From: Sean Kenny (seankenny@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Wed Feb 19 2003 - 01:11:51 MST
MaxPlumm@aol.com wrote:
> I can just as easily say that the US should be blamed more for NOT
> maintaining the Shah's Peacock Throne in 1979. Especially when one
> considers that the abdication of the Shah led to the ceasing of Iran
> "as a base for force projection close to the Soviet border". With no
> more US presence in Iran, this gave the Soviets a free hand in the
> region and allowed them to proceed with their invasion of Afghanistan
> in December 1979. This led to the US and Chinese needing to support
> the Mujahadeen to expel the Soviets, which in turn led to the rise of
> Osama Bin Laden and his cronies. So, to use your logic, the rise of
> the terrorism that now threatens US and international security can be
> directly traced to our lack of support of a regime that opposed
> fundamentalist Islamic groups.
or even
Iran, 1953: When the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh
nationalized the Anglo-Iranian oil company, the resulting sanctions on
the country – led by Great Britain and the United States – resulted in
economic hardship and political unrest. Fearing that such instability
could result in a communist takeover and concerned about the precedent
of nationalization on American oil companies elsewhere in the Middle
East, agents of the Central Intelligence Agency organized a military
coup in 1953, ousting the elected prime minister. The United States
returned the exiled Shah to Iran, where he ruled with an iron fist for
more than a quarter century. Tens of thousands of dissidents were
tortured and murdered by his dreaded SAVAK secret police, organized and
trained by the United States. The repression was largely successful in
wiping out the democratic opposition. The SAVAK was less successful in
infiltrating religious institutions, however, so when the revolution
finally took place, toppling the Shah in 1979, the formerly secular Iran
came under the leadership of virulently reactionary and anti-American
Islamists. The result of the Islamic revolution was not only the end of
one of America’s strongest economic and strategic relationships in the
Middle East, but also the hostage crisis of 1979-81, Iranian support for
anti-American terrorist groups, and a series of armed engagements in the
Persian Gulf during the 1980s. Had the United States not overthrown
Iran’s constitutional government in 1953 and replaced it with the
dictatorial Shah, there would not have been the Islamic Revolution and
its bloody aftermath.
>
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