A Part of Their Rage Belongs to Us

The genteel interview of the former empress of Iran conducted by MSNBC Tuesday is a vital example of how American political sensibilities are dangerously lacking context. We watch on the web and television as Iranians die in the street demanding proof of a democratic election and we are mostly amazed at their courage. MSNBC, seeking insight on Iran's raging electorate, turns, foolishly, to a woman whose husband was a brutal dictator and, almost certainly, as oppressive as Iran's current president.

Farah Pahlavi, who was married to the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, told MSNBC's Kari Huus that she was hoping the uprising would happen "in spite of the dictatorship of the theocracy." Regardless of the nature of the current Iranian government, dictatorship is a precise description of the regime maintained by her late husband. Shah Pahlavi, as even casual students of history are aware, was an American puppet placed in power by a coup, which had been orchestrated by Kermit Roosevelt, Jr, the grandson of the former president.

When the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was nationalized in 1951 by Iran's democratically elected President Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, U.S. and British intelligence services set in motion a plan to install the Shah and overthrow the man who had been voted into office. The historical rationalization was that Communism was afoot in that part of the world and the West was worried that the Iranian communist party might take control of Iran's vast natural resources and assist the U.S.S.R. The truth was the U.S. and Britain wanted Iran's cheap energy and the Shah turned into a cozy lap dog that bought American weapons with his country's billions while providing the oil needed by the West.

The Shah ran a frightful government. He established SAVAK, a secret police service that was actually trained at an American university. SAVAK tortured and killed thousands of Iranians over the course of Shah Pahlavi's rule. Dissent was brutally crushed. Empress Pahlavi, almost pathetically, tried to describe her husband as a man "who didn't want to keep his throne over the bloodshed of his people." This, obviously, is utter nonsense. He killed an untold number of "his" people to keep his throne and it is one of our country's great shames that we helped to facilitate his oppression.

The empress makes mention of how much the Iranian people "have suffered over the past 30 years." There's little doubt that the mullahs have created a theocracy that does not allow for true expression of the will of the people and it is abundantly clear that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as brutal as any other dictatorial leader. What the empress again fails to mention and is not asked about by the MSNBC reporter is the nature of the government run by her husband from 1953 until he was tossed out of his country by the Islamic Revolution in 1979. There was no form of demonstration under the Shah, and mass protest was virtually unheard of until Iran's religious leaders began to assert themselves a few decades into the Shah's rule.

When the Ayatollah Khomeini led the revolt of 1979 and the U.S. Embassy was stormed, the anger grew out of decades of misguided American financial and political support of the oppressive Shah. Iran's politically oppressed were seeking an answer to his power and angry mullahs were the only ones willing to confront the strong man. Iran's youth has largely followed the religious leaders ever since those 66 Americans were captured.

Until the Internet. And Obama. The more Iranians see of the west and America and our new president the more they want what is offered by a better form of democracy. Their protests now are as much about a lack of real choice as they are the bastardized and corrupted electoral process in their country.

They don't know, however, whether they can trust America. We have a poor record of performance with their country. Iran's educated population knows that Ahmadinejad is a lunatic and his rumblings against Israel and denial of the Holocaust are embarrassing absurdities. They wonder, however, how the west can deny them the sovereign right to develop nuclear power, whether for peaceful or military purposes. Even if they know their president is a fool with his claims about Israel, Iranians still see an acute hypocrisy in the fact that Israel is a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel also refuses to formally acknowledge it has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world but still receives unflinching support from U.S. leadership.

The Empress Pahlavi wrapped up her interview with MSNBC by saying she stands ready to help the movement for democracy in her home country. Whether this is humor or irony hardly seems to matter; she is as oblivious to her history as we Americans are to our own past in Iran. Her son, Reza Cyrus Pahlavi, has long said he hopes to return and lead his country some day. His time in America has not been wasted, either. He has learned to use the mighty lever of fear. In Washington, D.C., speaking at the National Press Club Monday, he sounded like he was a graduate of the Dick Cheney School of Nuclear Fear and Sound Bite Fun when he said, "Fanatical tyrants who know that the future is against them may end their present course on their terms, a nuclear holocaust."

The people of Iran deserve far better than another Pahlavi, Ahmadinejad, or Mousavi. They also have countless reasons to be angry.

And a part of their rage belongs to us.

Also at www.moorethink.com.

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Comments

[ahmadahmadipour]

mr moore,
you seem more intent to discredit other news sources than really provide any new information about Iran. Farah Pahlavi, is the first to have admitted faults in the past, however you seem more comfortable to rehash old news from thirty years ago. What is significant is that all progressive forces are joined in an outcry against the brutal regime of the Ayatollahs for the first time, be it royalist , communist, feminist or otherwise....if you really feel Iran deserves better, why dont you try to understand the depth of the situation...
the shah's regime as problematic as it was, was moving Iran forward to an inevitable democratic regime, women's vote and education were both granted under the Pahlavi's, the very fact that a woman was showing her face in public thirty years ago uncovered,and leading her people towards the "progressive" qualities that western journalists are discovering as a sign of Iran's advanced civil society today seems to be lost on you.
If you truly think Iran deserves more , get off your soapbox, gather up your courage, and go report from Iran, the realities you see there.....it will amaze you even more than what your google search engine brings up.

[batguano]

Iran’s electoral system is controlled by the power and influence of religious extremism and those who control it, and ours in the US is controlled by the power and influence of money and those who control it; neither is "free", or fair and open, or necessarily just. For us to condemn their controlled system, that is in the hands of a few, while campaign finance reform here languishes and our controlled system remains in the hands of a few, is the height of hypocrisy. Greed for power and control, whether for material wealth or "religious" control seems quite the same somehow; both disenfranchise the majority of people, whether they are wage-slaves or religious slaves. Until we reform our system to eliminate the undue influence of money and its control of our direction into the future, we should not be casting stones at another.

Religion and greed are both contributing to the ultimate downfall of Man.

[Javani]

Please explain.

Has this author spoken to any Iranians,

or is he reacting to the appearance of the Shah's wife to deflect to comfortable anti-Americans explanations that current events are, of course and always, a function of America or what Americans think, here negatively with the cultish incantation of "Moussadegh" as if that explains anything today.

[unitron]

Mr. Moore, you really should have specified of which President Roosevelt Kermit was the grandson.

Some students of history are more casual than you might think.

When the Shah's government was overthrown in '79 the mass media really didn't bother giving us the full story about '53.

[Hediondo]

Having spent a year in Iran, I can assure you that the youth demonstrating against the election do not want a better form of democracy. They want plasma screens and sports cars. They are the future yuppies. They want crony capitalism, which would be fine for a while. But since greed is limitless, their victory would only lead Iran into the same hypocritical capitalist muck that leaves 18,000 innocent children to die of starvation every single day, while spending hundreds of billions to assure that the executives have cherries on their ice cream.
Iran is 2500 years old and has quite an astute populace. They can see this coming. And they don’t want it. They prefer to worship Allah instead of the dollar because they know where it will lead. That is why the election resulted as it did. To be fair, the world should leave Iran alone and let it work out its differences as it chooses.

[blindhog]

You know what? We are having a hard time getting our own country in order---wall street debacle, unchecked illegal immigration (with even officials and companies hiring illegal immigrant), the exporting of our jobs, the importing of other countries" poverty---I don't think we should try to again make the mistake of militarily (unfunded) getting into another countries' business--­-especiall­y since it will slowly change itself for the better anyway----do you think they and their women like the strict Taliban rules or the radicalism of Al Qaeda any more than any other sane person?

[paixa3]

James, why would Iran trust the USA and elections?

Your court appointed your president in 2000, not the people.

[PalaceOfWisdom]

That's not true. Our imbecilic Electoral College system determined that winning by over 230,000 votes wasn't as important as where voters for each candidate happened to reside. This of course means that despite the claim "all men are created equal", their votes are weighted by their addresses. So several hundred votes in Florida , which should have been a moot point, were valued above nearly a quarter million other people.
As a matter of fact, given that Electoral votes are winner take all, and the number of Electoral votes per state is based on population, every person who votes for the candidate who loses their state is effectively forced to vote for the opposition.
It escapes me why Iran would want a government that resembles ours, since in many ways that's exactly what they have now.

[Macready]

the supreme court made the final decision and appointed bush . . .

[Macready]

well said paixa3 . . .

[Macready]

and do you know if one Senator had stood up in Congress and questioned the outcome of the Supreme Court decision . . . it might have been over for the bushies

[Roozbeh]

@James Moore ---- In all honesty I strongly believe that British fooled Americans to topple the democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh. Since exactly the year 1800 with the trip of John Malcolm Britain has caused great suffering and lost of territories for Iran. For example, they negotiated the peace treaty Golestan on October 24, 1813 between Russia and Qajar Iran, which Iran lost a great swaths on land north of Aras river including Georgia, Armenia, Daghestan, Darband, Ganja, Azerbaijan, and a few others. Some years later Britain send troops to defeat Iranian forces at Bushehr when Iran tried to take back Herat in present day Afghanistan which was always an integral part of Iran from day one.Before 1979 Shah Pahlavi refused to grant BP a 25 year almost free access to Iranian oil. The most obvious fact is that without BBC the Islamic Revolution would have never succeeded, period. Every single day BBC would read out something from Khomeini to keep the people on the streets. Now BBC is trying its best to advise the protesters to elections in Iran to stay home because is dangerous out there. Britain has never been honest with America. And vote rigging in Iran is happening just when there a talk of a new beginning between the US and Iran and a possible Palestinian state.

[dynwitch]

People who helped destroy their countries need to learn how to apologize, whether they are former empresses of Iran, or Republicans here in America, or global financiers. The world seems to have a fundamental problem holding people accountable for their selfish, greedy, destructive behaviors. Perhaps this is a role the internet will prove especially adept at: the public shaming of despicable individuals.

[JHawkKC]

Or the Democrats in office now that or taking over companies and banks and now trying to take over health care. When they apologize we might then see the world grow a little and become more honest. Until then it would be hypocritical to expect apologies from anyone else.

[realpolitic]

"He established SAVAK, a secret police service that was actually trained at an American university.' I wonder what university was training torturers. The Bush people could have provided them a scholarship endowment.

[dsws]

Good background review. Thank you for posting it, Mr. Moore.

[flhu]

too bad that when our leaders steal elections they are a slight bit more nuanced, not overdoing it to such an unbelievable amount making it as blatantly obvious. We would have had protests like this after most elections this century.

But then again, if US presidents could run three terms, and Bush, with the popularity he had, got 66% of the vote in every state, how would we protest? Sure, we'd go to the street, but then what? We'd read each others signs, chant our slogans, and within a week we'd all just go back to our normal lives and complain about it for the next 4 years until its time to vote, and be disenfranchised, again.

[Dosadi]

No we wouldn't. We would gripe to ourselves and go about our daily business as usual. We Americans would/did not protest because we are afriad. We are scarred to do anything that will buck the status quo. We think we have freedoms but if we do not use those freedoms, do they really exist? Of course not. We have been had again. We think we are free but we only have the freedoms that the rich allow us to have. We do not have the freedom to say "enough is enough" about anything, but its time we did.

[peterg76]

Of course they can't trust the Americans. They still have oil, remember?

[exoevolution]

Our Corporate / Congressional / Military Mullahs are no different than the Mullahs of Iran, all Mullahs & Tyrants use FEAR & the "religion" of WAR to control & suppress the PEOPLE!

Both the American & Iranian people need to OVERTHROW their Mullahs.

The brave people of Iran are showing us the way - the answer is in the STREETS!

[paixa3]

Such a surprise to see someone from the USA think this. You are in the USA?

[exoevolution]

YES!

[TJCole]

If we can't trust our government how can the Iranians of all people...?

Nobody can trust America any longer...it's a corporate criminal crime syndicate masquerading as a nation...

[dynwitch]

Sad, but true.

[mountclemens]

Right. I second the "Sad, but true."

And I ask you, sincerely, who CAN be trusted? And which country ISN'T a "corporate criminal crime syndicate masquerading as a nation" -- or otherwise simply a nation of corrupt elite atop the robbed masses? I'd like to know where I ought to try to live -- if changing our own country is hopeless.

[TJCole]

Wait I'm thinking...

Still nothing...