The Iran Nuclear Deal and its relationships with the West Powers- Background

The Iran Nuclear Deal and its relationships with the Western Powers- Background

It is essential to understand the tragic relationship and history between Iran and the United States to fully understand the implications of the nuclear deal. And that is what this essay is about.

Iran is a country with a rich history and fervent culture. Iranian civilisation goes back 3000 years, and national identity is deeply rooted in ancient culture and history, from the founding of the world’s first morality-based religion, Mazdeism, to the days of Cyrus the Great. The West is ignorant to the deep-seeded sense of national identity that is shared between members of Iranian society, a quality that is lacking throughout the middle-east. This makes Iran a more resilient country to foreign influence, and America, during the 50’s 60’s and 70’s, were too keen to exploit the country for their own interests. Instead of rolling over, like the Americans predicted, the Iranians fought back, through a revolution, which was tragically hijacked by radical Islamic clerics. The United States, the IAEA and other governing bodies all know with reasonable certainty that Iran has no nuclear weapons. Anyone who believes Iran has a nuclear weapon is either a) ignorant of the facts b) Too comfortable lying for political again. So what is peddling this myth? Since the Western media have little interest in finding out, I decided I would for myself.

The United States and Iran have had quite a tragic history, a long series of hostilities and tragic misunderstandings. It is imperative to learn the roots of the mistrust that Iranians feel towards Americans to understand the current hostilities. Until 1953, the United States had been far more popular in Iran than Britain or France. Many educated and liberal middle-class Iranians believed America represented freedom and democracy. Often middle class liberals used the U.S. Independence War as a model for their struggles against rule under the Shah, and how it could be brought to an end.

This attitude shifted when America, allied with Britain, masterminded a coup d’etat of Mohammad Mossadeq, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. This was a bad move. Mohammed Mossadeq was immensely popular, nationalising Iranian Oil and taking a stand towards the west. Since Britain needed a steady supply of oil, she manipulated America into believing that Mossadeq would begin to sell oil to the Soviets, and was very ready to establish ties with the Soviet Union. They believed they had to still have a presence in the middle east to prevent losing control of it all together, paralleling todays situation with Vladimir Putin, trying to wrestle control America off its prized title as the only major imperialist power capable of exerting significant military force and political influence in that region. And so the Americans, after overthrowing Mossadeq, were no longer seen as defenders of liberal democratic values, but instead as outside imperialist forces, not allied with their cause.

And then, to make matters worse, it propped up the Shah’s regime, supplying him with ammunition and a notorious secret police force, the SAVAK. This simply fuelled a growing sentiment of anti-Shah, and therefore anti-American sentiment. The Shah was seen as out of touch, and this opportunity for unrest and chaos was seized upon by exiled members of the clergy to launch an “Islamic” revolution. The revolution was not an Islamic one to begin with, it just happened to be that the most vocal anti-Shah critics and anti-western preachers were resentful clergymen. The Shah was trying to transform Iran into a modern secular state. This of course included separation of church and state, and so the Shah cut off funding to the clergymen, which of course made them upset. And above all, the Shah banned the hijab or any religious clothing. Islam was used as a vehicle to express the hearts and feelings of the oppressed (well, at least they thought they were).

Going a little off topic, I also think it is important to understand what it means that Islam was a vehicle for the oppressed. What Ayatollah Khomeini did was skilfully combine Islam with politics, so anyone Islamic would feel obliged to be against the Shah. He therefore managed to mobilise a huge proportion of the population. The clergy was extremely powerful in those days, a little how like the religious Christian Orthodox establishment in Tsarist Russia would proclaim that the Tsar was chosen by God, and that disobeying him would be sacrilege. Khomeini himself said that “Islam is politics or it is nothing”.

The second important thing he did was to present the answers of many every day grievances within Islamic texts. For example, the story of Mohammed was particularly influential. Mohammed objected to the wealthy and powerful families and merchants that controlled and made money off people visiting Makkah, and many people drew parallels between those powerful and rich families and the Shah’s “corrupt” and rich advisors who sat beside him.

After the revolution, the infamous Embassy hostage crisis, helped to deepen the mistrust of Iranians in general in the American mind. American diplomats were held for 444 days inside. The invasion of the embassy violated every law, and so it naturally outraged everybody. However, this is where Republicans go wrong. Many believe that the Iranians attacked the embassy for no real reason, just out of pure hatred of America’s liberal values. This is wrong. The initial spark for the revolution was a lack of free speech and freedom and liberty. The Americans then refused to hand back the Shah to put him on trial, and they supported the Shah’s regime for decades beforehand because of oil interests. It is ignorant to believe that actions do not have a cause. All actions have a reason. This belief, coupled with searing images of helpless hostages, shaped the image of Iranians that many Americans still cherish: hateful terrorists permanently outside the rational world order. Therefore, in popular culture the hostage crisis is cited as the defining moment in which the Iranians actively pitted themselves against America.  However, this is a misrepresentation of the facts and is, at best, nothing more than partially true.  The Hostage Crisis was barely a pinprick in the history of mistrust between the two parties, compared to what the American’s did next.

Following the revolution, Iraq invaded Iran, which led to 8 bloody years of WW1 style trench warfare. The carnage and chaos of this hideous war far exceeded the calamity of WW1, using old fashioned human wave attacks, chemical weapons ad poison gas. For the next 8 years, the Americans supported the aggressor, Iraq, supplying them with weapons, and the means to make chemical weapons. They condemn the proliferation of WMD’s just 15 years later, but U.S. politicians suffer from short-term and selective memory loss, invading Iraq! Politicians seem to selectively remember the Hostage Crisis, and deliberately do not make an effort to look at the issue objectively, and instead decide to leave out the background leading up to crisis. Many Iranians still today live with the effects of the chemical weapons, with symptoms including blindness and paralysis. It is noteworthy that Iranians refused to use weapons of mass destruction in return, and that the Americans have blocked treatment

It is not surprising that Iranian leaders have concluded the United States to be a ruthless opponent bent on the destruction of the Islamic regime, and prepared to use any means to do so. Many Republican presidential candidates have publicly stated that regime change should be the aim, such as Chris Christie and others. Being the son of exiled Iranian parents, I should really support the idea of regime change, but I don’t, as it is illegal and disingenuous. More importantly, the support of Iran for organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas needs to be understood in this context. Iran can be perceived to be doing 3 things by supporting Hamas, the Houthis (not verified) or Hezbollah. 1) Standing up for the Palestinians (unlikely) 2) Standing up for Shia Islam (minority religion in the Middle East) (likely) 3) Countering the one pro-American proxy state in the Middle East (very very likely). Given this history of deceit, deception and humiliation on the part of the West particularly, it is difficult to understand why the Iranians came to negotiating table at all, and any of the concessions they accept are far larger blows of pride and prestige to Iranians than to the Americans.

The Americans, especially the far-right republicans, love to portray Iran as the aggressor. But this is, at best, a partial version of the truth. Firstly Iran, more broadly, is the only Shia country in the middle-east, surrounded by many aggressive and less democratic Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In a sense Israel and Iran should share many common enemies, and that is why I think peace is possible (for another time).

Secondly, Iran has sought many times to make peace with the United States, most notably right after 9/11, where they offered assistance to United States in defeating Al-Qaeda. The offered to share intelligence reports and help defeat the Taliban. They even offered to help build an Afghan National Army. America, however, arrogantly rejected the help offered by Iran, and even spurned offers from Iran to negotiate out other differences the two sides had, including issues and disagreements over its nuclear programme.

Being Bush, an idiot, he of course declined, and instead of commending Iran for stepping up to the plate to try to set aside the two differences between the countries, Iran was instead denounced in the worlds most ill-informed, blindly ignorant, amazingly pathetic speech; the axis of evil speech. A speech superior in its stupidity, a speech unmatched in it witlessness, lack of knowledge, a speech that reflected the staggeringly worrying values of the world’s worst president, a speech that will never be matched in its stupidity. The same country that offered to help defeat Al-Qaeda, to put its soldiers on the line for America, was put in the same category as North Korea, a rogue communist state, and Iraq, a country America had previously supported in the first gulf war, until it was not in their interests to do so (hypocrisy). Despite these setbacks, acting through the vector of the Swiss ambassador, in May 2003 Iran made yet another offer of peace talks. But they were again, declined…

With this evidence, we can conclude that the politically peddled misconceptions about Iran are untrue. Iran should be treated with more respect for coming to the negotiating table. The USA needs to recognise the pain that Iran as a country has gone through, and the mainstream media needs to recognise this. If the mainstream media starts reporting this forgotten part of the saga, I guarantee that the opinion will shift in favour of the deal overwhelmingly, even among Republican majority voters. The USA really should stop trying to justify its alliance with the House of Saud, and shift it slightly to Iran.

Although Iran really is still a “rogue” nation in that sense, Iran has real potential to come out of trade sanctions and effective Western isolation and become more integrated into the international community. And as they become more economically intrinsically linked the rest of the world, they will slowly become less radical and extreme, as they will be so reliant on Western trade and business that they will be deterred from doing anything stupid or re-ignited their inflammatory rhetoric by the risk of a cut-off. And as the rest of the society will be exposed more towards Western values, the whole country will inevitably become more western-friendly (to tell the truth, it is already one of the most liberal and progressive country in the Middle East!) It has real potential to become a western-friendly, useful regional ally, and that is why we should do more to work with Iran, be it working with them against IS or Al-Qaeda, or promoting intercontinental trade and business.