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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 12/12/18

The US Wants to Bring Back the Shah of Iran

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"Social justice and economic independence were the main economic goals to be achieved, among other means, through the expansion of the welfare state, extension of public ownership, creation of an active cooperative sector, and strengthening the agricultural and industrial sectors for greater self-reliance. ".the Constitution of the Islamic Republic bears great resemblance on economic issues to the charters and constitutions of Arab "socialist" states drafted during the 1960s and 1970s." [*]

Constant US, Israeli and Saudi threats require Iran to divert its domestic budget more towards defense, instead of its desired economic goals. Terrorist attacks and internal dissension stirred up by the US causes Iran to increase its internal security to the detriment of civil liberties. The US and the mainstream media propaganda machines know what the deliberate effects of US aggressive actions cause, but they cruelly taunt Iran for its economic and social hardships by blaming the victim.

The US uses these same dirty tricks against Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia and every other country that the US demonizes for not falling into line behind US domination in the neoliberal New World Order. The New World Order is the US foreign policy that it alone is unrestrained to "destabilize countries in order to integrate them militarily, politically and economically ".into US-style capitalism and culture". [*]

The US is still fighting a cold war against socialism, the welfare state, and public ownership. A cold war against Iran is not about US national security. Iran is not an existential threat to the US, or to Israel either. [*] It is about US corporations being thwarted from exploiting Iran's natural resources, privatizing their state-owned enterprises, and "opening" Iran to unequal trade arrangements. It is also about the US being the hegemon in the Middle East.

The US is still using the same gunboat diplomacy that it has been using since the 19th century to "open" Latin America, Japan, Korea, China and the Philippians to exploitation. It is old fashioned imperialism dressed up in the jargon of "human rights, democracy, and US exceptionalism". It is what old-world colonialism called "civilizing the heathens".

The US will never forgive the Islamic Republic of Iran for shutting down the US deal of exploitation. With the Shah's cut from oil companies, he was a very big customer for US weapons manufacturers, such as General Dynamics, Lockheed, and Northrop. He also aggressively bought into President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program. At the urging of the US, Iran began its nuclear program in 1957. [**]

Selling weapons and nuclear technology was good business for weapons manufacturers and the nuclear industry. US companies like General Electric and Westinghouse sold Iran the nuclear equipment and technology, as well as the enriched uranium fuel. They even sold the Shah highly enriched weapons grade uranium, which is the most efficient for producing electricity, and making atomic bombs, too. [*]

As far as the US public knew the Shah was highly popular and loved by his people. Imagine the surprise when the people of Iran overthrew him in 1979. The mainstream media was shocked too, since they had swallowed their own propaganda. The images of Iranians rioting, protesting, burning the US flag and shouting Death to America were frightening, it looked irrational, and it seemed to come out of nowhere.

The US public and press became outraged when the US Embassy in Tehran was stormed by revolutionary students who took 52 Americans hostage. The students renamed the US Embassy the "Den of Spies". The students had every reason for that name, given the cache of incriminating documents they discovered. [*]

In the US, every nightly TV news broadcast began with the number of days that had passed since the beginning of the Iran Hostage Crisis. It lasted for 444 days, and resulted in President Carter losing his re-election bid to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Instead of an imperial looking shah, the Iranian Revolution ushered in an Islamic leader to head the government. The thought of Iran turning into a theocracy seemed antiquated to Americans. They had not known that Ayatollah Khomeini was a national hero since the early 1960's. He had been arrested, tortured, imprisoned and then exiled to France for his outspoken opposition to the Shah. [*] The unphotogenic image of a dour looking Ayatollah Khomeini was an easy target for Western racist and Islamophobic propaganda.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
(Image by David Holt London)
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The US public could not understand why Iran became anti-US, anti-West, anti-modern, and appeared to be fanatical. The violent purging of the Shah's cronies and of the opposition was shocking. Iranian supporters of the Shah who fled to the US brought with them wild tales of people being hung from street lamps for having televisions and toilets in their homes. They left out the part about how they lived in affluent luxury, while the vast majority of people lived in hovels. The transition was violence, and it lasted for about 2 years.

The US public had no idea why the Iranian people hated the US so much. The facts were kept secret from the public for years. The State Department documents were finally made public in 2017. [*] For many decades the public did not know that it was the US, from President Eisenhower on down through the State Department and the CIA, which overthrew the popular democratically elected government of the charismatic Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. [*] But the Iranian people knew that It was the US that put the brutal regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the Peacock Throne. [*]

The US public was uninformed of the Shah's repression, political prisoners, torture chambers, assassinations, disappearances and executions. Not only did the US government turn a blind eye to the brutality, it was the CIA (and Israel's Mossad) that was the overseer and mentor to the Shah's secret police; the "Organization of National Intelligence and Security of the Nation", known as SAVAK. [*]

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David is a columnist writing on foreign affairs, economic, and political and social issues. He is an honorary Associate Editor of The Greanville Post, and a former Senior Editor of OpEdNews.com. His articles have been published by OpEdNews, The (more...)
 

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