November 3, 2007

• Danger from Iran?

  The question of the U.S. relations with Iran is not a simple one. I’ll give a short summary of those relations as I understand them with a little historic background.

  Persia, or Iran as it now is called, was once the mightiest empire in the World but for the past several centuries has fallen on hard times. Oil was discovered there one hundred years ago and it was for some time dominated by a British oil company. It was considered to be under the British sphere of influence until after WW2. Other areas of British and French control in the Middle East had shown rising Arab Nationalism unrest but Iran was not an Arab nation . Iran had rather been part of a centuries-old struggle between the Ottoman Empire based in Turkey, Russia, and Britain for hegemony over the area. The collapse of the Ottomans after WW1, rise of modern Turkey, and the communist takeover of Russia left Britain with a (fairly) clear field and they fully backed the army strong man who declared himself Shah and gave the British full control of the enormous oil fields of Iran.

  Iran had since the turn of the sixteenth century,been the major area of Shi’ia
  Moslem belief. This “non-orthodox” part of Islam may be roughly equated to Protestantism in the Western world but has never been as numerous. The Shi’ia are surrounded by the Sunni who make up the vast majority of Moslems. This has been a factor in the recent trouble in both Iraq and Iran.
  In the 1950s, a popular leader, Dr. Mohammed Mussaddiq, led an attempt to overthrow the Shah, which the CIA was active in preventing. This led to extensive anti-American feeling among Iranians, who saw the Shah as a western puppet of the big oil companies. His repressive rule and expulsion of some popular religious figures led to further unrest in the country.
  During this period, an acquaintance of mine worked in Iran with UNESCO and CARE. He told me unrest was so widespread that the shah’s government hd to keep the Army in constant movement from one part of the country to another and allow even them only limited supplies.

  In 1978 the Shah was overthrown by a popular uprising inspired by the return of the exiled cleric Ayahatolla Khomeini (whose son is currently the reigning cleric in Iran). The following year “students” stormed and seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostage until the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981

  Saddam Hussian, dictator of Iraq saw and took the opportunity to attack Iran during this period . His unsuccessful war with Iran lasted from 1980 until 1988 and resulted in enormous loss of life on both sides. Saddam was generally supported by the other Arab states, the U.S. and other European powers. they saw Iran as a tool of Soviet expansion .

  Recent events in the Middle East have left Iran as a fairly stable country surrounded by the instability of the Afghan and Iraq wars and eager to assert its own influence and dominate the area. In this it is opposed by its Arab neighbors, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia who are deeply suspicious of spreading Shi’ia religious influence.

  The world currently has eight openly declared nuclear bomb-holding powers: The U.S. Russia, Britain, France, China, India, and Pakistan. The U.S. as well as the UN is very nervous over any further proliferation of nuclear war capability. This was one excuse for the U.S. attack and occupation of Iraq.
  Domestic American politics seem to be driving the present discussions of the possibility of a “preemptive attack” on Iran despite the fact that UN inspectors have found no evidence of nuclear bomb making.

  The present President of Iran, the avowed anti-american Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has repeatedly denounced Sunni fundamentalism and its terrorist activities. He, is certainly not an al Qaeda sympathizer - but then neither was Saddam. The last time Iran launched an aggressive war against a neighbor was in 1785.

  Recommendation 11 of the Iraq Study Group states:
  “Diplomatic efforts within the Support Group should seek to persuade Iran that it should take specific steps to improve the situation in Iraq” and suggests specific steps Iran could take. The U.S. government has so far ignored this suggestion (as it has mst of the recommendations of this blue ribbon panel) and taken no steps to involve Iran in any peace process. Rather it has actively opposed any attempts to reconcile its differences with Iran.
  In my opinion, the U.S. government is no more justified in its attempts to “demonize” Iran than it was in its like actions against Iraq in 2002.

  It is, in my opinion, not in the best interests of the U.S. to engage in any aggressive military action against Iran. It seems that the present administration is using Iran to further scare Americans into supporting its ill-thought-out “war on terror” and give up more of our civil liberties in the name of “National Security”

  What’s your opinion?

  • 1:50 pm
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