‘It has been a splendid little war,
begun with the highest motives, carried
on with magnificent intelligence and
spirit, favored by that Fortune which
loves the brave.’
US Secretary of State John Hay,
referencing the
Spanish-American War of 1898,
in a letter to Theodore
Roosevelt, July 27 of that
year, the war ushering in America’s
Imperial epoch and unambiguously
heralding its hegemonic ambitions.
‘…I’ve seen that we do not intend to
free, but to subjugate [people]….We’ve
gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It
should be our pleasure and duty to make
people free, and let them deal with
their own domestic questions in their
own way….[I] am opposed to having the
eagle put its talons on any other land.’
Comments by Mark Twain,
anti-imperialist, reflecting on the real
objectives of America’s war with Spain.
‘War is the continuation of politics by
other means…’ Carl
von Clausewitz,
Prussian general, military theorist
‘Politics is the continuation of war by
other means…’ Michel
Foucault,
French philosopher, social theorist
‘And the circle goes
round and round’. Anon.
Synopsis:
For those Americans au fait
with their country’s fondness for
engineering coups, ousting democratically
elected leaders, and interfering in the
political affairs of other nations – to all
intents the perennial bedrock principle of
U.S. foreign policy — Iran is a
well-documented exemplar. Given the supreme
ironies inherent in the political imbroglio
in the U.S. attending Russia’s alleged
meddling in the 2016 presidential elections,
along with America’s resolve to seek once
again regime change in Russia’s ally Iran,
it’s timely we revisit this slice of
history. Doing so presents us an opportunity
to view the so-called ‘Russia-gate’ furore,
the Iran regime change ambitions, and the
increasingly bloody war in Syria – itself an
ally of both Russia and Iran — within a
broader, more nuanced historical context.
From there we might derive a more informed
perspective on the contemporary geopolitical
zeitgeist and the hegemonic forces that have
fashioned it. And attending that deeper
perspective should be a sure sign of the
existential dangers for civilization and
humanity at large of allowing our leaders in
the West to continue down this path
unchallenged, one that is as well-worn as
it’s fraught with peril.
Which is to say, one of the manifest realities
attending this latest Beltway blockbuster soap
opera is that of America’s own track record of
interference in the affairs of other countries,
comprising as it does so many forms. I say
“realities” rather than ironies here as
“irony” almost by definition is infused with a
measure of nuance and subtlety, neither of which
could it be said are in abundance in this
utterly contrived,
self-serving political fracas.
Insofar as Russia’s alleged meddling in U.S.
politics goes and the animus that attends the
hysteria, as Oliver Stone
discovered during his
recent appearance on the Late Show
with Stephen Colbert – itself
hot on the heels of his much publicised four
hour
meet ‘n greet with Russian president
Vladimir Putin
wherein it was earlier raised – he was at pains
to impress upon his host that Israel had a much
bigger case to answer than did Russia. Of course
Stone was on the money here. The unalloyed
reality of the power and influence that Israel
exerts within and across the morally and
ethically desertified landscape that is the
nation’s capital is a given, with the Middle
East’s only ‘democratic’ settler-colonizer
apartheid regime leaving few stones unturned –
and exhibiting little discretion and subtlety
but equal parts chutzpah
and subterfuge
— in how it wields then leverages that influence
(sometimes treacherously so) to its advantage
and against the interests of its principal
patron and benefactor.
But that’s clearly a narrative that
doesn’t bode well in the Beltway at the best of
times, and more rational, clear-eyed folks know
the reasons why. For one, the corporate media,
for the most part doesn’t entertain such
verities. Even if they were inclined, the
omnipotent
Israel Lobby would cut them off
at the knees. And for his part, the ever smarmy
Colbert, presumably aware which side his bread
is buttered on, was reluctant to take Stone’s
bait, much it seemed to his interviewee’s
frustration. Beyond just interfering in U.S.
politics, along with the parent Empire
la perfide Albion,
one of America’s steadfast partners-in-crime in
the regime renovation business are the
ubiquitous and iniquitous Israelis, an
observation underscored by Against
our Better Judgment author
Alison Weir on her blogIf Americans Knew.
Long targeted by Israel, for Weir, Iran
especially provides an instructive example
herein. With the Saudis as back-up, it is Israel
— ably supported by its Praetorian Guard
AIPAC and
its ilk along with its shills in Congress –
that’s been the hard-core driver of Washington’s
seemingly irrational animus towards all things
Iran. Along with underscoring Israel’s clout in
Washington, Israeli PM Benjamin
Netanyahu’s
2015 Congressional dog ‘n pony show
fiercely opposing the Iran
Nuclear agreement
then being negotiated by the Obama
administration provides some of the best
evidence for this. Indeed, it’s another of
Washington’s worst best-kept secrets that – the
nuclear agreement aside — Iran remains a high
priority on the ‘to do’ list
for the Regime Renovators. (See also
here,
here, and
here.) In
addition to the relentless propaganda campaign
pursued by Israel the aim of which is to paint
Iran as the existential threat du jour,
despite the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies
and others in the know don’t support the
allegations about its
mythical nuclear weapons program,
Weir had the following to say:
‘Israel and the U.S. deployed a computer
virus against Iran in what’s been called the
world’s first digital weapon. Iranian
nuclear physicists [were] assassinated by
Israel, and the U.S. instituted a blockade
against Iran that caused food insecurity and
mass suffering among the country’s
civilians. (Such a blockade can be seen as
an act of war.) Democratic Congressman and
Israel partisan Brad Sherman admitted the
objective of the sanctions: “Critics of
sanctions argue that these measures will
hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we
need to do just that.”’
Most
folks then who don’t dine out on the McDonald’s
(‘would you like lies with that?’)
media diet that is the corporate news are as
well aware of Uncle Sam’s recidivistic
predisposition towards meddling in the affairs
of other nations, engineering coups and colour
revolutions, and ousting democratically elected
leaders as they are of the bespoke
misinformation and disinformation – the ‘real’
fake news – that’s tailored to suit the official
narrative that goes with it.
Along with
the ongoing Syrian War, the
2014 Ukraine coup
is one of the most egregious, more recent
example of this, with again Stone’s confab with
Putin providing an alternative perspective on
both counts. Yet even here the majority of
Americans would attribute the Ukraine crisis to
“Russian aggression” and the Syrian War largely
to Bashir Assad’s ‘despotism’;
it’s simply what they are told by the MSM, and
insofar as they’re concerned [they] have little
reason to doubt this. Much the same goes for
the Iran WMD narrative,
despite the fact that we’ve heard that
one before with
Iraq around fifteen years ago.
And all
of this mayhem and chaos is premised on
exporting freedom, democracy, justice, liberty,
human rights, and the rule of law, all of the
things that America is purportedly so
accomplished in embracing on the home front,
albeit more so in the breach than in the
observance. What makes U.S. transgressions so
much more brazen in this respect is the
hypocritical, fraudulent and existentially
dangerous nature of the umbrage and pique being
directed towards countries like Iran, Syria and,
especially Russia and China.
And what makes the righteous animus being served
up to the latter nations in particular so
frightening and so portentous is that it’s
wholly reminiscent of the hegemonic
mindset directed towards Germany
by the high-minded mandarins of the British
Empire in the two decades leading up to the War
to End all Wars. By 1914, even for that small
cohort of folks who might’ve smelt the imperial
rat, it was too late of course, for them and for
so many others. In this few other imperially
motivated gambits have been more consequential
or more far-reaching across time and space, a
conclusion we can safely draw with all the
benefit one hundred plus years of hindsight
brings.
As for today’s “cohort” of news consumers, it is
much the same: Such awareness is embraced only
by a small minority of people with most
blissfully ignorant of their country’s inability
or unwillingness to, well,
mind its own bloody business.
They are as equally oblivious to the economic,
social, physical and political havoc, mayhem,
and destruction it creates in the process,
sometimes catastrophically so. Whilst the events
of 9/11 might’ve otherwise provided a visceral
reality check in this regard for most Americans
of the blowback that frequently attends its own
country’s meddling, very few would’ve been
prepared or motivated to engage in any ‘cause
and effect’ reflection therein, much less act in
sync with that. Yet we might opine here that
given the frenzied state of America’s own
internal affairs – to say nothing of the
hysterical incoherence and farcical
irrationality of the public discourse that has
seemingly become a permanent fixture of U.S.
political and media forums,
the
Russia-gate affair
being all the evidence ones needs to underscore
this – there’d be numerous benefits to be gained
from doing just that. Minding its own “bloody
business” that is.
And let there be no mistaking it, what an
assuredly “bloody business” regime renovation
is. For the ‘cognitive dissidents’ disbelieving
or doubtful of the extent or measure of this
geopolitical mischief, in a
recent PressTV interview
focusing on America’s history of interfering in
Iran’s political affairs in particular, former
NSA
intelligence linguist Scott Rickard
is one amongst many of his professional ilk who
dispels such scepticism or uncertainty with
unadorned veracity: ‘[Americans]
have been probably one of the most notorious
nations behind the United Kingdom in
manipulating not only elections but also
overthrowing governments around the world for
decades.’
As
Rickard observes, to this day the U.S.
continues nation-building
in other states,
sells weapons in massive scales
and
pours bombs on other nations
in order to ‘carry out its regime-change
policy throughout the world.’ This, to say
little of
the proxy wars and
false-flag events
to which errant
countries are subject (such as in Syria),
psy-ops and the like
(in Venezuela), and the economic sanctions
frequently applied by Washington, of which
both Russia and Iran to this day
are also subjected to, and which themselves are
often part of the renovators ‘tool-box’ used
against countries not complying with
Washington’s diktats. On the latter, it’s enough
to recall how the sanctions imposed during the
90s against Iraq after the Gulf War under the
Clinton administration played out. For
confirmation of this, one
only needs ask Madeleine Albright,Bill
Clinton’s then Secretary of
State, who in a ‘Kissingeresque’
display of imperial hubris as pitiless as it was
asthma-inducing, averred [that], “[yes. we
think] it was worth it”.
To be
sure then, Uncle Sam’s “track record’ in this
respect is as well documented and [as] well
known as it’s abhorred by most commentators in
the alternative media space and their more
enlightened readers. At the same time it’s one
subject that doesn’t raise an eyebrow much less
a mention from those in the mainstream media (MSM)
universe, no matter how pertinent it might be to
the narrative in hand. It’s another of what I’ve
come to calling the ‘no-fly-zones’ of
conventional political discourse and public
debate. Given the degree of complicity of the
corporate media in facilitating these coups,
proxy wars and colour revolutions, then
camouflaging them as something entirely
different from what they really represent is,
whilst reprehensible and indefensible,
understandable.
—
Kermit’s ‘Sesame Street’ Coup —
Interestingly, Rickard’s remark was prompted by
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s
most recent statements about the U.S. seeking
regime change in Teheran as all but a matter of
public policy with marginally less fervor than
they are accusing Moscow of meddling in their
own democratic processes in last year’s
election.
Again, for those folks “in the know”, the very
mention of the words “regime change” and “Iran”
in the same breath will also summon pronto a
profound sense of déjà vu. As with the little
known
1975 Australian coup
(the details of which to be unveiled in a future
‘episode’ of The Regime Renovators), it was
Britain (MI6) and the U.S. (the CIA) in a tag
team play that cut its teeth in such
joint-venture partnerships back in Iran in 1953.
Now the much-cited Iran experience is worthy of
further exploration, if only because this
exercise in regime change later turned out to be
doubly ironic in a ‘reap what you sow’ kinda
way, but not necessarily as the received wisdom
would have us believe. We’ll return to this
point shortly, but for context and perspective,
the Iran adventure begs for another trip down
memory lane, especially given all the chatter
about the U.S. returning to the ‘scene of the
crime’. Placing to one side
an early dress rehearsal in Syria in
1949,
the Iran coup was the first post-War exercise in
regime change upon the part of Anglo-American
alliance —
one which officially at least was only just
admitted to by
the CIA after decades of not so plausible denial
– when they successfully conspired to relieve
the
democratically elected prime minister of Iran
Mohammad Mosaddegh
from the burdens of power.
The CIA and MI6 then jointly embarked on a plan
to stage a coup that would ensure that the West
maintained control over the country’s vast oil
reserves (shades of things to come). This coup
is widely believed to have provided the
‘business model’ and the bravado for
future coups by the CIA during the Cold War,
including
in Guatemala in 1954,
the
Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1961,
and the ill-fated attempted coup in
Cuba at the Bay of Pigs
(BOP) in 1961,
where the renovators’ business model came
spectacularly unstuck. In true CIA custom, in
Iran not
everything went according to plan.
The man who would be Shah,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
by all accounts something of a reluctant
usurper, succumbed to ‘stage fright’ at the
eleventh hour and did an unexpected runner to
Italy. But the CIA quickly recovered its
composure and schlepped their ‘under-study’ back
in time for the opening night curtain raiser of
the new regime. For both the CIA and the Shah,
who went on to rule his country with an iron,
bloody fist avec unerring American
support for almost twenty-five years, in true
show business fashion, everything was ‘all right
on the night’; the Shah’s show went on to enjoy
an extended run with generally positive reviews.
(That
most of these “reviews” were written by the
Iranian intelligence agency SAVAK, the Shah’s
political and security muscle throughout his
‘regime’, is axiomatic, especially since writing
was apparently one activity SAVAK agents both
excelled at and enjoyed. Their torture manuals
were as notorious for their proscribed brutality
as for their invention.)
Interestingly, the CIA’s Iranian operation was
directed by none other than
Kermit (Kim) Roosevelt,
the grandson of former Republican president
Teddy Roosevelt (he of the
“walk softly, carry a big stick” fame), and a
not too distant cousin of former Democratic
president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). At
the time Roosevelt was the senior spook in The
Company’s Middle-East station (he’d been
recruited by no less a personality than
Frank “The Mighty Wurlitzer” Wisner),
and was their point man on the ground in
overseeing the Iranian adventure, dubbed
Operation Ajax. Despite his name, for
Teddy’s ‘grand-sprog’ this was no Sesame
Street romp. No sirree Bob! This was
serious spy shit.
Notwithstanding the apparent success of the
mission, the coup was to have profound,
far-reaching, and plain scary, geopolitical,
economic and national security consequences for
the US and the West in general. For starters
just ask Jimmy Carter for
further confirmation of this, and for any still
standing and in control of their metacognitive
faculties, go from there president by president!
(Although Albright
sort of apologised to Iran in 2000
– possibly the closest thing to a mea culpa
ever offered by the U.S. for their wayward
imperial ways – it didn’t apparently count for
much.)
Yet one of the most compelling revelations about
Kermit’s coup was the following. According to
F William Engdahl, in his
must-read book a Century of War, Anglo-American Oil Politics
and the New World Order, the
demise of the Shah (aka the ‘Peacock Potentate’)
was engineered by the same forces that
brought him into power in 1953. As we know this
went on to produce sizable blowback for the U.S.
with the
1979 Iranian Revolution.
The much reviled Shah had for a variety of
reasons outlived his usefulness, with the
onset of the 1979 oil crisis
presenting said forces both the ideal
opportunity and pretext – albeit
according to Engdahl, one largely manufactured
in this case — to proceed to the next phase of
their (ahem) Persian renovation project.
From this then we might safely deduce the
subsequent ‘79 Revolution, the storming of the
U.S. embassy in Teheran, along with the
kidnapping of the embassy personnel (a world
changing event by any measure), was not what
many have deemed an organic — nor an entirely
predictable — development for those who’d
decided the Shah has passed his use by
date. Moreover, the reality (there’s that word
again) of ‘client-dictators’ overstaying their
‘welcome’ will be one familiar to ‘buffs’ of
Uncle Sam’s regime change history, with the
removal of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2002,
again on prefabricated pretexts and for not
dissimilar reasons, providing a most
consequential exemplar thereof.
According to the author,
in 1978, President Carter named
diplomat George Ball
to head a White House task force under the
direction of Carter’s
national security advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski,
the proud, now recently departed, father of
Islamic terrorism and patron saint of jihadists.
In doing so, Carter effectively gave Brzezinski
the nod on opening another Pandora’s
Box in the Greater Middle East,
and as the
Law of Moral Causation
(trade name:
‘karma’) would have it, brought about as we’ll
see the president’s own political demise. As
Engdahl explains it:
‘Ball
recommended Washington drop support for the
Shah and support the fundamentalist Islamic
opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini…and the CIA
led a coup against the man their covert
actions had placed into power 25 years
earlier. The coup against the Shah, like
that against Mossadegh in 1953, was run by
British and American intelligence, with the
bombastic Brzezinski taking public ‘credit’
for getting rid of the ‘corrupt’ Shah, while
the British characteristically remained
safely in the background.’
—*—
Interlude — Robert Newman’s
“History of Oil”
Robert
Newman gets to grips with the wars and
politics of the last hundred plus years.
Rather than adhering to the history we were
fed at school, he places oil centre stage as
the cause of all the commotion. Newman’s
truly unique presentation — equal parts
standup comedy, performance art, and history
lesson — will help explain the backstory
behind America’s deliberately antagonistic
military and economic provocation of Russia
(with similar plans for China, Iran, and now
it would seem Qatar), and why this
geo-political one-upmanship is such an
existentially dangerous gambit for us all.
Newman’s presentation also helps explain why
the British Empire was hell-bent on
preventing Germany at the turn of the
century from becoming a major economic
power, an imperial-minded foreign policy
gambit which knowingly and deliberately
paved the way for World War One — a conflict
which not only was Germany later blamed for
precipitating, but which paid an enormous
price for — shaped the geopolitical world as
we know it today in more ways than can be
recounted herein. Younger folks — especially
those who dozed off in history class
wondering what all the fuss was about —
prepare to be enlightened.
—*—
— When
You’re on a Good Thing (Stick to the Knitting) —
Notwithstanding the blowback from the 1953 Iran
coup and the later blowback from the removal of
the Shah over a quarter century later, little
has changed. The
disastrous Bay of Pigs
operation in
1961 and the subsequent, near catastrophic
Cuban Missile Crisis
the following year deriving from the failure of
even that monumentally inept regime
change maneuver evidently provided few lessons
for the Renovators then or their
political progeny since. At the same time it
underscored in effect what had become the
bedrock principle of American foreign policy and
Great Power Projection. Which is to say, for its
part the U.S. still engages in this tried and
true, one-size-fits-all foreign policy gambit,
bringing to mind that old adage
‘when you’re on a good thing, stick to it!’
Whilst the motivations for the Iranian coup were
nominally economic (the government of the time
were making noises about
nationalizing the Iranian oil industry),
there was also the strategic geopolitical
considerations in the U.S. that Iran might come
within the sphere of Soviet influence, thereby
severely limiting the West’s hegemony in the
region, an outcome one imagines would’ve
delivered an unacceptable blow to America’s
incipient imperial id. There was also a certain
amount of fear that Iranian communists might
gain control of the political situation, or even
that the Soviets might overtake the country,
either the stuff of American and British
nightmares or over-egged paranoia. Certainly the
Americans were never too keen on the Soviets
crashing their party anywhere, especially so in
this region. Like the British before them, the
U.S. has always been quite territorial about
other people’s territory, especially when said
“territory” involved oil, or any other strategic
commodity or geopolitical consideration. Whether
this fear was rational given the reality at the
time and the available intelligence is a
subject many still debate.
As
we’ve seen with this and so many others, the
reasons for the coup were fuelled less by the
ostensibly lofty ideological concerns related to
the Cold War (freedom versus tyranny anyone?)
than they were to less lofty considerations such
as greed, self-preservation and national pride
and one or three other Deadly Imperial Sins. To
be sure it seems reasonable to assume that the
Soviets – cunning devils that they were – were
‘geeing’ the Iranians up to nationalize their
oil industry in order to put the wind up the
British and the Americans in turn. It’s clear
now that the CIA and the British, along with
their fellow travellers in the then (Harry)
Truman administration in the years leading up
the coup, were leveraging the Cold War sentiment
of the time in order to camouflage the real
reasons for seeking regime change in Iran
(shades of things.)
At all
events, then president Truman evidently saw the
Iranian plot coming from the bottom of the
‘too-risky’ basket and didn’t drag the chain on
rejecting it. Whatever his achievements, for his
part the former Missouri haberdasher was always
going to be known as the man who nodded the
dropping of the Big Ones on Japan, and rarely
demurred in claiming the bragging rights.
Whether he was right or wrong in doing this is a
‘what-if’ moment for another time. Insofar as
the Iran “moment” went though, for this reason
he might’ve had a keen eye on how said ‘mo’ in
history might be judged. Either way, by halting
the CIA’s plans we might surmise that in doing
so it inspired his oft-quoted dictum ‘the buck
stops here’. Because it only delayed the
momentum though, his ‘call’ was to no avail;
said “buck” remained in play only as long as he
was POTUS.
When Dwight D (Ike) Eisenhower
became Republican president in early 1953, all
bets were suddenly off (or on,
depending on your view). Ike was more
simpatico than Truman to the Iran coup, and
evidently got ‘jiggy’ with it without a lot of
arm-twisting. This was especially after the
plotters –
principally Allen Dulles,
the then CIA director, and his big brother
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles,
who was the Cabinet pitchman for the pro-coup
team, played the ‘commie’ card with Ike. For his
part the elder Dulles played a
Richelieu-like role
in U.S. affairs of the time, was once quoted as
saying that “the USA doesn’t have friends,
it has interests”, tantamount to a foreign
policy positioning statement, and as we’ve seen
one which these days – with the notable
exception of Israel — still finds ample favour
in and around the Beltway.
In any event, Ike didn’t just take the commie
bait hook, line and sinker, by all accounts he
swam upstream to chow down on it. With
Joe McCarthy and his ilk
riding high in the polls and anti-communist
fervour at fever pitch, such was the temper of
the Cold War times. It wasn’t the first time the
‘commie’ card was played in this game, and it
certainly would not be the last; like the
one-size-fits-all terrorist threat that followed
the Cold War’s end, it was used as cover for a
multitude of foreign policy sins and proved a
remarkably flexible rationale for the various
misadventures of the CIA’s on-going, flagship
regime renovation program.
(Interestingly, like JFK was to do with Cuba
eight years later, Ike inherited, and eventually
agreed to, a CIA-inspired regime transition plot
that was hatched during the previous
administration, but for one reason or another
never got off the ground, this being one of
those spooky déjà vu moments in the
overall narrative of The Company. Which is to
say, when Ike came to power, the principal coup
plot du jour was Iran. With JFK, it was
Cuba. Needless to say, in a ‘same horse,
different cowboy’ kinda way, it underscores how
little changes from one administration to the
next.)
— Why
Do they Hate US So Much? (What’s there Not
to Like?) —
As for
the Iranian coup, it achieved the dubious
distinction of being the first and best example
of CIA intervention in the sovereign affairs of
another country, an experiment that would be
repeated over and over with wildly varying
degrees of success (or failure, depending on
one’s definition of what “success” entailed in
such matters, and one’s perspective on history
and political inclinations). The coup not only
ushered in almost three decades of despotic,
oppressive rule by the Shah propped up by
American arms, money and hand-holding. It
belatedly ignited the fire of Islamic
fundamentalism that itself provided the US with
its next great foe after the Soviets eventually
threw in the towel, leaving the Americans as the
reigning superpower, much like Great Britain
after Napolean’s 1815 defeat at Waterloo. That
it also provided an answer to a question that
few people were asking themselves at the time,
which was ‘why do they hate us so much?’, is
axiomatic, and one which has since then been a
recurring motif throughout the Grand American
Narrative.
There are a couple of additional considerations
vis a vis the Iranian coup. One is that
it was Kermit Roosevelt – scion
of one of America’s most famous political
dynasties – who was a driving force behind the
planning and execution of Ajax. In the process
he contributed to one of the U.S.’s biggest
foreign policy misadventures, eventually leading
to one of its most disastrous national security
crises. It’s uncertain what ‘grandpa’ Teddy or
‘cuzzin’ Franklin would’ve thought of the coup,
and herein we can only guess. But the knowledge
one of their kin had his fingerprints all over
it, especially one which ushered in such dire,
enduring consequences for the empire, would
possibly have
at least one
spinning furiously in his eternally designated
bolthole.
Secondly, in using the ‘monstrous’ threat of
communism as a pretext for the coup, the
Americans ultimately created an even bigger
monster (terrorism), although it was some time
before the reality – if not the realisation –
was to come home to roost for them and the rest
of the world. And for those who might wonder why
the US became a pariah in Iran particularly, and
in the Middle East generally, one might now
begin to understand. To underscore this – the
notoriously brutal, vicious, sadistic SAVAK
– the Shah’s internal security, secret police
and intelligence organization was both feared
and hated in equal measure. That SAVAK was like
a franchise of the CIA was only part of the
story, and on a ‘good day’ it would’ve rivalled
the
Stasi in East Germany,
no mean feat apparently. In fact the Stasi was
to the KGB what SAVAK was to the CIA. Both
attempted to out-do their respective
maestros. As with so many other regimes and
juntas, it was CIA (and Mossad) agents who mid-wifed
the establishment of SAVAK, and trained their
first generation of agents, including in
surveillance, torture and interrogation
techniques, and other security and intelligence
tradecraft. By all accounts, the CIA guys were
very good teachers, or the SAVAK folk eager
learners. Or both.
When
they were eventually shut down, one of the most
egregious examples of their sadistic savagery
was to be found in how-to manuals, handbooks and
training videos highlighting techniques unique
to torturing women. Readers can let
their imaginations run wild here, but suffice it
to say, the SAVAK spooks were indeed nasty,
vile, brutal pieces of work. The Iranians who
survived the Shah’s wretched rule have long
memories and it’s in large part because of the
legacy of SAVAK. To this day, many Iranians
understandably still have a huge hard-on for all
things Uncle Sam (although surprisingly such
animus to this day is more directed at the U.S.
political establishment than at the American
people per se).
In any
event, by 1979, the Shah’s standing with the
long-suffering Iranian people was a train wreck,
and the anti-American vibe was at its most
virulent. At this point, the U.S. left the Shah
with his (ahem) plucked Persian peacock pecker
swinging in the Mediterranean sea-breeze when it
was obvious they could no longer keep the store
open without a change of management. With little
fanfare then, the despised potentate had his
gold-leafed throne unceremoniously ‘pulled out’
from under his bling-laden ass which he then
barely managed to haul out of Teheran just
before the militant ‘mullahs’ surrounded him and
presented their soon-to-be former leader with
considerably less options than he was used to
receiving, nearly all of which would’ve
involved, at best, him getting a fleeting
glimpse of Allah just outside
With little fanfare then, the despised potentate
had his gold-leafed throne unceremoniously
‘pulled out’ from under his bling-laden ass
which he then barely managed to haul out of
Teheran just before the militant ‘mullahs’
surrounded him and presented their soon-to-be
former leader with considerably less options
than he was used to receiving, nearly all of
which would’ve involved, at best, him getting a
fleeting glimpse of Allah just outside
jannah
on the way to eternal damnation.
Following years then of rampant corruption,
hubris, breathtaking extravagance, cronyism,
human rights abuses, imperious contempt,
political and religious oppression, kidnapping,
torture, murder, culminating in increasingly
deep-seated unpopularity, the Shah’s time had
come, this being a pointer to the fate awaiting
other future CIA sponsored and US favoured
tin-pot tyrants, demented despots, and cut-rate
client-dictators, of whom there’s rarely been
any shortage.
For his part, at the height of the crisis,
Carter – who’d unwisely signed off on the hated
Shah receiving medical treatment in the U.S.
after a number of countries refused to
accommodate his pleas for sanctuary — had his
effigy burned in Tehran streets for his
troubles. By the time the smoke coming out of
the filmed wreckage on the six o’clock news of
one of the Navy Rescue Team choppers that had
crashed in the Iranian desert killing eight
crewman after
an audacious attempt to free the hostages
went tragically wrong had cleared, the former
Georgian peanut farmer turned Leader of the Free
World was a lame duck, shit-out-of-luck,
commander-in-chief. A Bay of Pigs Moment then?
Almost certainly! But much, much worse, if one
is inclined to measure “worse” by the blowback.
And the BOP blowback was considerable.
In announcing to the American public and the
world at large the failure of the mission,
Carter – according to the dictates of the
unofficial Truman ‘doctrine’ viz a viz
where the ‘buck’ stops – took responsibility for
the disaster, and even used eerily similar
wording to that of JFK when he publicly revealed
the outcome of the BOP fiasco. From then on, The
Gipper had Carter by the presidential
short’n’curlies. In the view of many pundits at
the time, the presidential election was ‘all
over Rover’, well before a single vote was cast.
And though the Shah’s “ass” was no more with his
death in a US hospital in mid-1980, it was ‘all
over Rover’ for anyone else still standing. The
Embassy ‘squatters’ in Tehran effectively held
hostage Carter’s attempt to seek a second term,
an outcome facilitated by Ronald Reagan’s
campaign team
engaging in treasonous back channel finagling
with the new Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini’s
henchmen to withhold release of the hostages
until after the November presidential election.
The objective herein was to preclude an “October
Surprise” (an early release of the hostages)
that would’ve guaranteed Carter’s re-election.
The rest, as they say, is history.
—
Burning Down the House (How to Roast a Pig)
—
With
the Gipper’s inevitable victory then, it was one
where not just America, but the world was never
to be the same again. None of this is to suggest
it ever is in these situations, of which there
were few in this case anyway. The Iranian
Revolution was more than a revolution then; it
was a geopolitical tsunami that swamped a
shit-load of people and nations in its wake. In
so many respects, the waves are still rippling.
And even at this point, one imagines the CIA
struggled to understand that blowback of this
kind was bad for business, and might continue to
undermine its credibility, effectiveness, and
morale if it persevered down this path.
As
history would have it, this idea never really
caught on though. For their part, the Islamic
Revolutionaries and their ilk may or may not
have had their own version of jihadist karma; if
they did they doubtless weren’t averse to
providing karma some earthly assistance in order
for it to work its magic. The Hostage Crisis was
ample evidence of that. And they (or at least
their heirs apparent such as ISIS, Al Nusra, et.
al.) still are apparently. That is, keen to give
karma a helping hand where and whenever
possible. Depending very much of course on who
their paymaster(s) is/are. Allah be willing of
course!
In rounding things up herein, it is perhaps best
to return to Bill Engdahl for some insight into
the contemporary significance of the preceding
narrative.
In a recent interview
wherein he addressed the developments taking
place within and across the Greater Middle East,
for him Donald Trump’s visit to
Saudi Arabia and Israel wasn’t just
about arms sales, shoring up their respective
alliances, and reasserting America’s influence
in the region. It was about, ‘setting
events into motion in order to fundamentally
alter the present balance of power in the entire
Middle East to the greater advantage of the
United States and US energy geopolitics.’
By any
measure that’s a big call, and not just because
it would seem that the U.S. has forfeited much
of its prestige, influence, and power over the
past decades of its political interventions, its
wars of aggression (proxy, hybrid or direct),
and its unequivocal support of Israel, something
that would be required in spades in order to
achieve such lofty goals. For Engdahl,
Washington has already bitten off more than it
can chew, without considering the ructions
taking place between the Saudis, Egypt,
Bahrain, and the United Arab
Emirates
in their Mexican standoff with
Qatar.
This latter development clearly resulted from
discussions during Trump’s visit and is one
whose significance few observers should
underestimate, at least without some
understanding of the real backstory, an
“understanding” which should include first and
foremost the following question: Which
country did Trump visit right after Saudi
Arabia?
And
with Turkey lining up with Iran – the latter
already a key ally of Syria, the former a key
player in the efforts to relieve Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad of the
burdens of power during the past five years — on
the side of Qatar, the standoff is creating some
very strange geopolitical bedfellows.
None of us should be fooled by the rhetoric to
be sure, because at the heart of these
machinations and maneuvers is energy – both oil
and, especially gas —
as it always has been.
It’s certainly not, nor has it ever been, about
freedom, democracy, liberty or any of the usual
bromides (perish the thought), or the U.S.’s
oft-cited “responsibility to protect”. In terms
of the geopolitical actors
involved in the Great Game du jour,
Engdahl notes,
‘no political power has been more responsible
for launching the recent undeclared gas wars
than the corrupt Washington cabal that makes
policy on behalf of the so-called deep state
interests….The Trump Administration policy in
the Middle East–and there is a clear policy,
rest assured–might be compared to that of the
ancient Chinese fable about the farmer who burnt
down his house in order to roast a pig. In order
to control the emerging world energy market
around “low-CO2″ natural gas, Washington has
targeted not only the world’s largest gas
reserve country, Russia. She is now targeting
Iran and Qatar.’
Nor is
the “Game” about combatting terrorism per se,
as terrorism has always served the interests of
the major power players, an observation one will
never hear mentioned in mainstream
media or political discourse. Of course one of
the official pretexts for the demands being
placed on Doha by the Saudis and the other Gulf
states is Qatar’s support for terrorism,
accusations which emanating from either country
are as fatuous and as hypocritical as it gets.
Engdahl had this to say:
‘We
must keep in mind that all serious terrorist
organizations are state-sponsored. All [of
them]. Whether DAESH or Al Nusra or
Mujahideen in Afghanistan or Maute Group in
[the] Philippines. The relevant question is
which states sponsor which terrorists[?]
Today NATO is the one most complicit in
sponsoring terrorism as a weapon of their
geopolitical designs. And within NATO the
United States is sponsor number one, often
using Saudi money and until recently,
ironically, Qatari funds.’
There should be no surprises here for students
of Deep History, as these factors have been the
driving forces of ‘full spectrum dominance’
geopolitics and geo-economics forever and a day,
with the 1953 Iran narrative as we’ve seen
providing hard-core evidence of this reality. It
is also about the Regime Renovators pressing on
regardless, which in this instance translates to
isolating and then destroying Iran (a la
Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria et. al.),
Washington’s, Riyadh’s, and Tel Aviv’s common
bête noir. Of course, these
considerations are not mutually exclusive by any
means. On the Saudi-Qatari standoff, he had the
following to say:
‘Washington wanted to punish Qatar for seeking
natural gas sales with China priced not in US
dollars but in Renminbi. That apparently alarmed
Washington, as Qatar is the world’s largest LNG
exporter and most to Asia.’
But it’s even much more complex than that. The
shape-shifting allegiances, mercurial strategic
loyalties, and ‘handshakes under the table’ make
for unpredictable scenarios going forward to be
sure. Herein Engdahl offers us a summation of
situation and circumstance that is as lucid as
it is frightening.
‘The
real story behind the rise of so-called
Islamic Terrorism is the increasingly
desperate attempt of the ‘Anglo-American
Deep State to control the rise of Eurasia,
especially of China in combination now with
Russia, and increasingly with Iran and
Central Asian republics as well as South
Asian. Without understanding this, none of
the recent events in the Middle East make
sense. Washington strategists today
foolishly believe that if they get choke
point control of all Middle East oil and
gas, they can, as Henry Kissinger stated
back in the 1970’s “control the oil and
thus, control entire nations,” especially
China and Russia and also Germany and
Europe. Their strategy has failed but
Washington and the Pentagon refuse to see
the reasons for their repeated failed wars.
The hidden reality of American global power
is that the American “giant” today is a
bankrupt superpower, much like Great Britain
after their Great Depression of 1873 up to
1914. Britain triggered a world war in 1914
to desperately try to retain their global
power. They failed, for reasons I discuss in
my Century of War book. Today for much the
same reasons – allowing the power of US
financial conglomerates [to] supersede the
interests of the national industrial economy
– America’s debt, national, private,
corporate, is out of control. Reagan and
Cheney were dead wrong. Debt does matter.’
All of
this translates to one simple reality. And at
some point in the not too distant future, Russia
and China will – not might, not
maybe — attempt to call a halt to it all.
And it’s reasonable to assume they won’t be on
their ‘Pat Malone’, with Iran to be sure seeking
also to finally square the ledger with the
“Great Satan”. By then it’ll be on for young and
old. Of that we can be sure. History has always
been and remains our most reliable guide in this
respect. Of this we can also be just as certain.
Well might we say then that another “splendid
little war” is in the offing.
Be that
as it may, it almost certainly will qualify as
the War to End all Wars.
Greg
Maybury is an Australian based freelance
journalist, alternative media entrepreneur,
filmmaker and blogger, and partially rehabbed
history teacher. His broad areas of exploration
and analysis are the U.S. political economy,
foreign affairs, social and economic history,
international relations, the national security
state, the media, and American society and
culture in general.
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)