Two regime changes, two anniversaries, and why the Iraqis hate America

The remarkable ease with which America achieved its first regime change in Iran -- it took two months to execute and 200,000 dollars to rent mobs --whetted America's appetite to repeat it successfully next year in Guatemala, and disastrously (through the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem) in Vietnam ten years later. After striking oil in 1908, the British formed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, giving the Iranians a cut. Although the profits soared, the cut did not. In 1950, out of 200 million dollars' profit, the British paid Iran 16 million! The only concession the British allowed was to rename the company "Anglo-Iranian" when the Shah decided to change the nation's name to Iran. In 1951, Mossadegh got the Majlis (parliament) to nationalise the oil company. The Shah signed the law. A few months later, Mossadegh became Prime Minister and TIME magazine's Man of the Year. Although the dispute was between a corporation and the host nation, the British government of Clement Atlee intervened, and sought US President Truman's help for invading Iran! No fan of colonialism, Truman balked.

In 1953, an aging but still a towering personality, Winston Churchill, returned to power in Britain, and President Dwight Eisenhower and the Dulles bothers, Foster (Secretary of State) and Allen (Director of CIA), took charge in Washington. Churchill used all his guile to convince his wartime subordinate, General Eisenhower, that it was "not about oil" (sounds familiar?) but about stopping the spread of communism. Washington bit. After the Iranians expelled the British diplomats and spymasters, the CIA inherited their assets. Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore's grandson, went to Tehran to stage the coup, which he did by buying off the military and the journalists, compromising politicians and renting pro and anti-Mossadegh mobs. Using flattery and money, Roosevelt persuaded the Shah to sign an order to remove Mossadegh, for which the Shah had no authority. The cowardly Shah fled to Rome but his order became the excuse for the coup. For a few million dollars to the colonels and 300 dead Iranians, the CIA achieved the first regime change in Iran. What the plotters ignored was that by installing the brutal Shah, who took away Iran's democracy, America became deeply implicated in Iran's traumatic future, and earned the undying enmity of the Iranian people.

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The Shah's notorious torture machine, the Nazi-like secret police, SAVAK, was trained by the CIA and Israel's Mossad (ever wonder why the Iranians hate the Israelis?) The Shah was overthrown in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini's clerics took over Iran through an Islamic Revolution, American diplomats were taken hostage, and America, "the Great Satan," became Iran's number one enemy, and vice versa. By complaining, "It all started with Alexander," referring to the Great who had conquered Persia 1600 years ago, Mossadegh reminded the world that the Iranians have long memories. To the Iranians, Mossadegh "is Davy Crockett and his overthrow their Alamo."

When the Zionist neoconserva-tives demand regime change in Iran, therefore, they should add "again." With the neocon-instigated regime change in Iraq floundering, which is making President Bush grovel to the much-despised UN, the neocons are currently lying low. As The New York Times' Maureen Dowd says, the pro-Israeli and anti-Islamic hawk, neocon Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz, has become "Sheepowitz!" As late as last month, however, Jewish neocon, William Kristol, was urging President Bush to invade and occupy Iran with 150,000 Americans troops! When Gulf War II stalled, it was Kristol who on national television chastised the military for worrying too much about Iraqi civilian casualties! With so much hatred and racism inside them, one wonders how these neocons sleep at night! One's heart goes out to the families of each and every US soldier killed in Iraq. They are as much the war's victims as are the Iraqis. The US army consists disproportionately of poor whites, African Americans and Hispanics. Very few of these rich Zionist neocons have their children in the US military. It is, therefore, easy for the rich neocons to advocate the sacrifice of these poor soldiers of every race, so that the neocon causes, and their sacred cow, Israel, can prosper.

The Bush administration is still in denial. They seem to believe, at least publicly, that Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia are conducting the guerilla war in Iraq. Anyone who follows events in Iraq closely knows that even if Saddam is killed, that will have minimal effect on the resistance, which is Saddam-proof. The Iranians speak Farsi. To think that they, and the Arabic-speaking Saudis and Syrians, would form a potent alliance with native Iraqis so quickly and be capable of carrying out devastating attacks is foolhardy. Apart from killing US soldiers, the well organised guerillas so far have sabotaged power plants, burned oil pipelines, blown up mosques, demolished UN headquarters, and attacked Baghdad police headquarters. And nobody is paying much attention to the former US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Hoolbrooke's assertion that the attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed five American diplomats, was actually an attack on the US.

The war against, and the occupation of Iraq have become unmitigated disasters for the Bush administration. The stated reasons for the pre --emptive attack -- WMDs, al Qaeda link - have been proven to be sexed up lies. The "road map" for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians that the occupation of Iraq was supposed to facilitate, thanks to the Palestinian-apartments-destroying Gestapo Chief Ariel Sharon, has been shown to be only a map with no road, now without the US-Israeli handpicked "Palestinian leader" Mahmoud Abbas. And the rosy picture that the neocon Zionists dangled in front of a naïve President Bush to induce him to bite Iraq, that Iraqis would welcome American troops with flowers, as liberators, has not exactly panned out. Why?

In "Iraq in the Eye of the Storm," Indian-British journalist Dilip Hiro provides some answers. According to Hiro, before "Hisar" (Arabic for sanctions) when Iraq was rich, or after the UN sanctions, when Iraq became desperately poor, the socialist Saddam shared the nation's wealth with its people. Sure Saddam inflicted Stalinesque brutality on his adversaries, but to those who did not challenge him, Saddam was a comrade. Whereas Saddam was responsible for the misery of a few Iraqis, through enacting devastating sanctions that killed millions, and enforcing those sanctions on sea and from air, and bombing Iraq at will, America became the enemy of every Iraqi, concludes Hiro. People instinctively recognise their real friends. By handing out no-bid lucrative Iraqi oil exploitation contracts to their cronies at Halliburton and Bechtel, President Bush and Vice-president Cheney did not exactly endear themselves to the Iraqis. If American soldiers were occupying Israel, for America's pampering of Israel and condoning of atrocities Israel committed against the Arabs since its birth, sure, the Israelis would greet the Americans with flowers! To expect that the Iraqis will forgive the Americans, the cause of their misery for 13 years, so quickly, is unrealistic. To be greeted with flowers in Iraq, Americans will have to prove that they are the real friends of the Iraqis, not merely pretend to be one.