Running an empire means having a crowded date book. So many
anniversaries to remember, or to remember to forget. Only a month ago we had
the 50th birthday of the Cuban revolution, and there was Fidel Castro still
hale enough at 77 to celebrate that day when he and his comrades attacked
the Moncada. A few years later, they rode in triumph into Havana. Chalk up a
bad day for Empire.
Another 50th came this week on August 19, which was the day,
back in that same year of 1953, that the CIA supervised the overthrow of the
popularly elected Mohammad Mossadegh government in Tehran and installed the
Shah on his Peacock Throne, a day that was hailed in Washington, D.C., as a
very good one indeed.
Iran had been dominated by U.S. or British oil companies and
intelligence agencies. It was producing 600 tons of opium a year. Then in
1953, the nationalist Mossadegh won election and immediately moved to
suppress the opium trade and push forward with land reform and nationalizing
the oil industry.
Within a few weeks, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
was calling Mossadegh a madman, and Dulles's brother Allen, head of the CIA,
dispatched Kermit Roosevelt to organize a coup against him. In the year
2000, the press here published parts of a classified document pertaining to
the coup, written by Donald N. Wilbur, an expert in Persian architecture and
one of the "leading planners" of the operation "TP-AJAX."
A paltry $1 million was the sum the CIA spread around Tehran,
bringing mobs into the streets. The CIA's "Iranian operatives pretending to
be Communists threatened Muslim leaders with 'savage punishment if they
opposed Mossadegh'" The "house of at least one prominent Muslim was bombed
by CIA agents posing as Communists"; the CIA tried to "orchestrate a call
for a holy war against Communism." On August 19, "a journalist who was one
of the agency's most important Iranian agents led a crowd toward Parliament,
inciting people to set fire to the offices of a newspaper owned by Dr.
Mossadegh's foreign minister"; American agents swung "security forces to the
side of the demonstrators"; Finally, Dr. Mossadegh and other government
officials were rounded up and the day was won. The oil and opium fields were
safe for Empire and its local representatives.
Advised by the CIA, the Shah's secret police drew up their lists
of those nationalists and Communists to be arrested, tortured and killed.
Generations of young Iranians fled the country, often to the United States.
In Iran, it wasn't until 1979 that a truly bad day for Empire arrived, in
the form of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
In 2000, U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright made, in her
official capacity, a strange admission. Maybe August 19, 1953, hadn't been
such a good day after all, neither for Iran nor for the United States. "In
1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the
overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh ... the coup
was clearly a setback for Iran's political development, and it is easy to
see why so many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in
their internal affair."
So suppose someone in the Eisenhower administration with clearer
foresight than the Dulles brothers had nixed the disbursement of $1 million
and told Kermit Roosevelt to come home. Let an Iranian answer that question.
Sasan Fayazmanesh teaches economics at California State University in
Fresno. Here's what he wrote on the eve of August 19, this year:
"It is, of course, meaningless to write an iffy history.
However, one can't help but imagine how things might have been different had
it not been for the Kermits and Wilburs of the world. Would the Islamic
Revolution of 1979 have taken place? Would Americans have been held hostage
for 444 days in exchange for the shah and frozen assets?
"Would the U.S. have helped Saddam start the Iraq-Iran war?
Would over a million people have died as a result of the war? Would the U.S.
have imposed numerous unilateral sanctions against Iran for over two decades
and made the (U.S.) captains of industry lose billions of dollars? Would
Saddam have invaded Kuwait? Would the U.S. have invaded Iraq twice and be in
the mess that it is in right now?
"I guess a better question is this: Will the U.S. ever learn
that the Kermits and Wilburs of the world are not that clever, have no
foresight, and, in the long run, do more damage to this country than good?"
So the Empire has its good days that turn out to be bad, the
same way (though it will never admit it) it has its bad days that turn out
to be good. Empire, don't forget, is all about turning the world upside
down.
Alexander Cockburn is coeditor with Jeffrey St. Clair of the
muckraking newsletter CounterPunch. To find out more about Alexander
Cockburn and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate Web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2003 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
