If the CIA Had Butted Out of Iran
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Los Angeles Times - Oct 21, 2001
IF THE CIA HAD BUTTED OUT by Ahmed Bouzid
Imagine if Aug. 19, 1953, had come and gone, uneventfully. Imagine
if Operation Ajax, coordinated by the British MI6 and the American
CIA, which toppled the flourishing democracy in Iran of Mohammed
Mossadeq, had never left the drawing board. Imagine if the
Western-educated Mossadeq, a charismatic leader who was massively
backed in Iran by a burgeoning middle class, had been allowed to
peacefully lead his country to become the first truly Muslim
democracy in the Middle East. And imagine if his government had
been allowed to assume its obligations and responsibilities, as
stipulated by the 1906 constitution, and if the shah had been
allowed to reign but not rule, as again stipulated by the Iranian
constitution, and imagine if Britain and the U.S. had not been
egged on by oil companies livid over Mossadeq's nationalization of
oil interests in Iran but instead had stayed out of Iran's business
and not intervened. Imagine what would have likely happened.
Had the coup never taken place, Iran probably would have gone on
to build a sturdy, inclusive democracy that would have brought
about a far more durable stability than what the shah--forever
tainted in the eyes of his people as a weak, easily manipulated
Western puppet--ever managed to deliver.
Had the coup never taken place, democratic Iran would have long
ago done away with the myth that Islam and democracy are incompatible.
More important, nationalist and anti-colonialist as it was, Iran
would have handsomely served as the model to follow for the dozens
of Arab and Muslim states that had recently gained, or were about
to gain, independence from colonial occupation, thus averting their
alignment with the Soviet bloc as well as the rise of homegrown
thugs and dictators.
Had the coup never taken place, the ayatollahs, who had supported
the coup against Mossadeq, would never have gained their political
clout.
Indeed, the shah saw in the conservative ayatollahs the perfect
partners against the radicalism of the left and the liberalism of
the middle class.
Had the coup never taken place and the ayatollahs never been given
the political clout they had enjoyed under the shah, the June
uprising of 1963, which was fueled by the clerics' unhappiness with
the shah's attempts at modernization, would also have never taken
place.
Hence no harsh crackdown would have followed the uprising, nor
would have a little-known cleric, a certain Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, gained international attention as the spiritual leader
of that confrontation against the shah.
Had the coup never taken place, Khomeini would have remained a
little-known cleric. Instead, he was exiled for 14 years, a time
during which he cultivated his image from that of a charismatic
leader to that of a sacred returning messiah. And during those 14
years, the prospect for the emergence of a truly democratic Iran
grew dimmer while Islamic radicalism, associating all that is
Western with the hated shah and his supporters--principally the
U.S.--took a deeper hold on the passions of an increasingly frustrated
younger generation.
Had the coup never taken place, there would not have been a hostage
crisis, and neither would the U.S. have severed its relations with
Iran and imposed economic sanctions. Both actions, more than 20
years later, remain in effect to this day.
Had the coup never taken place, Saddam Hussein would have never
dared invade Iran in September 1980. The U.S. would never have
sided with Iraq's dictator and neither would it have committed
itself to a policy of ensuring that Iraq not lose the war. It would
not have supplied Hussein with crucial assistance or turned a blind
eye to his egregious crimes against his people.
Had the coup never taken place, Hussein would not have found himself
by the end of the war against Iran as the commander of one of the
largest armies in the Middle East.
More important, he would have never been under the impression that,
as long as he restricted his aggression to fellow Muslims and kept
off Israel, the world would only decry and condemn him but never
act.
Had the coup never taken place, chances are that Iraq never would
have invaded Kuwait, and the U.S. never would have had to orchestrate
a massive military campaign against his army, let alone establish
bases on Saudi soil. It would not have rendered talk about human
rights and international law totally meaningless and hypocritical
to Arab and Muslim ears.
Imagine a new era of foreign policy--an era in which international
law is taken seriously, respected, in which sovereign democracies
are encouraged, nurtured, applauded, rather than fought against,
stifled and killed. Imagine if we abandoned, once and for all the
poisonous doctrines of "Iron Chancellor" Bismarck and Henry Kissinger
and instead subscribed to those of Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch. Imagine if we took the United Nations and The Hague
seriously, rather than treating them as kangaroo courts in which
only those causes championed by the mighty and powerful were pursued
with vigor, while other grievances were neglected and scorned.
How many millions of lives would we have saved, and how much safer
and more prosperous would the world be today?
[Ahmed Bouzid is president of Palestine Media Watch, on the web at
http://www.pmwatch.org]
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