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The Iranian regime has never found itself more vulnerable. And, with this vulnerability, it has never leaned more heavily on its own narrative of history. This narrative, of course, has a central antagonist, a character conjured as the “Great Satan.” As this Koranic moniker implies, the Islamic Republic ascribes supernatural qualities to its adversary: From far away in Washington, D.C., the Great Satan has the power to send hordes of stooges to shout in the streets and the remarkable ability to manufacture every ill in Iranian society.
The power of this narrative is that it goes beyond these mythological qualities to muster the stuff of history. It was the CIA, the story goes, that deposed a democratically elected Iranian leader back in 1953, and then spent 26 years propping up a despotic Shah while he mercilessly abused his people.
As Iranians protested the sham election last summer, the regime wielded this narrative to bolster itself. Its opponents were denounced as puppets of the very meddlers who had done so much harm to the country over the past century. Ayatollah Khamenei rehashed this history in a November 3 speech, describing how the United States “embarked on hatching plots against the nation from the very early days.”
This is a seductive narrative, but what’s strange is the group that it has seduced: the very meddlers themselves in Washington. As the regime has teetered these past months, many in the United States (and especially at the highest rungs of government) have held their tongues. There has been a reluctance to voice solidarity with the green movement or to loudly protest regime abuses, for fear that any criticism from the United States will be perceived as the latest installment in this history. Obama, for his part, has voiced his support for the protestors in passive language. “The world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice” is his strange formulation--a description that places the United States in the role of bystander.
There are, arguably, strategic reasons for the United States to keep silent on the fate of the democratic movement. But history is not one of them. Rather, the regime’s version of events (past and present) is self-serving and, at critical junctures, altogether baseless. Documents (some recently declassified) from various U.S. archives show a rather different version of foreign policy toward Iran. The Shah may have been a U.S. ally in the cold war, but the relationship was fraught. Behind closed doors, the United States pushed hard for the country to democratize. During the periods when the United States failed to stand on the side of the Iranian people, it paid a horrible price. It is worth revisiting this history, not simply because it debunks the Manichaean theory of the past touted by the mullahs, but also because it contains important lessons for how the United States can navigate the current crisis in Iran.
If there’s one event that has come to define perceptions of U.S. meddling, it is the coup that ejected the popularly elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power in 1953. Both Madeleine Albright and Barack Obama have acknowledged America’s role in the coup in speeches that were widely taken to be apologies.
In no small measure, the American understanding of the event derives from a 1979 memoir published by Kermit Roosevelt Jr., Theodore’s grandson. Roosevelt, a CIA operative, had indeed slipped across the border and spent considerable sums on black propaganda intended to inflict mortal wounds against Mossadegh. But Roosevelt’s memoir inflated his own and, in turn, America’s centrality to the coup. He tells the story with the relish of a John le Carré knock-off. Although declassified CIA documents would later confirm many details of his account, his version is exceptionally self-serving. Despite having little knowledge of Iranian society and speaking no Persian, he describes launching an instantly potent propaganda campaign. Eisenhower, for one, considered reports like this to be the stuff of “dime novels.”
COMMENTS (8)
One of the things I most appreciate about TNR is that sometimes I learn new stuff.
Before reading this article, like many folks, I was under the impression that we alone engineered the overthrow of Mossadegh and that, therefore, our apology was fully warranted by our nefarious role. Abbas Milani's more complex account of the history, assuming his sources are accurate, is a badly needed correction.
One of the things I most appreciate about TNR is that sometimes I learn new stuff.
Before reading this article, like many folks, I was under the impression that we alone engineered the overthrow of Mossadegh and that, therefore, our apology was fully warranted by our nefarious role. Abbas Milani's more complex account of the history, assuming his sources are accurate, is a badly needed correction.
I agree with JackR's comments.
One of my favorite TNR articles punctured the myth that Hugo Chavez was a victim of G.W. Bush's imperialism. Whether the cause was Bush's one-track fixation on Iraq, or sympathy with Chavez's destruction of Venezuela's oil industry (raising the market price of Bush family oil assets), this article painted quite a different story:
http://www.tnr.com/article/crude-analysis
CARACAS DISPATCH
Crude Analysis
by Jeremy Kahn
Printer friendly
Post date 02.05.03 | Issue date 02.10.03
I agree with JackR's comments.
One of my favorite TNR articles punctured the myth that Hugo Chavez was a victim of G.W. Bush's imperialism. Whether the cause was Bush's one-track fixation on Iraq, or sympathy with Chavez's destruction of Venezuela's oil industry (raising the market price of Bush family oil assets), this article painted quite a different story:
http://www.tnr.com/article/crude-analysis
CARACAS DISPATCH
Crude Analysis
by Jeremy Kahn
Printer friendly
Post date 02.05.03 | Issue date 02.10.03
Excellent article. The saddest thing, of course, is that the America-the-coup-engineer narrative is not restricted to the mad mullahcracy; it is one that many self-described savants and intellectuals among the very highly educated Iranian diaspora fully subscribe to.
Excellent article. The saddest thing, of course, is that the America-the-coup-engineer narrative is not restricted to the mad mullahcracy; it is one that many self-described savants and intellectuals among the very highly educated Iranian diaspora fully subscribe to.
I very much agree with the other comments. An enlightening, informative and important article. And I also agree with Milani's observation that "Negotiations with the clerics that ignore human rights and democracy are indeed a form of appeasement." America's finest moments on the world stage in dealing with despots and tyrannies have been when it has walked the walk of its founding principles. I hope they're reading this article at Foggy Bottom and in the Oval Office. They could learn a lot.
I very much agree with the other comments. An enlightening, informative and important article. And I also agree with Milani's observation that "Negotiations with the clerics that ignore human rights and democracy are indeed a form of appeasement." America's finest moments on the world stage in dealing with despots and tyrannies have been when it has walked the walk of its founding principles. I hope they're reading this article at Foggy Bottom and in the Oval Office. They could learn a lot.
icarusr
"Excellent article. The saddest thing, of course, is that the America-the-coup-engineer narrative is not restricted to the mad mullahcracy; it is one that many self-described savants and intellectuals among the very highly educated Iranian diaspora fully subscribe to."
I agree, and not just the highly educated Iranian but also the "highly educated" intellectual left in the West.
icarusr
"Excellent article. The saddest thing, of course, is that the America-the-coup-engineer narrative is not restricted to the mad mullahcracy; it is one that many self-described savants and intellectuals among the very highly educated Iranian diaspora fully subscribe to."
I agree, and not just the highly educated Iranian but also the "highly educated" intellectual left in the West.
I don't believe Milani's purpose (at least not his primary purpose) was to elicit these dog whistle comments. He is being opaque, but I believe his primary concern is a nuclear Iran and how best to approach it: "When the Obama administration speaks to the mullahs about nuclear weapons, it must bring these concerns [about human rights and democracy] to the fore--just as the Reagan administration did in its later dealings with the Soviets. It can use these meetings to send a profoundly inspiring message of support to Iranian democrats. In the end, these Iranians are the international community’s best hope for solving the current nuclear impasse." A nuclear Iran is a given, as was a nuclear ... view full comment
I don't believe Milani's purpose (at least not his primary purpose) was to elicit these dog whistle comments. He is being opaque, but I believe his primary concern is a nuclear Iran and how best to approach it: "When the Obama administration speaks to the mullahs about nuclear weapons, it must bring these concerns [about human rights and democracy] to the fore--just as the Reagan administration did in its later dealings with the Soviets. It can use these meetings to send a profoundly inspiring message of support to Iranian democrats. In the end, these Iranians are the international community’s best hope for solving the current nuclear impasse." A nuclear Iran is a given, as was a nuclear Soviet Union. It's how we deal with it that decides the fate of Iran (and the world). If that sounds like appeasement to the dog whistle crowd, take a look at the post by Noah Pollak in today's Commentary.
Iranians love conspiracy theories. My Farsi instructor, a Zoroastrian woman married to a German who left during the Revolution, once told me in all seriousness that the British were responsible for Iran being a Shi'ite country. Once you know how ordinary Iranians think it was easy to figure out her reasoning. To her, Shi'ite Islam is a bad thing; the British are responsible for all the bad things in Iran ergo the British were somehow responsible for Iran becoming a Shi'ite country. Even though at the time the British had very little influence in Iran. The nice thing about conspiracy theories is that they are so impervious to facts--just think of all the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theor ... view full comment
Iranians love conspiracy theories. My Farsi instructor, a Zoroastrian woman married to a German who left during the Revolution, once told me in all seriousness that the British were responsible for Iran being a Shi'ite country. Once you know how ordinary Iranians think it was easy to figure out her reasoning. To her, Shi'ite Islam is a bad thing; the British are responsible for all the bad things in Iran ergo the British were somehow responsible for Iran becoming a Shi'ite country. Even though at the time the British had very little influence in Iran. The nice thing about conspiracy theories is that they are so impervious to facts--just think of all the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.
I think Mr. Milani’s article presents a straw horse of American attitudes toward Iran. Just how many Americans believe that the US is ‘the great Satan” of the Ayatollahs’ sloganeering in Iran? Most Americans’ knowledge of Iran is limited to the 1979 hostage crisis onward, a period when the US was seen as a victim and the deceitful (at best) or crazy Mullahs and Iran have been seen as the enemy ever since.
I’ve been trying to figure out to whom or at what this article is aimed.
The problem in American understanding of Iran is not due to some ill-defined ‘guilt’ at being the ‘great Satan.‘ It’s due to successive administrations’ whitewash of the Shah as an elegant, h ... view full comment
I think Mr. Milani’s article presents a straw horse of American attitudes toward Iran. Just how many Americans believe that the US is ‘the great Satan” of the Ayatollahs’ sloganeering in Iran? Most Americans’ knowledge of Iran is limited to the 1979 hostage crisis onward, a period when the US was seen as a victim and the deceitful (at best) or crazy Mullahs and Iran have been seen as the enemy ever since.
I’ve been trying to figure out to whom or at what this article is aimed.
The problem in American understanding of Iran is not due to some ill-defined ‘guilt’ at being the ‘great Satan.‘ It’s due to successive administrations’ whitewash of the Shah as an elegant, handsome and benign ruler, and their simultaneous refusal to acknowledge the 1953 coup, and any US role in it, to the American people. Most Americans have no idea Iran democratically elected its President in 1950, an authentic effort at and early model of democracy in the Middle East and Central Asia fifty years before the US adventure in Iraq. Mr. Malani’s claim that ‘everything you ever knew about US involvement in Iran is wrong’ assumes a much more well-informed American public.
So maybe the article actually aims at the few Americans who have studied and followed US/Iranian relations since 1950 (foreign policy fellow travelers like myself) or heard bits and pieces of events - outside an American classroom.
Even here, however, the article fails. Mr. Milani makes the case that the US/Iran relationship was much more complex than what the Ayatollah propaganda slogan, ‘Great Satan’, implies. He elaborates that, behind the scene, American officials were, from 1953 to 1979, urging the Shah to democratize, and therefore a positive or ‘good’ channel in US relations with Iran was pursued.
Mr. Milani underestimates us. First, anyone with a passing knowledge of the Iran/Contra arms deal can reason the relationship was very complex indeed! More to the point, we can assume that diplomatic and security officials pressed Babtista in Cuba, the Afrikaan government in South Africa and a dozen other despotic rulers, supported by the US in the name of the Cold War, in the same way it pressed the Shah. You needn’t be a bleeding heart to cringe whenever a fresh atrocity committed by one of these ‘allies” hit the front page of the New York Times. Second, the article itself details how its several examples of an American clampdown on the Shah failed miserably. The Cold War dictated relations with foreign governments. Calls for democratizing were secondary at best, a political ‘fig leaf’ at worst.
I thought that perhaps Mr. Milani thinks the Obama Administration has been cowed by the ‘great satan‘ myth. But he gives no facts or policy-based evidence of this, nor does he single out the Obama Administration as the object of his argument.
Nothing in Mr. Milani’s article seems to contradict the reality of US/Iranian relations. It just posits a false claim either the American people or American policy-makers and pundits ‘buy-in‘ to the “Great Satan” myth. On the one hand, this is insulting. On the other, it raises the question of why-this-article-at-this-time. This question looms larger with its citation today (12/13/2009) in the NYT “Week in Review.” Does the article set up a situation in which anyone critical of US involvement in Iraq is accused of buying into the Ayatollah’s “Great Satan” myth? Is it aimed at defeating diplomatic recognition as part of a ‘grand’ settlement? Will it help justify future US (even ‘soft’) intervention?
Only ‘the shadow’ knows for sure.