, Go to Jail
February
8, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Ashcroft
the Bigot
Molly
Secours
Racism
and Real Estate
Wole Akande
World
Economic Forum:
The Aftermath
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Dita
Sari Tells Reebok
to "Shove It"
February
7, 2002
Patrick
Cockburn
Taliban's
War on Chess
John Chuckman
Howdee,
Dick!
Tariq
Ali
Mullahs
and Heretics
February
6, 2002
Amira
Hass
On
the Edge of the
Non-Violent Demonstrations
Vivian
Berger
Sentenced
to Rape
Vladimir Georgiyev
Russian Intelligence:
War on Iraq Begins in Sept.
Tom Turnipseed
"Axis
of Evil" a Cover for Corporate Corruption?
David
Vest
The
Enron Creature
February
5, 2002
Norman
Madarasz
Dispatch
from Pôrto Alegre
Tom Malinowski
What
to do with
Our "Detainees"?
Dita Sari
Why
I Rejected the
Reebok Human Rights Award
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
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Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
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The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
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February 18,
2002
A Matter of Perspective:
The United States and Iran
By Ron Jacobs
I'm not sure where GW Bush was in 1979, but he
must remember something about the popular uprising of the Iranian
people that overthrew the US's biggest puppet in the region-the
Shah. Although the revolution had been brewing for years, in
1978 and early 1979 there were huge demonstrations against his
rule by all sectors of Iranian society. These demonstrations
took place in Iran's cities, her oilfields, her mosques and other
places of worship, and finally within her military. Hundreds
(perhaps thousands) were killed by the Shah's military and secret
police, the SAVAK. The movement involved social democrats, communists
of all kinds, students, peasants, urban intellectuals and middle
classes, and Islamists of every stripe-fundamentalists to radicals.
It was a truly popular movement that resulted in the Shah leaving
the country in disgrace on January 16, 1979.
After his departure, there was a power
struggle for control of the new revolutionary government. At
first, the secular radicals had the upper hand and it looked
like Iran might become the first socialist state in that region
of the world. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case. Within
days of the Shah's exile, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had
re-entered the country from his exile in France, where he had
been living and secretly organizing opposition to the Shah's
regime since he had been forced out of the country after the
CIA-sponsored coup that replaced the populist nationalist leader
Muhammad Mossadegh with the Shah in 1955. Mossadegh had called
for nationalization of the country's oil and a re-negotiation
of all the contracts between Iran and the big oil companies.
Of course, such a call has never been popular with the oil companies
and the governments that serve them, especially that of the United
States. This is the primary reason for the CIA-sponsored overthrow.
Khomeini had been part of the resistance
to the Shah in the 1950s, also. His strict interpretation of
the Koran and his rank as one of the highest Imams in Shia Islam
gave him an large and devoted following. After all, to the faithful
he was closer to Allah than anyone else and to resist his will
was tantamount to resisting Allah's will. After Mossadegh's
deposition and arrest, the Shah moved back onto the Peacock Throne
and begin to rid the country of any opposition to his rule.
He was helped tremendously by the US government and its various
agencies. Khomeini was exiled and took up residence in France
where he lived on funds provided by the French intelligence services
and the CIA, who preferred his religious-based radicalism to
that of the communists and socialists in Iran, who had strong
support among the workers in the oil extraction and refinement
industry, as well as among the students.
The Shah undertook some minimal land
reforms and secularized Iranian culture. This latter action
was a double-edged sword for the Shah. While it created a huge
base of technicians and intellectuals that were needed for the
expanding economy in Iran, it also provided these young people
with the tools for a critical analysis of Iran's role in the
US empire-a role many students and intellectuals found subservient
and counter to the best interests of the Iranian people. At
the same time, the secularization of Iranian society was met
with religious-based fear in the provinces, where the Koran proscribed
daily existence and religious leaders feared losing their followers
to the temptations of secular capitalist culture. This contradiction
was the breeding ground for the revolution which eventually brought
down the Shah and his regime.
In 1974, when I began working with Iranian
students intent on bringing down the Shah and replacing his government
with a popular regime, there were already divisions within the
Iranian Student Association (ISA). This group was a coalition
of Iranian students in the United States who were devoted to
revolution. Although the secular faction had the upper hand
when I first began working with the Washington, DC branch as
a liaison between them and a radical student organization I belonged
to at the University of Maryland, it wasn't long before the Islamists
were the larger group, both in the DC area and nationally. Nonetheless,
the various factions continued to work together, intent on ridding
their country of the Shah, his opulent lifestyle at the expense
of the Iranian peasantry and working class, and his dreaded secret
police. I met some of the most dedicated people I have ever
met before or since while working with these men and women.
Many of them had families back in Iran who lived under a constant
threat of torture and death because of their children's activities
against the Shah and his puppetmaster in Washington. Despite
these threats, their families supported their activities and
did whatever they could to insure that these young men and women
could finish their education in the United States and come back
to Iran to serve the revolution. Meanwhile, in the United States,
SAVAK agents operated openly, attacking demonstrations of Iranian
students and their supporters, kidnapping Iranian activists,
and testifying at INS deportation hearings, where Iranian activists
were sent back to almost certain torture and death in Iran's
gulags.
I write this for one reason: to illustrate
the commitment of the Iranian people to never let the United
States control its destiny again. After Khomeini took over the
reins of power in revolutionary Iran, he and his clerical government,
in a show of religious intolerance and a grab for power, drove
the secular elements out of the government and, in some cases,
out of the country or to their death. Indeed, I am almost certain
that some of the individuals I worked with in the 1970s were
killed at the hands of the Khomeini police apparatus. It was
these acts and the US-funded operations against the Iranian government
(support of opposition groups, monetary support for Iraq's bloody
war against Iran in the 1980s, to name two) that eventually dashed
the revolutionary hopes of many of the Iranian people and led
to Iran's current situation.
However, if GW and his friends think
they can defeat Iran, they are wrong. Although there are sharp
divisions amongst the Iranian people both in the government and
in the streets and villages, any military attack by the United
States and/or Israel will cause those divisions to disappear.
The Iranian people would unite to repel any such adventure.
In addition, such an act would only serve to destroy the more
moderate and secular elements in Iran, since war seems to bring
the most reactionary elements to the fore in every country where
there is a war. One need only look at America's current political
climate for an example of this phenomenon. Despite the basically
imperial nature of American foreign policy under Bill Clinton,
there were genuine attempts by his administration to engage states
considered "rogue" by the United States (like Iran)
in a dialogue aimed at defusing the potential for war with those
states. Now, with the resurgence of the warmakers inside the
Beltway, this dialogue is forgotten and naked imperialism is
back in vogue with the policymakers. Of course, should their
war plans proceed as they hope, none of these men and women will
be putting their lives on the front line. In fact, if previous
US wars are any indication, neither will any of their relatives
unless they volunteer to do so-a very unlikely proposition.
It is important for anyone opposed to
war for whatever reasons to challenge the Bush administration's
characterization of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "axis
of evil." While there may be several aspects of these countries'
political and social situations with which we may disagree, they
are no more "evil" than any other nation. If one were
to apply the reasons to the United States that GW gives for wanting
to wage war on the nations in his "axis", s/he would
most certainly find that the United States also fits many of
GW's categories of "evil." It's all a matter of perspective.
Indeed, if the export of weapons of mass destruction is a reason
to go to war, then the United States, which exports more such
weapons than any other country by far, would be fair game for
an attack by pretty much any army. Of course, this isn't going
to happen (we hope) to the United States, nor should it happen
elsewhere.
Ron Jacobs
can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
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