Biden and Iran

 

A Bulwark piece about the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities speculates that it was the work of Israel, the US, or the awesome Avengers Assemble! combo of both countries’ forces. The Bulwark writer says:

As the New York Times reported last week, they apparently are the result of joint U.S.-Israeli operations designed to set back Iran’s nuclear and military programs. They come following Iran’s lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which passed a resolution last month calling out Iran on this problem.

I share your astonishment that the resolution did not accomplish anything – I mean, they called them out. Surely a few Mullahs retired to their private chamber to have a good hot sob over the humiliation. Gosh darn it, we’re doing our best not to make nuclear weapons, but it’s hard! Can you give a guy a break?

Iran seems to be banking on a Joe Biden victory in November. After all, not only was Biden part of the administration that negotiated the deal, but he pushed wary Senate Democrats to approve of it and even bragged about the deal in his primary campaign ads. His longtime aid and likely national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, was a key negotiator in the talks leading up to the JCPOA. 

So with the prospect in sight of the United States returning to the JCPOA and lifting the sanctions, the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government in Israel are apparently trying to set back Iran’s capabilities while they have the chance.

True. Also, vote Biden! Because Trump. Here comes the reasoned analysis:

But all parties might be mistaken. Whoever wins in November will have unprecedented leverage over Iran. The regime’s popularity is at an all-time low—one recent defector has suggested that it is in single digits, according to internal estimates.

Iran’s economy is in free fall—both because of the U.S. sanctions and the incompetence and corruption of the regime’s leaders. The regime’s handling of the pandemic has been catastrophic, with over 200 daily deaths. And the people are only blaming the regime for their problems, not any foreign power. 

It is difficult to see the Biden administration not take advantage of the situation for a more favorable agreement, especially as the U.N.-imposed arms embargo will soon expire under the terms of the resolution that adopted the JCPOA. 

Ah.

A Biden administration will embolden all those Iran hawks on the left who are champing at the bit, eager to craft a new deal on the harshest possible terms. That’s why they’re Democrats! Unsparing advocates of American interests! This time they won’t be kneecapped by Obama’s negotiators, no sir – like sharks who can detect a minute particle of blood in the vast ocean, they will bore in hard, and place stern restrictions on Iran’s missile program, prohibiting them from testing ICBMs until 2039. 

It’s brilliant strategy: wait until your foe is on the ropes, then stop your barrage, help him back to his corner, daub some Vaseline on the cuts, and ask that the next round be postponed until your adversary is feeling better. The writer admits that diplomacy hasn’t really been the bee’s knees:

Four decades of Western engagement with Iran has failed to modify the regime’s behavior, internally or externally. Even the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement failed to change Iran’s behavior outside of its nuclear program. 

Imagine that. Even the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement failed to change Iran’s behavior outside of its nuclear program. Complete shock, that. Also, it failed to change Iran’s behavior inside of its nuclear program, but c’mon, we had a framework. We had a process. We had a dialogue

You know what has worked? Making a lot of bad stuff in the hands of some bad people blow up. But that’s not how you make partners in a process that makes a framework for dialogue.

Question for the Biden voters here: do you think the institutional anti-semitism of the left – I’m sorry, the anti-Zionist sentiment, totally different thing – will have an impact on Biden’s ability to take a stance on international security and non-proliferation that also aligns with Israel’s interests? 

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  1. WilliamDean Coolidge
    WilliamDean
    @WilliamDean

    Headedwest (View Comment)

    Don’t care.

    Thank you for your thoughtful analysis.

    • #61
  2. WilliamDean Coolidge
    WilliamDean
    @WilliamDean

    Zafar (View Comment):

    imho there are clear ‘this world’ explanations for their actions.

    Examples:

    Support Hezbollah. Because the threat of war against Israel is a pain point for the US – so it works to constrain US actions against Iran. Don’t want to push it too hard, just in case.

    Support the Houthis. Because the threat of closing off the Straits of Hormuz is a pain point for the world’s economy. Nobody wants to find out what it would take for that to happen.

    I agree that the leaders of Iran are not driven by religious zealotry, but use zealotry amongst their followers to maintain control over their population. They will look after their own skins when you get to brass tacks. 

    As far as their geopolitical interests as I understand it: Their primary rivalry is with their western neighbor and it goes all the way back to the days of Persia and Babylon. For them, the threat has pretty much always come from the west, be it the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, or the Iraqis. Their war in the 80s with Iraq was a cataclysm for the nation overall. So it is in their interest currently to dominate or at least destabilize the Iraq region to prevent a strong rival from re-establishing itself there. 

    Beyond Iraq, Iran has an interest in establishing influence on the Eastern Mediterranean. Their ultimate goal would be to have a naval base or two on the Levantine coast. This would give them access and influence into western Europe, and become a true world power player. So this is the root of their rivalry with Israel, and their funding of Hezbollah and Hamas and other local actors in Syria and Lebanon. They don’t have the strength or resources currently to field a conventional force and use it to cross Iraq and Syria and establish itself as a presence there. It’s their hope currently to establish a stronger hand alliance with the Syrian regime, and have it act as a friendly host for Iranian naval bases there.

    • #62
  3. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    I suspect Team America. (I’ll spare you the song.)

    I hope it was The Champions.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgVueR3ybYk

    • #63
  4. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Wow, James has really been on fire this week!  Nice to see!

    • #64
  5. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    WilliamDean (View Comment):

    I agree that the leaders of Iran are not driven by religious zealotry, but use zealotry amongst their followers to maintain control over their population. They will look after their own skins when you get to brass tacks. 

    Absolutely.  (Familiar, yes? There’s probably a farsi equivalent for RINO.)

    As far as their geopolitical interests as I understand it…

    Iran weirdly combines this consciousness of itself as a civlisational state that has been around for a long time (before Islam, before the Shah Namah) with the more recent experience of being dominated and exploited.  And for a long time (since the Qajars?) the antagonist for Iran has been the West, and since 1953 specifically the United States.

    This basic dynamic is what I think drives the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy, and looked at through that prism opposing Sunni Saudi but supporting Sunni Hamas makes perfect, consistent sense.  Ditto its opposition to Israel (or rather support of Palestine).

    (I also think Iran occupies a similar position in the US’ foreign policy cosmology.  Since 1979 it’s been the Middle Eastern equivalent of Cuba.)

    So I’d say yes, I agree with some of the concrete objectives you suggest Iran might have, but this dynamic is the why would they want to.  Which is both smaller and more pressing than being a world player. jmho.

     

    • #65
  6. WilliamDean Coolidge
    WilliamDean
    @WilliamDean

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Absolutely. (Familiar, yes? There’s probably a farsi equivalent for RINO.)

    Even in this country’s most fundamentalist enclaves, no one’s being publicly hanged for apostasy, or imprisoned and tortured for speaking out against religious or political leaders.

    Iran weirdly combines this consciousness of itself as a civlisational state that has been around for a long time (before Islam, before the Shah Namah) with the more recent experience of being dominated and exploited. And for a long time (since the Qajars?) the antagonist for Iran has been the West, and since 1953 specifically the United States.

    I’m not sure it’s that weird. Iran has both a long history, and a more recent one. In America, we like to identify ourselves with “western civilization,” and see ourselves as at the current endpoint of a civilization that goes back to the ancient Greeks. This is a pretty broad stretch of the imagination when you look at the actual history, but it gives us a feeling of weight and substance beyond our 250 years.

    (I also think Iran occupies a similar position in the US’ foreign policy cosmology. Since 1979 it’s been the Middle Eastern equivalent of Cuba.)

    Cuba’s a much more immediate and direct concern to the US than Iran. Our rivalry with Iran is based on two things: Oil and Cold War politics. On the former, we had oil resources in Iran per agreements with the old regime. Iran made moves to nationalize the oil industry. Nationalizing as your own assets that per previous agreements were the property of US companies was and still is seen as a hostile act. As far as the latter, we were implementing a strategy of encirclement around the Soviet Union to try and neutralize their ability to project power further into Europe and Asia. Both Israel and the old Iranian regime were a part of that strategy. When Iran started playing footsie with the Soviets AND harassing Israel, they put themselves on the opposite side of the war from us. And so from these two components started a series of escalations between our two countries.

    As for Cuba, it’s geographic location straddling the conduit between the Gulf of Mexico and the greater Atlantic makes it a constant concern for us, as over 50% of our exports still travel out through the mouth of the Mississippi into the gulf, and a blockade would be an existential threat to our economy. The fact is we’ve been wanting control of Cuba since early on in American history. John Quincy Adams was quoted as saying our plan was to annex it “within the next 50 years.”

    So I’d say yes, I agree with some of the concrete objectives you suggest Iran might have, but this dynamic is the why would they want to. Which is both smaller and more pressing than being a world player. jmho.

    I’d say don’t underestimate the Iranian regime’s ambitions.

    • #66
  7. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    WilliamDean (View Comment):

    Even in this country’s most fundamentalist enclaves, no one’s being publicly hanged for apostasy, or imprisoned and tortured for speaking out against religious or political leaders.

    I don’t think this is at all accurate.  Here’s some stuff I gleaned from the Wikipedia page on Capital Punishment in Iran:

    They have four broad categories of crime that receive death sentences from either Hanging, Firing Squad, Stoning, or Throwing off a Tall Building.

    1. Murder
    2. Deterrent Crimes, which include a broad array of things like smuggling, drug trafficking, human trafficking, financial fraud, insulting Islam on the Internet, treason, etc…
    3. Violations of the Qur’an
    4. Adultery/Sex Crimes

    #4 is sort of a subsection of #3, dealing only with sex crimes.  These capital offenses include Adultery, Rape, Sodomy, Incest, Running Prostitution Rings, and Homosexuality.  Adultery is punishable by flogging of 100 lashes for unmarried people and by death on the fourth offense.  The sentence was  carried out by Stoning up until 2002 when Iran officially put a moratorium on the practice, however,  Iran Human Rights report that eight men have been stoned to death since then. 

    Throwing the condemned person off a tall building is reserved for Homosexuals.  Remember that Iranian President Ahmedinijad famously told an American audience in 2007 “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”  He possibly could be right.

    Apostasy (turning away from Islam) is punishable by hanging.  Roughly two hundred members of the Baha’i Religion have been hanged for apostasy in Iran.  Blasphemy is also punishable by death.  Consuming one glass of alcohol is punishable by 80 lashes and repeated offenses may be punishable by death. This is rare, but one person has been executed so far this year for alcohol consumption.

    Iran is the 2nd leading executors of prisoners in the World, behind China.  Their preferred method is hanging, using a construction crane where the victim is jerked off of a stool, but his neck is not broken.  The condemned dies by strangulation over a period of between 10 and 20 minutes.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Iran

    https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/man-executed-for-drinking-alcohol-is-one-of-123-executions-in-iran-in-2020-634611

     

    • #67
  8. WilliamDean Coolidge
    WilliamDean
    @WilliamDean

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    WilliamDean (View Comment):

    Even in this country’s most fundamentalist enclaves, no one’s being publicly hanged for apostasy, or imprisoned and tortured for speaking out against religious or political leaders.

    I don’t think this is at all accurate. Here’s some stuff I gleaned from the Wikipedia page on Capital Punishment in Iran:

    I was talking about the U.S. The commenter was drawing a comparison between the Iranian religious regime and The US’s. I was countering that.

    • #68
  9. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    WilliamDean (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    WilliamDean (View Comment):

    Even in this country’s most fundamentalist enclaves, no one’s being publicly hanged for apostasy, or imprisoned and tortured for speaking out against religious or political leaders.

    I don’t think this is at all accurate. Here’s some stuff I gleaned from the Wikipedia page on Capital Punishment in Iran:

    I was talking about the U.S. The commenter was drawing a comparison between the Iranian religious regime and The US’s. I was countering that.

    Sorry!  I guess I misunderstood.  I thought you were taking about Iran.  It was a fortunate mistake though, because I learned a lot about Iran’s penal system I did not know before.

    • #69
  10. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    Even in this country’s most fundamentalist enclaves, no one’s being publicly hanged for apostasy, or imprisoned and tortured for speaking out against religious or political leaders.

    I was just making a point about political hypocrisy, which I think is universal. 

    • #70
  11. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    WilliamDean (View Comment):
    Cuba’s a much more immediate and direct concern to the US than Iran.

    They are both relatively small countries that have said ‘no’ to the US – and therefore potentially a bad example for others to follow. 

    • #71
  12. WilliamDean Coolidge
    WilliamDean
    @WilliamDean

    Zafar (View Comment):

    WilliamDean (View Comment):
    Cuba’s a much more immediate and direct concern to the US than Iran.

    They are both relatively small countries that have said ‘no’ to the US – and therefore potentially a bad example for others to follow.

    More than that, they said, “yes” to our cold war arch rival.

    • #72
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    WilliamDean (View Comment):

    Even in this country’s most fundamentalist enclaves, no one’s being publicly hanged for apostasy, or imprisoned and tortured for speaking out against religious or political leaders.

    I don’t think this is at all accurate. Here’s some stuff I gleaned from the Wikipedia page on Capital Punishment in Iran:

    They have four broad categories of crime that receive death sentences from either Hanging, Firing Squad, Stoning, or Throwing off a Tall Building.

    1. Murder
    2. Deterrent Crimes, which include a broad array of things like smuggling, drug trafficking, human trafficking, financial fraud, insulting Islam on the Internet, treason, etc…
    3. Violations of the Qur’an
    4. Adultery/Sex Crimes

    #4 is sort of a subsection of #3, dealing only with sex crimes. These capital offenses include Adultery, Rape, Sodomy, Incest, Running Prostitution Rings, and Homosexuality. Adultery is punishable by flogging of 100 lashes for unmarried people and by death on the fourth offense. The sentence was carried out by Stoning up until 2002 when Iran officially put a moratorium on the practice, however, Iran Human Rights report that eight men have been stoned to death since then.

    Throwing the condemned person off a tall building is reserved for Homosexuals. Remember that Iranian President Ahmedinijad famously told an American audience in 2007 “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.” He possibly could be right.

    Apostasy (turning away from Islam) is punishable by hanging. Roughly two hundred members of the Baha’i Religion have been hanged for apostasy in Iran. Blasphemy is also punishable by death. Consuming one glass of alcohol is punishable by 80 lashes and repeated offenses may be punishable by death. This is rare, but one person has been executed so far this year for alcohol consumption.

    Iran is the 2nd leading executors of prisoners in the World, behind China. Their preferred method is hanging, using a construction crane where the victim is jerked off of a stool, but his neck is not broken. The condemned dies by strangulation over a period of between 10 and 20 minutes.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Iran

    https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/man-executed-for-drinking-alcohol-is-one-of-123-executions-in-iran-in-2020-634611

    It’s important to note a few things, such as how broad “Violation of the koran” might be (just an accusation of “desecrating the koran” can result in death, and that may be as simple as picking it up with the wrong hand), and that “sex crimes” ends up including things like ACCUSING someone of rape.  If a woman ACCUSES someone of rape, that means she admits “committing adultery” and can be killed for that.  Meanwhile, the man she ACCUSED may get off just by having a certain number of other people – usually if not necessarily all men – vouch for his “character.”

    In Iran as with many other places, the actual law is not in the words, but in the “execution.”  Often quite literally.

    • #73
  14. WilliamDean Coolidge
    WilliamDean
    @WilliamDean

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    Even in this country’s most fundamentalist enclaves, no one’s being publicly hanged for apostasy, or imprisoned and tortured for speaking out against religious or political leaders.

    I was just making a point about political hypocrisy, which I think is universal.

    Fair enough, but in this world there are degrees of sin.

    • #74
  15. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    I think it would be a good idea to revisit the 1953 issue.  It is often mentioned in parts of the media and academia that the US CIA overthrew the Iranian government in 1953.

    What Really Happened in Iran: The CIA, the Ouster of Mosaddeq and the Restoration of the Shah.

    by Ray Takeyh [Foreign Affairs Magazine July/August 2014]

    Back in 2009, during his heavily promoted Cairo speech on American relations with the Muslim world, U.S. President Barack Obama noted, in passing, that “in the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.” Obama was referring to the 1953 coup that toppled Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and consolidated the rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Obama would go on to remind his audience that Iran had also committed its share of misdeeds against Americans. But he clearly intended his allusion to Washington’s role in the coup as a concession — a public acknowledgment that the United States shared some of the blame for its long-simmering conflict with the Islamic Republic.

    Yet there was a supreme irony to Obama’s concession. The history of the U.S. role in Iran’s 1953 coup may be “well known,” as the president declared in his speech, but it is not well founded. On the contrary, it rests heavily on two related myths: that machinations by the CIA were the most important factor in Mosaddeq’s downfall and that Iran’s brief democratic interlude was spoiled primarily by American and British meddling. For decades, historians, journalists, and pundits have promoted these myths, injecting them not just into the political discourse but also into popular culture: most recently, Argo, a Hollywood thriller that won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Picture, suggested that Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution was a belated response to an injustice perpetrated by the United States a quarter century earlier. That version of events has also been promoted by Iran’s theocratic leaders, who have exploited it to stoke anti-Americanism and to obscure the fact that the clergy itself played a major role in toppling Mosaddeq.

    You can read the entire article here.

    • #75
  16. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    Here is a bit more of the article by Ray Takeyh

    What Really Happened in Iran The CIA, the Ouster of Mosaddeq, and the Restoration of the Shah

    In reality, the CIA’s impact on the events of 1953 was ultimately insignificant. Regardless of anything the United States did or did not do, Mosaddeq was bound to fall and the shah was bound to retain his throne and expand his power. Yet the narrative of American culpability has become so entrenched that it now shapes how many Americans understand the history of U.S.-Iranian relations and influences how American leaders think about Iran. In reaching out to the Islamic Republic, the United States has cast itself as a sinner expiating its previous transgressions. This has allowed the Iranian theocracy, which has abused history in a thousand ways, to claim the moral high ground, giving it an unearned advantage over Washington and the West, even in situations that have nothing to do with 1953 and in which Iran’s behavior is the sole cause of the conflict, such as the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program.

    All of this makes developing a better and more accurate understanding of the real U.S. role in Iran’s past critically important. It’s far more than a matter of correcting the history books. Getting things right would help the United States develop a less self-defeating approach to the Islamic Republic today and would encourage Iranians — especially the country’s clerical elite — to claim ownership of their past.

    Day in court: Mohammad Mosaddeq on trial, November 1953.

    HONEST BROKERS

    In the years following World War II, Iran was a devastated country, recovering from famine and poverty brought on by the war. It was also a wealthy country, whose ample oil reserves fueled the engines of the British Empire. But Iran’s government didn’t control that oil: the wheel was held by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, whose majority shareholder happened to be the British government. By the early 1950s, as assertive nationalism swept the developing world, many Iranians were beginning to see this colonial-era arrangement as an unjust, undignified anachronism.

    So strong was the desire to take back control of Iran’s national resources that it united the country’s liberal reformers, its intelligentsia, elements of its clerical establishment, and its middle-class professionals into a coherent political movement. At the center of that movement stood Mosaddeq, an upper-class lawyer who had been involved in Iranian politics from a young age, serving in various ministries and as a member of parliament. Toward the end of World War II, Mosaddeq reemerged on the political scene as a champion of Iranian anticolonialism and nationalism and managed to draw together many disparate elements into his political party, the National Front. Mosaddeq was not a revolutionary; he was respectful of the traditions of his social class and supported the idea of constitutional monarchy. 

    • #76
  17. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    As for my own views about the sabotage in Iran, probably inflicted by Israel’s intelligence operatives, I think it makes sense that Israel would not want Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.  

    Israel probably is not comforted by the claim that Iran will only use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.  

    In previous decades Israel used its military and intelligence forces to destroy Saddam Hussain’s nuclear program and a nuclear program in Assad’s Syria.  Israel is likely trying to go 3 for 3.  

    I think it is possible that these “explosions” will have the effect of discrediting the Theocratic regime in the eyes of the Iranian public.  The regime is already unpopular among the Iranian public.  So, these actions by Israel might end up paving the way toward representative democracy in Iran as opposed to the current Theocratic regime.

    Islamic clerics are very unpopular in Iran.  Whenever an Islamic cleric tries to hail a cab, taxi drivers either pass them by or nearly run them over.  If you get a ride in a taxi cab in Iran, the taxi driver is likely to tell you, “Those clerics of killing us!”  There is extreme resentment among the people of Iran towards the regime.  

    So, I think the best solution is to keep the pressure on the Iranian Theocratic regime until it hands power to the people of Iran through competitive, multi-party free and fair elections.  

    • #77
  18. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    That was a treasure-trove of information, Heavy Water.  Thanks!

    • #78
  19. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    That was a treasure-trove of information, Heavy Water. Thanks!

    You’re welcome.  Unfortunately, at most American Universities, the British Intelligence and the American CIA are considered to be able to overthrow foreign governments with a snap of their fingers.  The idea that the military in a foreign country and/or the business community in a foreign country might want to enact a “change in political leadership” doesn’t factor in.  So, America and to some extent the UK are considered at fault any time there exists hostile relations between a foreign government and the US/UK.  

    • #79
  20. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    Here is a bit more of the article by Ray Takeyh

    What Really Happened in Iran The CIA, the Ouster of Mosaddeq, and the Restoration of the Shah

    In reality, the CIA’s impact on the events of 1953 was ultimately insignificant. Regardless of anything the United States did or did not do, Mosaddeq was bound to fall and the shah was bound to retain his throne and expand his power.

    The article is behind a pay wall.  Could you summarise why the CIA’s impact was insignificant, and why Mosaddeq was bound to fall and the Shah to return to his throne without external assistance?  The Shah’s return, especially, seems very unlikely without that external backing.

    External backing for coups doesn’t flip united polities, it backs one part of a fractured polity over another – basically putting its finger on scales so that one part has more power than it otherwise might.

    That said, I think there are many details which it would benefit the Iranian public to be more aware of:

    In the Islamic Republic, clerics are always the good guys. Kashani has long been seen as one of the heroes of nationalism during that period. As recently as January of this year, Iran’s supreme leader praised Kashani’s role in the nationalization of oil.

    Kashani’s eventual split from Mossadegh is widely known. Religious leaders in the country feared the growing power of the communist Tudeh Party, and believed that Mossadegh was too weak to save the country from the socialist threat.

    But the newly released documents show that Kashani wasn’t just opposed to Mossadegh — he was also in close communication with the Americans throughout the period leading up to the coup, and he actually appears to have requested financial assistance from the United States, though there is no record of him receiving any money. His request was not previously known.

    On the make-or-break day of Aug. 19, “Kashani was critical,” said Milani. “On that day Kashani’s forces were out in full force to defeat Mossadegh.”

    What’s ironic is that the coup didn’t result in the re-privatisation of Iran’s oil fields.  From that point of view there was no long term benefit from it to the West. 

    • #80
  21. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    Zafar (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    Here is a bit more of the article by Ray Takeyh

    What Really Happened in Iran The CIA, the Ouster of Mosaddeq, and the Restoration of the Shah

    In reality, the CIA’s impact on the events of 1953 was ultimately insignificant. Regardless of anything the United States did or did not do, Mosaddeq was bound to fall and the shah was bound to retain his throne and expand his power.

    The article is behind a pay wall. Could you summarise why the CIA’s impact was insignificant, and why Mosaddeq was bound to fall and the Shah to return to his throne without external assistance? The Shah’s return, especially, seems very unlikely without that external backing.

    Here is more from the Foreign Affairs article.

    But he also sought a more modern and more democratic Iran, and in addition to the nationalization of Iran’s oil, his party’s agenda called for improved public education, freedom of the press, judicial reforms, and a more representative government.

    In April 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to appoint Mosaddeq prime minister. In a clever move, Mosaddeq insisted that he would not assume the office unless the parliament also approved an act he had proposed that would nationalize the Iranian oil industry. Mosaddeq got his way in a unanimous vote, and the easily intimidated shah capitulated to the parliament’s demands. Iran now entered a new and more dangerous crisis.

    The United Kingdom, a declining empire struggling to adjust to its diminished influence, saw the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company as a crucial source of energy and profit, as well as a symbol of what little imperial prestige the country had managed to cling to through the end of World War II. So London responded to the nationalization with fury. It warned European companies doing business in Iran to pull out or face retribution, and the still potent British navy began interdicting ships carrying Iranian oil on the grounds that they were transporting stolen cargo. These moves — coupled with the fact that the Western oil giants, which were siding with London, owned nearly all the tankers then in existence — managed to effectively blockade Iran’s petroleum exports. By 1952, Iran’s Abadan refinery, the largest in the world at the time, was grinding to a halt.

     

    • #81
  22. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    Here is more.

    From the outset of the nationalization crisis, U.S. President Harry Truman had sought to settle the dispute. The close ties between the United States and the United Kingdom did not lead Washington to reflexively side with its ally. Truman had already demonstrated some regard for Iran’s autonomy and national interests. In 1946, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin had sought to seize Iran’s northern provinces by refusing to withdraw Soviet forces that were deployed there during the war. Truman objected, insisting on maintaining Iran’s territorial integrity even if it meant rupturing the already frayed U.S. alliance with the Soviets; Stalin backed off. Similarly, when it came to the fight to control Iran’s oil, the Americans played the role of an honest broker. Truman dispatched a number of envoys to Tehran who urged the British to acknowledge the legitimacy of the parliament’s nationalization act while also pressing the Iranians to offer fair compensation for expropriated British assets.

    In the meantime, Washington continued providing economic assistance to Iran, as it had ever since the war began — assistance that helped ease the pain of the British oil blockade. And the Americans dissuaded the British from using military force to compel Iran to relent, as well as rejecting British pleas for a joint covert operation to topple Mosaddeq.

    But Truman’s mediation fell short, owing more to Mosaddeq’s intransigence than any American missteps. Mosaddeq, it seemed, considered no economic price too high to protect Iran’s autonomy and national pride. In due course, Mosaddeq and his allies rejected every U.S. proposal that preserved any degree of British participation in Iran’s oil sector. It turned out that defining Iran’s oil interests in existential terms had handcuffed the prime minister: any compromise was tantamount to forfeiting the country’s sovereignty.

    • #82
  23. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    And more.

    By 1952, the conflict had brought Iran’s economy to the verge of collapse. Tehran had failed to find ways to get its oil around the British embargo and, deprived of its key source of revenue, was facing mounting budget deficits and having difficulty meeting its payroll. Washington began to fear that through his standoff with the British, Mosaddeq had allowed the economy to deteriorate so badly that his continued rule would pave the way for Tudeh, Iran’s communist party, to challenge him and take power.

    And indeed, as the dispute dragged on, Mosaddeq was faced with rising dissent at home. The cause of nationalization was still popular, but the public was growing weary of the prime minister’s intransigence and his refusal to accept various compromise arrangements. The prime minister dealt with the chorus of criticism by expanding his mandate through constitutionally dubious means, demanding special powers from the parliament and seeking to take charge of the armed forces and the Ministry of War, both of which had long been under the shah’s control.

    Even before the Western intelligence services devised their plots, Mosaddeq’s conduct had already alienated his own coalition partners. The intelligentsia and Iran’s professional syndicates began chafing under the prime minister’s growing authoritarianism. Mosaddeq’s base of support within the middle classes, alarmed at the economy’s continued decline, began looking for an alternative and drifted toward the royalist opposition, as did the officer corps, which had suffered numerous purges.

    Mosaddeq’s supporters among the clergy, who had endorsed the nationalization campaign and had even encouraged the shah to oppose the United Kingdom’s imperial designs, now began to reconsider. The clergy had never been completely comfortable with Mosaddeq’s penchant for modernization and had come to miss the deference they received from the conservative and insecure shah. Watching Iran’s economy collapse and fearing, like Washington, that the crisis could lead to a communist takeover, religious leaders such as Ayatollah Abul-Qasim Kashani began to subtly shift their allegiances. (Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran’s theocratic rulers have attempted to obscure the inconvenient fact that, at a critical juncture, the mullahs sided with the shah.)

    • #83
  24. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    And more.

    The crisis finally came to a head in February 1953, when the royal court, fed up with Mosaddeq’s attempts to undermine the monarchy, suddenly announced that the shah intended to leave the country for unspecified medical reasons, knowing that the public would interpret the move as a signal of the shah’s displeasure with Mosaddeq. The gambit worked, and news of the monarch’s planned departure caused a serious confrontation between Mosaddeq and his growing list of detractors. Kashani joined with disgruntled military officers and purged politicians and publicly implored the shah to stay. Protests engulfed Tehran and many provincial cities, and crowds even attempted to ransack Mosaddeq’s residence. Sensing the public mood, the shah canceled his trip.

    This episode is particularly important, because it demonstrated the depth of authentic Iranian opposition to Mosaddeq; there is no evidence that the protests were engineered by the CIA. The demonstrations also helped the anti-Mosaddeq coalition solidify. Indeed, it would be this same coalition, with greater support from the armed forces, that would spearhead Mosaddeq’s ouster six months later.

    • #84
  25. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    And more.

    The events of February made an impression on a frustrated Washington establishment. The CIA reported to U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, who had inherited the Iranian dilemma when he took office a month earlier, that “the institution of the Crown may have more popular backing than we expected.” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles cabled the U.S. embassy in Tehran that “there appears to be [a] substantial and relatively courageous opposition group both within and outside [the] Majlis [Iran’s parliament]. We gather Army Chiefs and many civilians [are] still loyal to the Shah and would act if he gave them positive leadership, or even if he merely acquiesced in [a] move to install [a] new government.”

    After the protests, the Majlis became the main seat of anti-Mosaddeq agitation. Since Mosaddeq’s ascension to the premiership, his seemingly arbitrary decision-making, his inability to end the oil crisis, and the narrowing of his circle to a few trusted aides had gradually alienated many parliamentarians. In response, the prime minister decided to eliminate the threat by simply dissolving the Majlis. Doing so required executing a ploy of dubious legality, however: on July 14, all the National Front deputies loyal to Mosaddeq resigned their posts at once, depriving the chamber of the necessary quorum to function. Mosaddeq then called for a national referendum to decide the fate of the paralyzed legislature. But this was hardly a good-faith, democratic gesture; the plebiscite was marred by boycotts, voting irregularities, and mob violence, and the results surprised no one: Mosaddeq’s proposal to dissolve parliament was approved by 99 percent of the voters. Mosaddeq won his rigged election, but the move cost him what remained of his tattered legitimacy.

    • #85
  26. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    And more.

    Meanwhile, Mosaddeq seemed determined to do everything he could to confirm Washington’s worst fears about him. The prime minister thought that he could use U.S. concerns about the potential for increased Soviet influence in Iran to secure greater assistance from Washington. During a meeting in January, Mosaddeq had warned Loy Henderson, the U.S. ambassador, that unless the United States provided him with sufficient financial aid, “there will be [a] revolution in Iran in 30 days.” Mosaddeq also threatened to sell oil to Eastern bloc countries and to reach out to Moscow for aid if Washington didn’t come through. These threats and entreaties reached a climax in June, when Mosaddeq wrote Eisenhower directly to plead for increased U.S. economic assistance, insisting that if it were not given right away, “any steps that might be taken tomorrow to compensate for the negligence of today might well be too late.” Eisenhower took nearly a month to respond and then firmly told Iran’s prime minister that the only path out of his predicament was to settle the oil dispute with the United Kingdom.

    By that point, however, Washington was already actively considering a plan the British had developed to push Mosaddeq aside. The British intelligence agency, MI6, had identified and reached out to a network of anti-Mosaddeq figures who would be willing to take action against the prime minster with covert American and British support. Among them was General Fazlollah Zahedi, a well-connected officer who had previously served in Mosaddeq’s cabinet but had left after becoming disillusioned with the prime minister’s leadership and had immersed himself in opposition politics. Given its history of interference in Iran, the British government also boasted an array of intelligence sources, including members of parliament and journalists, whom it had subsidized and cultivated. London could also count on a number of influential bazaar merchants who, in turn, had at their disposal thugs willing to instigate violent street protests.

    The CIA took a rather dim view of these British agents, believing that they were “far overstated and oversold.” Nevertheless, by May, the agency had embraced the basic outlines of a British plan to engineer the overthrow of Mosaddeq. The U.S. embassy in Tehran was also on board: in a cable to Washington, Henderson assured the Eisenhower administration that “most Iranian politicians friendly to the West would welcome secret American intervention which would assist them in attaining their individual or group political ambitions.”

    • #86
  27. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    And more.

    The joint U.S.-British plot for covert action was code-named TPAJAX. Zahedi emerged as the linchpin of the plan, as the Americans and the British saw him as Mosaddeq’s most formidable rival. The plot called for the CIA and MI6 to launch a propaganda campaign aimed at raising doubts about Mosaddeq, paying journalists to write stories critical of the prime minister, charging that he was corrupt, power hungry, and even of Jewish descent — a crude attempt to exploit anti-Semitic prejudices, which the Western intelligence agencies wrongly believed were common in Iran at the time. Meanwhile, a network of Iranian operatives working for the Americans and the British would organize demonstrations and protests and encourage street gangs and tribal leaders to provoke their followers into committing acts of violence against state institutions. All this was supposed to further inflame the already unstable situation in the country and thus pave the way for the shah to dismiss Mosaddeq.

    Indeed, the shah would be the plot’s central actor, since he retained the loyalty of the armed forces and only he had the authority to dismiss Mosaddeq. “If the Shah were to give the word, probably more than 99% of the officers would comply with his orders with a sense of relief and with the hope of attaining a state of stability,” a U.S. military attaché reported from Tehran in the spring of 1953.

    • #87
  28. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    And more.

    On July 11, Eisenhower approved the plan, and the CIA and MI6 went to work. The Western intelligence agencies certainly found fertile ground for their machinations, as the turmoil sweeping Iran had already seriously compromised Mosaddeq’s standing. It appeared that all that was left to do was for the shah to officially dismiss the prime minister.

    But enlisting the Iranian monarch proved more difficult than the Americans and the British had initially anticipated. On the surface, the shah seemed receptive to the plot, as he distrusted and even disdained his prime minister. But he was also clearly reluctant to do anything to further destabilize his country. The shah was a tentative man by nature and required much reassurance before embarking on a risky course. The CIA did manage to persuade his twin sister, Princess Ashraf, to press its case with her brother, however. Also urging the shah to act were General Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr., a U.S. military officer who had trained Iran’s police force and enjoyed a great deal of influence in the country, and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a CIA official who had helped devise the plot. Finally, on August 13, 1953, the shah signed a royal decree dismissing Mosaddeq and appointing Zahedi as the new prime minister.

    Zahedi and his supporters wanted to make sure that Mosaddeq received the decree in person and thus waited for more than two days before sending the shah’s imperial guards to deliver the order to the prime minister’s residence at a time when Zahedi was certain Mosaddeq would be there. By that time, however, someone had tipped Mosaddeq off. He refused to accept the order and instead had his security detail arrest the men the shah had sent. Zahedi went into hiding, and the shah fled the country, going first to Iraq and then to Italy. The plot, it seemed, had failed. Mosaddeq took to the airwaves, claiming that he had disarmed a coup, while neglecting to mention that the shah had dismissed him from office. Indeed, it was Mosaddeq, not the shah or his foreign backers, who failed to abide by Iran’s constitution.

    • #88
  29. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    And more.

    After the apparent failure of the coup, a mood of resignation descended on Washington and London. According to an internal review prepared by the CIA in 1954, after Mosaddeq’s refusal to follow the shah’s order, the U.S. Department of State determined that the operation had been “tried and failed,” and the official British position was equally glum: “We must regret that we cannot consider going on fighting.” General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s confidant and wartime chief of staff, who was now serving as undersecretary of state, had the unenviable task of informing the president. In a note to Eisenhower, Smith wrote:

    The move failed. . . . Actually, it was a counter-coup, as the Shah acted within his constitutional power in signing the [decree] replacing Mosaddeq. The old boy wouldn’t accept this and arrested the messenger and everybody else involved that he could get his hands on. We now have to take a whole new look at the Iranian situation and probably have to snuggle up to Mosaddeq if we’re going to save anything there.

    The White House, the leadership of the CIA, and the U.S. embassy in Tehran all shared the view that the plot had failed and that it was time to move on. It seems that some operatives in the CIA station in Tehran thought there was still a chance that Zahedi could succeed, if he asserted himself. The station might even have maintained some contact with Zahedi; it’s not clear whether it did or not. What is clear is that by that point, the attempt to salvage the coup became very much an Iranian initiative.

    • #89
  30. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    And more.

    In the aftermath of the failed coup, chaos reigned in Tehran and political fortunes shifted quickly. The Tudeh Party felt that its time had finally come, and its members poured into the streets, waving red flags and destroying symbols of the monarchy. The more radical members of the National Front, such as Foreign Minister Hossein Fatemi, also joined the fray with their own denunciations of the shah. An editorial in Bakhtar-e Emruz, a newspaper Fatemi controlled, castigated the royal court as “a brothel, a filthy, corrupt place”; another editorial in the same newspaper warned the shah that the nation “is thirsty for revenge and wants to see you on the gallows.” Such talk alarmed military officers and clerics and also outraged many ordinary Iranians who still respected the monarchy. Mosaddeq himself did not call for disbanding the monarchy. Despite his attempts to expand his powers at the shah’s expense, Mosaddeq remained loyal to his vision of a constitutional monarchy.

    The shah issued a statement from exile declaring that he had not abdicated the throne and stressing the unconstitutionality of Mosaddeq’s claim to power. Meanwhile, Zahedi and his coconspirators continued their resistance. Zahedi reached out to armed military units in the capital and in the provinces that remained loyal to the shah and told their commanders to prepare for mobilization. Zahedi also sought to widely broadcast the shah’s decree dismissing Mosaddeq and appointing Zahedi himself as prime minister, and the CIA station in Tehran appears to have helped distribute the message through both domestic and foreign media.

    • #90
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