The Ayatollah's Curse

America's capital is gripped by revolutionary fervor and crusading spirit over Iran. Everywhere one hears cries of, "on to Tehran" and "down with the mullahs."

Alas, the collective memory of the US government, Congress, and the media seems to extend no further back than five or, at most, ten years. All that occurred earlier are as ancient and largely forgotten as the history of Carthage. Americans simply don't remember the legions of mistakes their governments committed in Iran and other parts of the Mideast.

Which brings me, for sad example, to the story of my old friend and Georgetown University Foreign Service School classmate, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who was executed in Tehran after mounting a failed attempt to overthrow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's new Iranian Islamic Republic.

I cite Sadegh's death because of the increasingly strident demands by Republicans and some pro-war Democrats for President Barack Obama to intervene in Iran's post-electoral crisis, and his insistence that the US keep its hands off.

Can these legislators really be unaware the US and Britain have spent hundreds of millions in recent years trying to destabilize Iran and overthrow its elected government? Or that Western powers are conducting an unprecedented media and telecom assault on Iran's Islamic government?

Back to my old friend.

Iran's former president, Abolhassan Bani Sadr, told me that Sadegh begged the Americans not to show any support for his planned coup. "If you do, we are finished." Sadegh's attempt to overthrow the new Islamic government of Ayatollah Khomeini had to appear to be internally-generated and have no links to the US or Britain.

Sadegh met with a senior official of the US National Security Council, then returned to Tehran. On his return, he was arrested and subsequently shot for treason.

According to former President Bani Sadr, the US National Security Council official he met with informed Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, of the plot. Mossad then warned the Khomeni government through a third party of Sadegh's coup.

If true, this was a piece of breathtaking cynicism. In public, Iran and Israel were furiously exchanging mutual fulminations. Yet, behind the scenes, they were quietly doing business. Israel was negotiating the sale of $5 billion of US arms and spare parts to Iran during its bitter war with Iraq and didn't want to see Khomeini overthrown.

Money, after all, is thicker than blood.

Interestingly, Sadegh also insisted senior Republican operatives had implored the Islamic regime not to free the US Embassy hostages it was holding before US elections. The hostage issue sunk President Jimmy Carter's re-election bid.

The hostages were released to coincide with Ronald Reagan's inauguration as president.

One of the dimmer lights in the Republican Party's current low-wattage Senate ranks is South Carolina's Sen. Lindsey Graham, a proud advocate of torture and secret prisons. Graham has taken the lead in demanding US intervention. But how? Washington has no more troops and today must borrow 50 cents from China for every dollar it spends.

Perhaps the warlike senator intends to dispatch the Goose Creek South Carolina volunteer fire department to smite the wicked I-ranians.

No doubt the good senator could show those turbaned fanatics from Tehran how Americans run honest elections in Iraq and Afghanistan - where opposition groups who oppose US occupation are barred from running in the "democratic election" - rather, in fact, like Iran where senior clerics bar "unfit" candidates from running for office.

Or in Lebanon, where Washington recently dished out a ton of cash buying votes for the pro-American coalition, which won an unexpectedly large victory.

There is very little Washington can or should do in Iran. Iran's election, in spite of significant but not decisive voting irregularities still appears to have been a victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Think of Florida's "hanging chads," Ohio's bogus voting machines, and Chicago where the legendary Mayor Daley got the dead to rise and vote for the sainted Jack Kennedy.

Iran has the only fairly honest elections from Morocco to India(except for Israel, whose voting is usually impeccable). The US is in no position to cast the first stone when it comes to democratic procedures. If Washington really seeks to inculcate genuine democracy, let it begin with its own client states, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Iran has been under siege by the US, Britain, France and its Arab neighbors since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The often tragic history of Iran is marked by the British 1941invasion, the Anglo-American 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically-elected Mossadegh government, and the US/British engineered war with Iraq that inflicted one million Iranian casualties.

The best thing the West can do is stay out of Iran's internal affairs. The more it intervenes, the more it gives hard-line elements an excuse to brand their opponents traitors and Western stooges. This is why my late friend Sadegh pleaded with Washington to remain mute after his coup.

Iran must solve its own problems. We've had enough nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq. And how can Washington berate Iran for violence after supporting Pakistan's military offensive in Swat that has driven 2.5 million from their homes and his killed over 1,000? Pakistan's US-financed army is now planning a new `offensive' against rebellious South Waziristan.

Americans must not let wishful thinking and animosity toward the much disliked Ahmadinejad warp their judgment and get them stuck in yet another giant mess in the Muslim world.

Americans are fortunate to have the cautious Barack Obama at the helm rather than those shoot-from-the-hip Republicans, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman. But now unfortunate that Dennis Ross, who is no friend of America's interests in the Muslim world, has just been named to a senior role in the National Security Council.

Obama should stop CIA and other US intelligence agencies from stirring the pot in Iran and organizing armed opposition. These subversive activities could drawn the US into a new conflict for which it is not prepared. Even Israel, which certainly knows about the Mideast, is now backing Ahmadinejad. Besides, the US is facing a potentially dangerous crisis with North Korea.

America's past involvement in Iran has too often produced fiascos, or worse. In fact, Iran has become something of a curse for the United States. Almost every American president who has gotten involved in Iran has had his fingers burned. So the cautious President Obama is advised an excess of caution when dealing with Iran.

Comments

[mbsq]

What is your problem Margolis? How can you equate the Pakistani army fighting the fascist Taliban warlords with Iran brutally repressing it's people's attempt at self-expression? And you are really naive if you think there are "significant but not decisive" irregularities-- All the evidence points to complete fraud where the result has little to no connection with actual voting. This "cast the first stone" moralizing is a terrible excuse for downplaying blatant injustice and brutality. You and Hugo Chavez need to stop basing your opinions on anti-western ideology, and take a hard look at reality.

[Salil Ghoshal]

The last name Ahmadinejad, and the last name Ghotbzadeh, have a history to be shown........

One you can see a mile off while the other just sits there..........

Whether or not Ghotbzadeh, was the son of a laborer we do not know yet...........

The Shah of Iran was overthrown while the Chinese had a war going on in Loas..........

The world is a whole diffrent place since 1979.......

Those regions are outof bounds for many who will never see.........

[malborz]

Thank you Eric. I didn't know any of the events you have described (Ghotbzadeh, etc.) . Please write more for this site.

[lastpost]

Correct me if I am mistaken Eric. But shouldn’t a regime claiming affiliation with the highest of powers, be expected to exhibit a decidedly enlightened approach to its activities? Rather than content itself with the admission, that its foibles are no worse than that of any supposedly secular nation.

[mergina]

The bottom line on this murdering ayatollah is that he is a brutal murdering rat that hides behind a religion that allows murder and brutality towards his people. He is less than zero. I would love to see him hanging from a light pole to pay for his many crimes against his people.

[AbrahamSadegh]

First of all, Eric is right in regard to Obama's approach to Iran considering our past history and the necessity to "stay out of Iran's internal affairs." Doing otherwise would be detrimental to our long-term interest and any meaningful change in the regime which has to take place from within.

Secondly, it is the magnitude and the significance of events taking place behind the scenes most of us are unaware of that is absolutely incredible. Iran is my native land and I was there from several years before until several years after the revolution.

I was amazed by the following statements by Eric which I suspect must be true:

That according to Bani Sadr, Sadegh had "begged the Americans not to show any support for his planned coup. ‘If you do, we are finished,’"
That Gotbzadeth, who later became the Minister of Foreign Affairs, meets a UN official who then informs Mossad about Sadegh's plot who in turn warns the government of Iran,
That is contrast to the Iran's outward animosity toward Israel, the two governments were cooperating with each other,
That the US/British engineered the “war with Iraq that inflicted one million Iranian casualties,”
And that "senior Republican operatives had implored the Islamic regime not to free the US Embassy hostages it was holding before US elections. The hostage issue sunk President Jimmy Carter's re-election bid!"
The result: Everyone deserves to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth = transparency.

[Raul Garcia]

Good to see you here Eric, I only wish the powers to be would utilize your knowledge and insight.

[TCPITS]

Eric Margolis speaks from deep understanding and years of investigative reporting in the region. War at the top of the world is a classic. Many of these comments are either off topic or simply ignorant.

[unitron]

"Iran has the only fairly honest elections from Morocco to India..."

Prior to the most recent one, perhaps, but it stinks so badly that I can smell it all the way over here in NC.

I suppose it's symptomatic of something that my main memory of your late friend is his having been used as the punch line of one of Carson's "Karnak" routines.

[Counterglow]

You might want to check Mr. Margolis' track record before you dismiss him. He's been pretty much right on the money in his analysis of events in the Muslim world (in a predictive way, not the 20-20 hindsight you're used to getting from most of the so-called "experts") for the best part of 20 years.

Read a few of his columns in the Toronto Sun on the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and make REALLY sure you check the dates against events. You'll be amazed.

[Raul Garcia]

You are absolutely correct, I have myself recommended everyone I know to read his columns. Some have commented Mr. Margolis comes off as being arrogant and anti American, but that is all a matter of perception.

[Zheegool]

There is a path between "doing nothing" and "interfering" which a sound policy should be able to navigate through. We need to move beyond these simple arguments to a more sophisticated approach, because as it currently stands, and in either of the aforementioned 2 approaches, Ahmadinejad and Iran's hardliners achieve all their objectives.

[RandomMandarin]

I keep telling people: Who invented chess? The Persians did. Now known as Iranians. Every time the US meddles in Iranian politics the US ends up hurting itself even more than we hurt the Iranians. The smartest thing we could do is stop minding their business. They weren't a problem until we made them one.

[unitron]

There seems to be some evidence that chess actually originated in India.

The Persians, did, however, contribute the word "checkmate" from their phrase that means "The Shah (King) is dead".

[Crowhaul]

Great article.

But are Americans really naive enough to believe that they have anything to do with the politics of Iran? That perhaps the best thing they can do is let all countries figure out their own system without more meddling?

Americans need to understand that the Pentagon employs 27,000 people in its propaganda program. It needs to understand that CNN does more business when we are at war. That GE & Boeing stock goes up when we are at war (along with a host of security-related stocks). Americans need to turn off the freaking TV and go for a walk this evening, go dancing, roll around in the backyard and smile up at the sky. Just don't get caught up in the same nonsense that allowed Bush to take us into his illegal war....