Jaded Sage:

Death to America! It is the chant that is synonymous with Iran. With Saddam toppled and the North Koreans actively discussing stepping down from their nuclear program the final member of the "Axis of Evil" remains Iran. Their president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for the destruction of Israel. This in turn has led to statements out of Tel Aviv that caused a jolt to the markets on Friday. Recently a movie entitled Charlie Wilson’s War told the story of a Congressman who pulled for the arming of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. The lessons from this movie tell only half the story.

Lost in all the debate about what to do about Iran is a forgotten component to the history of the region. For this we must go back over half a century. Up through WW II Iran had been controlled by England. Their vast oil assets were managed by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (despite its name the company paid only a small pittance to the ruling elite of Iran and kept the huge profits in British hands). When Aramco (the Arab American Oil Company) was formed in Saudi Arabia the profits were shared 50-50. Following WW II the Iranian leadership and the multitude of Iranians wished for a similar deal with AIOC. When they were rebuffed by the British a new Iranian leader stepped forward. Mohammed Mossadeq was elected by the Iranian Parliament. Mossedeq was the leader of the Iranian National Front, a liberal, nationalist, social democratic organization that wished to bring democracy to Iran and strengthen itself by nationalizing its oil reserves.  Soon after being elected Prime Minister in 1951 Mossedeq and the Iranian Parliament passed the Oil Nationalization Act. The British protested vehemently, first to the UN and the World Court and then proceeded to pull their technicians out, leaving Iran with lots of oil but no specialists to extract and refine it. After much debate within Britain, they decided to initiate a coup d’etat but the Iranians caught wind of it and expelled all the English diplomatic corps which stopped the coup before it could begin. 1951 turned into 1952 and this was an election year in the US. The Truman administration refused to act alongside Britain. But the new Eisenhower administration was different. The Secretary of State was John Foster Dulles.  Dulles had been a lawyer for large multi-national corporations prior to joining the incoming administration and he was sympathetic to the British and the AIOC’s cause. Though democratic, the Mossadeq government with their oil nationalization program smelled of communism. Dulles (aided by his brother Allen) took on the cause of overthrowing the Iranian government. Code named Ajax, Dulles chose the great grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt to initiate the coup. Hatched in the basement of the US embassy in Tehran, the overthrow of a democratic Iran succeeded and the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza was installed as the new dictatorship. The Shah of Iran ruled harshly until 1979 when the Islamic Revolution swept through the country led by the aging Ayatollah Khomeini. Among the acts initiated by the supporters of the fanatical religious leader; the takeover of the US embassy. Why? Because these new leaders believed the US would again try to oust the fledgling government from the basement of the embassy just as they did in 1953. The ramifications of Operation Ajax are profound. As the radical government of Iran takes hold in the months following the revolution, Saddam Hussein seizes the opportunity to invade Iran as he views incorrectly a weak oil rich neighbor. The Soviet Union, fearing a spread of radical Islam through their southern republics invaded Afghanistan to begin its halt there before it could infect its own possessions. The decade long war weakened the Soviet Union but in the process the US armed the mujahadeen, the very same militants which would become Al-Qaida and the Taliban. And now we are faced with a government in Iran that is politically hostile to the US and eyes a nuclear program. What would the climate be in the Middle East if we had just kept our grubby little hands to ourselves. Sometimes you must be weary of the unintended consequences. This seems to be a lesson that Americans have a tough time learning.