There are 130 comments.

1. Inactive
   HeavyWater

   @HeavyWater

   6:18 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   And more.

   The efforts to publicize the shah’s decree and Mosaddeq’s studied silence are instructive. Many accounts of the coup, including Roosevelt’s, cast the shah as an unpopular and illegitimate ruler who maintained the throne only with the connivance of foreigners. But if that were the case, then Zahedi and his allies would not have worked so hard to try to publicize the shah’s preferences. The fact that they did suggests that the shah still enjoyed a great deal of public and institutional support, at least in the immediate aftermath of Mosaddeq’s countercoup; indeed, the news of the shah’s departure provoked uprisings throughout the country.

   These demonstrations did not fundamentally alter the views of U.S. representatives in Iran. As Henderson later recalled, he initially did not take the turmoil very seriously and cabled the State Department that “it would probably have little significance.” Momentum soon built within Iran, however. The clergy stepped into the fray, with mullahs inveighing against Mosaddeq and the National Front. Kashani and other major religious figures urged their supporters to take to the streets. Unlike some of the demonstrations that had taken place earlier in the summer, these protests were not the work of the CIA’s and MI6’s clients. A surprised official at the U.S. embassy reported that the crowds “appeared to be led and directed by civilians rather than military. Participants not of hoodlum type, customarily predominant in recent demonstrations in Tehran. They seemed to come from all classes of people including workers, clerks, shopkeepers, students, et cetera.” A CIA assessment noted that “the flight of [the] Shah brought home to the populace in a dramatic way how far Mosaddeq had gone, and galvanized the people into an irate pro-Shah force.”

   Mosaddeq was determined to halt the revolutionary surge and commanded the military to restore order. Instead, many soldiers joined in the demonstrations, as chants of “Long live the shah!” echoed in the capital.

2. Inactive
   HeavyWater

   @HeavyWater

   6:19 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   And more.

   On August 19, the army chief of staff, General Taqi Riahi, who had stayed loyal to Mosaddeq until then, telephoned the prime minister to confess that he had lost control of many of his troops and of the capital city. Royalist military units took over Tehran’s main radio station and several important government ministries. Seeing his options narrowing, Mosaddeq went into hiding in a neighbor’s house. But the prime minister was too much of a creature of the establishment to remain on the run for long, and he soon turned himself in. A few months later, Mosaddeq was convicted of treason, for which the mandatory punishment was execution. However, given his age, his long-standing service to the country, and his role in nationalizing Iran’s oil industry, the sentence was commuted to three years in prison. In practice, he would go on to serve a life sentence, spending the remaining 14 years of his life confined to his native village.

   Mosaddeq was a principled politician with deep reverence for Iran’s institutions and constitutional order. He had spent his entire public life defending the rule of law and the separation of powers. But the pressures of governing during a crisis accentuated troubling aspects of his character. His need for popular acclaim blinded him to compromises that could have resolved the oil conflict with the United Kingdom and thus protected Iran’s economy. Worse, by 1953, Mosaddeq — the constitutional parliamentarian and champion of democratic reform — had turned into a populist demagogue: rigging referendums, intimidating his rivals, disbanding parliament, and demanding special powers.

   Popular lore gets two things right: Mosaddeq was indeed a tragic figure, and a victim. But his tragedy was that he couldn’t find a way out of a predicament that he himself was largely responsible for creating. And more than anyone else, he was a victim of himself.

3. Inactive
   HeavyWater

   @HeavyWater

   6:19 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   And more.

   Since 1953, and especially since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the shah, the truth about the coup has been obscured by self-serving narratives concocted by Americans and Iranians alike. The Islamic Republic has done much to propagate the notion that the coup and the conspiracy against Mosaddeq demonstrated an implacable American hostility to Iran. The theocratic revolutionaries have been assisted in this distortion by American accounts that grossly exaggerate the significance of the U.S. role in pushing Mosaddeq from power. Chief among these is the version that appears in Roosevelt’s self-aggrandizing 1979 book, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran. In his Orientalist rendition, Roosevelt landed in Tehran with a few bags of cash and easily manipulated the benighted Iranians into carrying out Washington’s schemes.

   Contrary to Roosevelt’s account, the documentary record reveals that the Eisenhower administration was hardly in control and was in fact surprised by the way events played out. On the eve of the shah’s triumph, Henderson reported in a cable to Washington that the real cause of the coup’s success was that “most armed forces and great numbers [of] Iranian civilians [are] inherently loyal to [the] Shah whom they have been taught to believe is [a] symbol of national unity as well as of [the] stability of the country.” As Iran underwent its titanic internal struggle, even the CIA seemed to be aware that its own machinations had proved relatively unimportant. On August 21, Charles Cabell, the agency’s acting director, reported to Eisenhower that “an unexpectedly strong upsurge of popular and military reaction to Prime Minister Mosaddeq’s Government has resulted, according to late dispatches from Tehran, in the virtual occupation of that city by forces proclaiming their loyalty to the Shah and his appointed Prime Minister Zahedi.”

   In addition to overstating the American and British hand in orchestrating Mosaddeq’s downfall and the shah’s restoration, the conventional narrative of the coup neglects the fact that the shah was still popular in the early 1950s. He had not yet become the megalomaniac of the 1970s, but was still a young, hesitant monarch deferential to Iran’s elder statesmen and grand ayatollahs and respectful of the limits of his powers.

   But the mythological version of the events of 1953 has persisted, partly because since the Islamic Revolution, making the United States out to be the villain has served the interests of Iran’s leaders. Another reason for the myth’s survival is that in the aftermath of the debacle in Vietnam and in the wake of congressional investigations during the mid-1970s that revealed the CIA’s involvement in covert attempts to foment coups overseas, many Americans began to question the integrity of their institutions and the motives of their government; it hardly seemed far-fetched to assume that the CIA had been the main force behind the coup in Iran.

4. Inactive
   HeavyWater

   @HeavyWater

   6:20 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   And finally . . . 

   Whatever the reason for the persistence of the mythology about 1953, it is long past time for the Americans and the Iranians to move beyond it. As Washington and Tehran struggle to end their protracted enmity, it would help greatly if the United States no longer felt the need to keep implicitly apologizing for its role in Mosaddeq’s ouster. As for the Islamic Republic, at a moment when it is dealing with internal divisions and uncertainties about its future, it would likewise help for it to abandon its outdated notions of victimhood and domination by foreigners and acknowledge that it was Iranians themselves who were the principal protagonists in one of the most important turning points in their country’s history.

5. Coolidge
   Flicker

   @Flicker

   6:36 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   HeavyWater (View Comment):
   And finally . . . 

   Foreign Affairs is a publication of the CFR.  It has a clear agenda.  Do you really trust anything it has to say?

6. Inactive
   HeavyWater

   @HeavyWater

   6:45 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   Flicker (View Comment):

   HeavyWater (View Comment):
   And finally . . .

   Foreign Affairs is a publication of the CFR. It has a clear agenda. Do you really trust anything it has to say?

   I’m not a member of the John Birch Society.  No tin foil in my hat.

7. Coolidge
   kedavis

   @kedavis

   7:19 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   HeavyWater (View Comment):

   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.

   Even aside from other dual-use technology, As soon as you see Iran enriching uranium beyond the level needed for power plants, then you know they don’t really want it for peaceful purposes.

8. Coolidge
   TBA

   @RobtGilsdorf

   7:32 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   Richard Fulmer (View Comment):

   Miffed White Male (View Comment):

   Zafar (View Comment):
   I can’t think of an instance where economic sanctions have resulted in regime change by themselves.

   South Africa.

   True, but on the other hand, South Africans actually cared about what people around the world thought of them.

   I think Iranians also care what the world thinks of them. But Iranians don’t rule Iran per se (I suppose, though, you could make that argument about any country). 

9. Member
   Zafar

   @Zafar

   7:42 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

   HeavyWater (View Comment):

   And finally . . .

   Whatever the reason for the persistence of the mythology about 1953, it is long past time for the Americans and the Iranians to move beyond it. As Washington and Tehran struggle to end their protracted enmity, it would help greatly if the United States no longer felt the need to keep implicitly apologizing for its role in Mosaddeq’s ouster. As for the Islamic Republic, at a moment when it is dealing with internal divisions and uncertainties about its future, it would likewise help for it to abandon its outdated notions of victimhood and domination by foreigners and acknowledge that it was Iranians themselves who were the principal protagonists in one of the most important turning points in their country’s history.

   As far as that goes, yes, I do agree with that. 

   (And thank you for cutting and pasting that.  Very interesting.)

   If I understand correctly:

   Iran remains technically independent, but is completely dominated by the British Empire – essentially Britain has ‘concessions’ (similar to the ones they forced from China).

   Iranian society’s political loyalties and tendencies are multipolar: Royalists/Communists/liberal democrats/Religious.  These factions are as motivated by personal ambition and keeping their rivals down as they are by the desire to implement their agenda for the country.

   Mossadegh nationalises Iran’s oil fields, uptil then owned by a British Company.

   Britain embargoes Iran and stops export of Iranian oil. (Including by actually impounding ships that carry it.) This is basically supported by other Western countries, due to worries about establishing a precedent around nationalisation of assets in former colonies and colony-adjacent (?) countries.

   Iran falls into economic, and therefore social and political, chaos.

   Britain doubles down – perhaps because it’s lost a lot of its empire, and the rest is looking shaky.

   The US tries to (honest) broker a resolution where Iran and Britain both compromise. (Along the lines of the US agreement withSaudi?)

   Iran’s compromise would involve some loss of sovreignty (which seems pretty major) so Mossadegh doesn’t agree.

   More chaos. Mossadegh loses some support and other options look better.

   The US comes down half heartedly on the side of a coup, which sort of muddles itself out.

   And I take it back wrt the coup not yielding any benefit.  Just from wiki, but:

   In August 1954, the AIOC was set under the control of an international consortium. Initially, ownership shares in the consortium proposed to be divided along the following lines: 40% to be divided equally (8% each) among the five major American companies; British Petroleum to have a 40% share; Royal Dutch/Shell to have 14%; and CFP, a French Company, to receive 6%. Iran now received 25% of the profits compared to 20% of the original treaty with the AIOC. Saudi Arabia and other oil-exploiting countries of the region received up to 50% of the profits in cooperation with American oil companies at the same time.

   So maybe it was worth the effort?

    

    

    

10. Member
    Zafar

    @Zafar

    7:50 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    TBA (View Comment):

    I think Iranians also care what the world thinks of them. But Iranians don’t rule Iran per se (I suppose, though, you could make that argument about any country).

    The world doesn’t have one single opinion.  Something that’s easy to forget because some of us have louder voices than others.

    By odd concidence: I listen to a weekly (mostly) English language podcast out of India which discusses the news as it relates to us.  This week’s podcast addresses Iran and China (and Bari Weiss in the context of free speech) as well as a bunch of Indian political stuff.  It’s a strange illustration both of multiplicity of views (and points of view) in the world and the fact that we more and more live in the same information ecosystem.  And that some issues, like freedom of expression, are universal.

11. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    8:15 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    Zafar (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    And finally . . .

    Whatever the reason for the persistence of the mythology about 1953, it is long past time for the Americans and the Iranians to move beyond it. As Washington and Tehran struggle to end their protracted enmity, it would help greatly if the United States no longer felt the need to keep implicitly apologizing for its role in Mosaddeq’s ouster. As for the Islamic Republic, at a moment when it is dealing with internal divisions and uncertainties about its future, it would likewise help for it to abandon its outdated notions of victimhood and domination by foreigners and acknowledge that it was Iranians themselves who were the principal protagonists in one of the most important turning points in their country’s history.

    As far as that goes, yes, I do agree with that.

    My thoughts are that the 1953 ouster of Mosaddeq was not a simple “America’s CIA bad – Mosaddeq good” situation.  It was much more complicated.  It seems that Mosaddeq violated Iran’s constitution (such as it was) and eventually was placed under house arrest.  

    Contrast the relationship between the United States and Iran with the relationship between the United States and Japan.  

    The United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities in 1945.  Today, in 2020, the United States and Japan are very strong allies and trading partners.  

    I see no reason why the United States and Iran could not be allies and trading partners in 2020 despite the events of 1953 if Iran were an open representative democracy rather than a terrorist funding Islamic Theocracy.

    So, my hope is that the Islamic Theocracy will be weakened enough by the bombings so that the Iranian people can have a government that represents them.  If that were the case there would be no dispute between Iran and the United States, in my estimation.

12. Coolidge
    TBA

    @RobtGilsdorf

    8:33 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    And finally . . .

    Whatever the reason for the persistence of the mythology about 1953, it is long past time for the Americans and the Iranians to move beyond it. As Washington and Tehran struggle to end their protracted enmity, it would help greatly if the United States no longer felt the need to keep implicitly apologizing for its role in Mosaddeq’s ouster. As for the Islamic Republic, at a moment when it is dealing with internal divisions and uncertainties about its future, it would likewise help for it to abandon its outdated notions of victimhood and domination by foreigners and acknowledge that it was Iranians themselves who were the principal protagonists in one of the most important turning points in their country’s history.

    As far as that goes, yes, I do agree with that.

    My thoughts are that the 1953 ouster of Mosaddeq was not a simple “America’s CIA bad – Mosaddeq good” situation. It was much more complicated. It seems that Mosaddeq violated Iran’s constitution (such as it was) and eventually was placed under house arrest.

    Contrast the relationship between the United States and Iran with the relationship between the United States and Japan.

    The United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities in 1945. Today, in 2020, the United States and Japan are very strong allies and trading partners.

    I see no reason why the United States and Iran could not be allies and trading partners in 2020 despite the events of 1953 if Iran were an open representative democracy rather than a terrorist funding Islamic Theocracy.

    So, my hope is that the Islamic Theocracy will be weakened enough by the bombings so that the Iranian people can have a government that represents them. If that were the case there would be no dispute between Iran and the United States, in my estimation.

    So you’re saying we should nuke Iran? 

13. Coolidge
    Flicker

    @Flicker

    8:44 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):
    And finally . . .

    Foreign Affairs is a publication of the CFR. It has a clear agenda. Do you really trust anything it has to say?

    I’m not a member of the John Birch Society. No tin foil in my hat.

    Neither am I.  Are you saying you think I am.  Because knowing the composition and goals, and distrusting the CFR is tin-foil hat stuff?

14. Coolidge
    kedavis

    @kedavis

    8:47 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    TBA (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    And finally . . .

    Whatever the reason for the persistence of the mythology about 1953, it is long past time for the Americans and the Iranians to move beyond it. As Washington and Tehran struggle to end their protracted enmity, it would help greatly if the United States no longer felt the need to keep implicitly apologizing for its role in Mosaddeq’s ouster. As for the Islamic Republic, at a moment when it is dealing with internal divisions and uncertainties about its future, it would likewise help for it to abandon its outdated notions of victimhood and domination by foreigners and acknowledge that it was Iranians themselves who were the principal protagonists in one of the most important turning points in their country’s history.

    As far as that goes, yes, I do agree with that.

    My thoughts are that the 1953 ouster of Mosaddeq was not a simple “America’s CIA bad – Mosaddeq good” situation. It was much more complicated. It seems that Mosaddeq violated Iran’s constitution (such as it was) and eventually was placed under house arrest.

    Contrast the relationship between the United States and Iran with the relationship between the United States and Japan.

    The United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities in 1945. Today, in 2020, the United States and Japan are very strong allies and trading partners.

    I see no reason why the United States and Iran could not be allies and trading partners in 2020 despite the events of 1953 if Iran were an open representative democracy rather than a terrorist funding Islamic Theocracy.

    So, my hope is that the Islamic Theocracy will be weakened enough by the bombings so that the Iranian people can have a government that represents them. If that were the case there would be no dispute between Iran and the United States, in my estimation.

    So you’re saying we should nuke Iran?

    Not all of Iran, just the mullahs.  :-)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVQyzHJwThY&t=76

15. Member
    Steven Seward

    @StevenSeward

    9:06 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    And finally . . .

    Whatever the reason for the persistence of the mythology about 1953, it is long past time for the Americans and the Iranians to move beyond it. As Washington and Tehran struggle to end their protracted enmity, it would help greatly if the United States no longer felt the need to keep implicitly apologizing for its role in Mosaddeq’s ouster. As for the Islamic Republic, at a moment when it is dealing with internal divisions and uncertainties about its future, it would likewise help for it to abandon its outdated notions of victimhood and domination by foreigners and acknowledge that it was Iranians themselves who were the principal protagonists in one of the most important turning points in their country’s history.

    Thanks for  that history lesson.  I have always been skeptical of the claim that the CIA “toppled the Iranian regime,” but I never knew any details.  I based that simply on the extraordinary effort it would take for a few dozen (even a few hundred) CIA agents to make a country of 20 million people install a certain leader, without the use of force.   Just like the idea that Russia somehow controlled our 2016 election, it seems totally preposterous.

16. Member
    Steven Seward

    @StevenSeward

    9:07 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    Flicker (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):
    And finally . . .

    Foreign Affairs is a publication of the CFR. It has a clear agenda. Do you really trust anything it has to say?

    What is the CFR?

17. Member
    Zafar

    @Zafar

    9:14 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    My thoughts are that the 1953 ouster of Mosaddeq was not a simple “America’s CIA bad – Mosaddeq good” situation. It was much more complicated. It seems that Mosaddeq violated Iran’s constitution (such as it was) and eventually was placed under house arrest.

    I don’t see how whether Mossadegh was good or bad for Iran determines whether CIA involvement in the coup was a good thing or a bad thing.  It’s somebody else’s country.  Why was the CIA involved at all?

    (If you tell me the Soviets then that’s understandable, but Mossadegh’s performance is tangential to this.  Also, arguably the British embargo had a greater effect on causing Iran’s crisis, leaving it more vulnerable to the Soviets, than anything Mossadegh did.  It’s an odd coincidence that the same dynamic is playing out today?)

    Contrast the relationship between the United States and Iran with the relationship between the United States and Japan.

    The United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities in 1945. Today, in 2020, the United States and Japan are very strong allies and trading partners.

    Because the US occupied Japan for seven years after defeating it in battle.

    The reforms the US essentially dictated then are what has resulted in today’s Japan.

    Which is not a country that says ‘no’ to the US, is it?   At this point Iran is.

    I see no reason why the United States and Iran could not be allies and trading partners in 2020 despite the events of 1953 if Iran were an open representative democracy rather than a terrorist funding Islamic Theocracy.

    So, my hope is that the Islamic Theocracy will be weakened enough by the bombings so that the Iranian people can have a government that represents them. If that were the case there would be no dispute between Iran and the United States, in my estimation.

    The results of democracy in Gaza and Lebanon and Egypt and Iraq make me less sanguine about this.

    Sometimes what the people in other countries want, and vote for, is not what the US wants.

    Iranians would surely not all vote for the clerics in free elections, but a significant portion of them may still do so.

    Some of them might vote for the restoration of the Pahlavis.

    Some of them might vote for Tudeh.

    At this point we really don’t know.

    [edited to add: they’re almost certain not to vote for MeK in any great number.]

18. Coolidge
    Flicker

    @Flicker

    9:51 PM EDT ⋅ Jul 18, 2020

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):
    And finally . . .

    Foreign Affairs is a publication of the CFR. It has a clear agenda. Do you really trust anything it has to say?

    What is the CFR?

    Council on Foreign Relations.  Not to be confused with the any government agency.

    Via wikipedia:

    Towards the end of World War I, a working fellowship of about 150 scholars called “The Inquiry” was tasked to brief President Woodrow Wilson about options for the postwar world when Germany was defeated…

    Due to the isolationist views prevalent in American society at the time, the scholars had difficulty gaining traction with their plan, and turned their focus instead to a set of discreet meetings that had been taking place since June 1918 in New York City, under the name “Council on Foreign Relations.” …

    In the late 1930s, the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation began contributing large amounts of money to the Council.[4] In 1938 they created various Committees on Foreign Relations, which later became governed by the American Committees on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., throughout the country, funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation.

    There’s more, but this gives you an idea.  The list of former and present board members is interesting.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations#Former_board_members

19. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    5:32 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    TBA (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    So, my hope is that the Islamic Theocracy will be weakened enough by the bombings so that the Iranian people can have a government that represents them. If that were the case there would be no dispute between Iran and the United States, in my estimation.

    So you’re saying we should nuke Iran?

    No.  I think Israel intelligence and Iranian opponents to Iran’s Theocratic dictatorship are the people who are conducting the sabotage in Iran we have seen this past month.  I would like that to continue.  

    If the United States can offer some assistance to those in Iran opposed to the Iranian Theocratic dictatorship and Israel’s intelligence services, that would be great.

     

20. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    5:34 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    And finally . . .

    Whatever the reason for the persistence of the mythology about 1953, it is long past time for the Americans and the Iranians to move beyond it. As Washington and Tehran struggle to end their protracted enmity, it would help greatly if the United States no longer felt the need to keep implicitly apologizing for its role in Mosaddeq’s ouster. As for the Islamic Republic, at a moment when it is dealing with internal divisions and uncertainties about its future, it would likewise help for it to abandon its outdated notions of victimhood and domination by foreigners and acknowledge that it was Iranians themselves who were the principal protagonists in one of the most important turning points in their country’s history.

    Thanks for that history lesson. I have always been skeptical of the claim that the CIA “toppled the Iranian regime,” but I never knew any details. I based that simply on the extraordinary effort it would take for a few dozen (even a few hundred) CIA agents to make a country of 20 million people install a certain leader, without the use of force. Just like the idea that Russia somehow controlled our 2016 election, it seems totally preposterous.

    In the eyes of the Left, America is rotten to the core.  So, if there is a regime that is opposed to the United States, the cause is America’s rottenness.  

     

21. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    5:36 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Zafar (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):

    My thoughts are that the 1953 ouster of Mosaddeq was not a simple “America’s CIA bad – Mosaddeq good” situation. It was much more complicated. It seems that Mosaddeq violated Iran’s constitution (such as it was) and eventually was placed under house arrest.

    I don’t see how whether Mossadegh was good or bad for Iran determines whether CIA involvement in the coup was a good thing or a bad thing. It’s somebody else’s country. Why was the CIA involved at all?

    We were involved because there was concern that the instability in Iran caused by Mossadegh could result in change in the regime and the United States wanted to make sure that Iran did not fall into the Soviet Union’s orbit.

22. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    5:40 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Contrast the relationship between the United States and Iran with the relationship between the United States and Japan.

    The United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities in 1945. Today, in 2020, the United States and Japan are very strong allies and trading partners.

    Because the US occupied Japan for seven years after defeating it in battle.

    The reforms the US essentially dictated then are what has resulted in today’s Japan.

    Which is not a country that says ‘no’ to the US, is it? At this point Iran is.

    An Iranian Theocratic dictatorship is saying “no” to Iran.  The Iranian people have not had their voices heard.

    In the case of Japan, the United States was able to defeat Japan and force Japan into adopting liberal democracy.  I would like to see the Islamic theocrats currently ruling Iran replaced by an open liberal democracy where the people of Iran get to participate in competitive multi-party elections.  In a situation like that, it is very likely that US relations with Iran would be similar to US relations with India.

     

23. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    5:44 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Zafar (View Comment):

    The results of democracy in Gaza and Lebanon and Egypt and Iraq make me less sanguine about this.

    Sometimes what the people in other countries want, and vote for, is not what the US wants.

    Iranians would surely not all vote for the clerics in free elections, but a significant portion of them may still do so.

    Some of them might vote for the restoration of the Pahlavis.

    Some of them might vote for Tudeh.

    If we are talking about liberal democracy, where someone can run for political office and lose the election but not wind up in prison, then the example of Egypt is not relevant.  

    I think India is a better example of what Iran would look like if it was able to remove the Islamic Theocratic boot from its neck.  

    I have read many books about how the people of Iran view the Theocrats of Iran and how they view the United States.  

     

24. Member
    Zafar

    @Zafar

    6:50 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    HeavyWater (View Comment):
    An Iranian Theocratic dictatorship is saying “no” to Iran.

    Arguably.

    The Iranian people have not had their voices heard.

    The last time it was heard they elected Mossadegh. How did that go?

    If we are talking about liberal democracy, where someone can run for political office and lose the election but not wind up in prison, then the example of Egypt is not relevant.

    My point is that the Muslim Brotherhood won the last free election in Egypt.  That’s why Sisi won’t have free elections there again for a while.  Hamas won the last free election in Gaza, and likely would win one in the West Bank if it was held today.

    I don’t like any of these, but that’s how free elections in these places turned out.  I don’t have the confidence that elections in Iran would turn out fundamentally differently.  North Tehran is a sophisticated, secular by choice place that misses the Shah. The rest of Iran probably isn’t.

    Basically, you’ll get liberal results from democracy where societies are actually liberal.  Where societies are illiberal, you get something else.  It’s an inevitable step towards getting liberal, mind you, but things are as they are.

    I think India is a better example of what Iran would look like if it was able to remove the Islamic Theocratic boot from its neck.

    Indian politics are now markedly less liberal, because more representative, than they were after independence. It turned out we couldn’t leapfrog the process, much to my sorrow. (Ditto Turkey, imho.)

    I have read many books about how the people of Iran view the Theocrats of Iran and how they view the United States.

    I’ve heard that Americans are liked in Iran, but not the American Government.  That’s actually true in a lot of places. 

25. Inactive
    Maguffin

    @Maguffin

    6:55 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Zafar (View Comment):

    I’ve heard that Americans are liked in Iran, but not the American Government. That’s actually true in a lot of places.

    Like the United States? :)

26. Thatcher
    Percival

    @Percival

    

    7:20 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Zafar (View Comment):
    I’ve heard that Americans are liked in Iran, but not the American Government.

    And both of them rank higher than the mullahs.

    Curious, that.

27. Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter

    @ToryWarWriter

    8:45 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

28. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    9:43 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Zafar (View Comment):

    I’ve heard that Americans are liked in Iran, but not the American Government. That’s actually true in a lot of places.

    I’d say it would be more accurate to say that Iranians like Americans and do not like the Iranian government.  

    This is similar to how the people of Poland viewed America during the 1980s.

     

29. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    9:51 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Here are some books about life in Iran that I have read and recommend.

    Perseoplis: The Story of a Childhood  https://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Childhood-Pantheon-Graphic-Library/dp/037571457X

    Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran

    https://www.amazon.com/Lipstick-Jihad-Growing-Iranian-American-ebook/dp/B003P9XDP2/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Lipstick+Jihad&qid=1595177250&s=books&sr=1-1

    Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran  

    https://www.amazon.com/Honeymoon-Tehran-Years-Love-Danger-ebook/dp/B001RS8L78/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2VBIXUR0FAZFU&dchild=1&keywords=azadeh+moaveni&qid=1595177331&s=books&sprefix=Azadeh+%2Cstripbooks%2C176&sr=1-4

    Even After All This Time: A Story of Love, Revolution and Leaving Iran

    https://www.amazon.com/Even-After-All-This-Time/dp/0060745347/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Even+After+All+This+Time&qid=1595177404&s=books&sr=1-1

    Journey From the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran

    https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Land-No-Girlhood-Revolutionary-ebook/dp/B000XUDHR0/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=journey+from+the+land+of+no&qid=1595177454&s=books&sr=1-1

     

30. Inactive
    HeavyWater

    @HeavyWater

    9:54 AM EDT ⋅ Jul 19, 2020

    Zafar (View Comment):

    HeavyWater (View Comment):
    An Iranian Theocratic dictatorship is saying “no” to Iran.

    Arguably.

    The Iranian people have not had their voices heard.

    The last time it was heard they elected Mossadegh. How did that go?

    Mossadegh was not elected by the people of Iran.