Everyone knows, or should know by now that I am a news junky. I watch msnbc and cnn so much I know what lame comments Pat Buchanan will make and which of the cnn pundits are most knowledgeable and in what capacity. For the record, David Gergen "is the shiz".
So, Iran has been all over the news. The web has provided Iranians with unprecidented access to world opinion and an ability to communicate their greivances with the rest of the world. Clearly, the younger generation, which comprises the majority of Iran's people, want more connection with the outside world and actual freedom. Until recently, I did not know much about Iran's history, policies, and differing attitudes towards other countries. And since I have some extra time right now and an annoying passion of late for foreign affairs, I thought I'd share the nutshell version of what I have learned. Of course, the information contained below is a brief summary, not particularly vetted and edited by me based on what this westernized, Christian, bleeding heart liberal, female college student deems worthy of focus.
Iran’s History in General: I find Iran’s history to be very complicated and interesting. Iran had a civilization since 3000 BCE. Many moons ago it was called Persia and consisted of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and the eastern parts of Turkey and Iraq. Persia has been invaded and has had its territory altered throughout the centuries by Arabs, Turks, Mongols, British, Russians, Greeks, and others.
The original and oldest religion in Persia was Zoroastrian. There are just a few of them left today because in 633 the Islamic conquest forced most everyone to convert to Islam. Interesting, huh? The time in history determines if you are an innocent victim or a treacherous warlord.
For centuries Iran experienced foreign occupation and short-lived native dynasties, (kings are called Shahs). In 1501 Iran became an independent state by the Safavid dynasty who established Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire. A monarchy prevailed from 1501 until the 1979 Iranian revolution, when Iran officially became an Islamic Republic in 1979. (Maybe I don’t know anything about a republic form of government, but it sure looks like a theocracy from where I am standing).
But let’s back up for a moment. Remember Genghis Khan? This was the Mongol dude that invaded Iran around 1218 and slaughtered millions and millions of people. The population went from 2,500,000 to 250,000. Man, no wonder these people are pissed off. Everyone has f*%#$ed with them since the beginning of time.
Anyway, over the course of 3,000 years, Iran has been a monarchy, republic (in name only), and a theocracy with struggles for power between. All of these invasions led to an interesting recipe. Keep in mind that religion and culture altered somewhat with each invasion.
Currently, the recipe looks like this: “Persian 51%, Azeri 24%, Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7% and Arab 3%. Iran is a Muslim country, with 89% Shi'a and 10% Sunni Muslims. The remaining 1% belong to Jewish, Bahai and Zoroastrian faiths. The Bahai and Zoroastrian faiths originated in Iran. Major Languages of Iran are Persian (Fars) and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and Turkic dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Baluchi 1%, and Arabic 1% . . .” (http://www.mideastweb.org/iranhistory.htm)
Pretty much all of the above nationalities can claim a majority in Iran if they are pointing to a particular time in Iran’s history, but originally, the people of Iran/Persia were Persian and their religion was Zoroastrian. So all this bs about the divinity of Islam and the claim that only Islam can save mankind is pretty shaky . . . just as the argument made by any Christian or Jewish faith. Full stop.
Modern political history and current political climate: So we know that Iran was ruled by Shahs until 1979. Well, Reza Shah, an almost effective Shah ruled for almost 16 years until September 16, 1941, when he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. He established an authoritarian government that valued nationalism, militarism, secularism and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda. Perhaps with the disharmony at the time with the clerics, muslims, etc., this was the best he could do. Anyway, “Reza Shah introduced many socio-economic reforms, reorganizing the army, government administration, and finances. To his supporters his reign brought "law and order, discipline, central authority, and modern amenities - schools, trains, buses, radios, cinemas, and telephones". However, his attempts of modernisation have been criticised for being "too fast" and "superficial", and his reign a time of "oppression, corruption, taxation, lack of authenticity" with "security typical of police states."
During WWI, because of Iran’s oil, Russians and the British occupied Iran to support fuel needs of the war. British picked the next Shah, who liked the British more than the Germans, which was son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi who ruled until 1979. By the way, after WWII, Russia promised to leave, but stayed until 1946 and wouldn’t leave unless Iran gave them oil. Pahlavi gave much of his power to parliament but parliament was corrupt and never really got it together.
US and Iran: Ever since the Brits were there, they were taking 50% of their oil and a prime minister named Mohammed Mossaddeq tried to nationalize Iran’s oil. With the help of the US, the Brits got rid of him. Perhaps not the most honorable of calls for the US. We convinced Iranian Shah to enter into an agreement with an international consortium of foreign companies which ran the Iranian oil facilities for the next 25 years spitting profits fifty-fifty with Iran but not allowing Iran to audit their accounts or have members on their board of directors. “In 1957 martial law was ended after 16 years and Iran became closer to the West, joining the Baghdad Pact and receiving military and economic aid from the US. In 1961, Iran initiated a series of economic, social, agrarian and administrative reforms to modernize the country that became known as the Shah's White Revolution”. Arguably, this was the most prosperous and free the people of Iran have ever been.
Iranian Revolution in 1979: So the Shah Pahlavi at the time had a big ego and threw a lavish party for himself in 1967. The economy has never been very good due to invasions, internal conflicts between the different cultures, despite the reality that Iran has 10% of the world’s oil and gas. People were pissed off so the Shah suppressed and marginalized his opponents with the help of Iran's security and intelligence organization, the SAVAK, using arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, exile and torture.
This made the religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini decided to get people to overthrow the Shah, which they did. Meanwhile, back at the ranch the Shah was ill with cancer and came to the US for treatment. Khomeini decided the Shah was gonna get US support to take back Iran so Khomeini demanded the US extradite him and the US refused. So Khomeini had some students storm the embassy and take 66 US hostages. We didn’t dig that, see? And we haven’t had a good relationship with Iran since then. The Ayatollah Khomeini and other clerics delivered extremist and threatening speeches against the United States and against its Persian Gulf allies. On the other hand, the government still headed by Bazargan (the prime minister at the time) tried to maintain good relations with the United States, especially as US supply of spare parts for the army and the oil industry that was desperately needed.
So, in retaliation for taking US hostages, President Carter froze several billion dollars of Iranian assets held by American banks in the United States and abroad. We tried to rescue the hostages but failed. Carter was blamed. Iran wouldn’t release our hostages until we had a new President, which was Reagan.
The Ayatollah preached that the people needed to get closer to God and things would be good but the Ayatollah wasn’t very effective as a leader and the economy got much worse and people’s freedoms even more constricted.
In 1980 Iran and Iraq had a war. Iraq, under Saddam Hussein used poisonous gas on the Iranians and killed a million or more. We financially supported Iraq. I’d say we made the wrong call there. In 1988 the war finally ended.
Ayatollah Khomeini died on June 3, 1989 of a heart attack. President Ali Khamenei assumed the role of supreme spiritual leader. (Yep, a President got to be supreme leader).
Most recently, Shi'a Iran does not support the Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorist network, and has cooperated in arresting al-Qaeda members. However, Iran supports terror groups including the Lebanese Hizbolla, the Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank and other groups in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere. Iranian intelligence is said to be behind the bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina. In the 1980s, Iran apparently inspired bombing of the US embassy and marine barracks in Lebanon, and Iranian funded groups kidnapped numerous American and other Europeans and held them as hostages.
Iran and Nuclear Power: Russia sold them their reactor. They have enriched uranium which would fuel a nuclear weapon. Since this country is rich in fossil fuels, the International Atomic Energy Agency didn’t buy Iran’s assertion that they needed nuclear energy and gave Iran until October 31, 2003 to submit a full account of its nuclear program, and also asked for the right to snap inspections and other measures. After initial resistance, Iran complied, submitting the report ahead of time, and agreeing also to suspend the upgrading of uranium.
The current President: So we know that the Supreme Leader holds the real power. And we know they call themselves a republic (a parliament, judges, mayors, etc.). In the Iranian presidential election, 2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the mayor of Tehran, became the sixth president of Iran, who can serve two terms of 4 years each. Ahmadinajad (almonds in a jar) kisses the Ayatollah’s hand, and his booty, apparently. Houssein Mousave, his apponent in the 2009 election had to be vetted by the Ayatollah to run for President, so the presidential election is really not of huge significance. However, it does seem that the Ayatollah does listen to Ahmadinijad at times. Mousave is more liberal of the two but would really have little power to keep the promises of equality to women that he pledged.
The real change would occur if the people were able somehow to rise up and overthrow the Ayatollah and perhaps a real democratic republic can take root. Perhaps when the Ayatollah dies, this would make things easier. If we wanted to get involved in a constructive way, perhaps we could talk to the expediency council which mediates between Supreme Leader and Parliament to come to a compromise so the people can have more freedoms and the rioting can stop, but I am not convinced that even this interference would not cause the establishment to penalize the people even more.
Now Ahmadinijad doesn’t like us cause he eats from the Ayatollah’s hand. Nor does he like the British, nor Israel very much. Much has been said about him being a holocaust denier but he actually didn’t deny that it happened, he just doesn’t think it was that significant. From his perspective, perhaps the Mongol invasion in Iran was worse. (It’s all relative, I guess). Further, Ahmadinijad has been the dude pushing for nuclear capabilities. The clerics find it to be “unislamic”. Interesting twist. Ahmadinijad has sucked as a president. After his first term, the economy was worse, human rights were worse, woman were worse off. Women can be stoned for infidelity and have no say if their husbands take additional wives. He’s been accused of corruption and favoritism. So, on one hand it would be better for him not to be President but just like when they got rid of the Shah, and the Ayatollah took power, things could get worse.
It seems to me that each time the US intervenes in some way, it gets worse for the people of Iran.
So what is the US interest?: 1-that Iran does not become nuclear-ly armed; 2-democracy to prevail; 3-some would say: oil. The last one really sucks. This is why focusing on renewable forms of energy is so important. We can’t be like the Brits and just steal Iran's oil.
President Obama, who apparently knows his world history . . . and because he’s a scholarly kind of dude, will speak today. I hope he can illuminate this topic for us and bring us to an understanding. There is no reason to for us to have infighting about Iran. And I doubt there would be much if we took the time to educate ourselves. We have made some bad calls in the past. We need to be very thoughtful in our approach to Iran and if it is best for the people of Iran to just provide moral support, then that should be our guide, not any monetary interest. As usual, I agree with Obama's perspective and think his heart and head are in the right place.
