{"id":151145,"date":"2020-01-06T12:02:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T12:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=151145"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:41:13","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:41:13","slug":"attacks-on-iran-past-and-present-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/01\/attacks-on-iran-past-and-present-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Attacks on Iran–Past and Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Assassination of General Qasem Soleimani<\/em><\/p>\n

On Friday 3 Jan 2020, progressives in the United States and all peace-loving people throughout the world were horrified to learn that Donald Tromp had added to his long list of crimes and imbecilities by ordering the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, who is a hero in his own country, Iran. The murder, which was carried out by means of a drone strike on Friday, immediately and drastically increased the probability of a new large-scale war in the Middle East and elsewhere. Against this background, I would like to review the history of oil-motivated attacks on Iran.<\/p>\n

The Desire to Control Iran’s Oil<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iran has an ancient and beautiful civilization, which dates back to 5,000 BC, when the city of Susa was founded.\u00a0 Some of the earliest writing that we know of, dating from approximately 3,000 BC, was used by the Elamite Civilization near to Susa. Today\u2019s Iranians are highly intelligent and cultured, and famous for their hospitality, generosity and kindness to strangers. Over the centuries, Iranians have made many contributions to science, art and literature, and for hundreds of years they have not attacked any of their neighbors.\u00a0\u00a0 Nevertheless,\u00a0 for\u00a0 the\u00a0 last\u00a0 90\u00a0 years,\u00a0 they\u00a0 have\u00a0 been\u00a0 the\u00a0 victims of foreign attacks and interventions, most of which have been closely related to Iran’s oil and gas resources.\u00a0 The first of these took place in the period 1921-1925, when a British-sponsored coup overthrew the Qajar dynasty and replaced it by Reza Shah.<\/p>\n

Reza Shah (1878-1944) started his career as Reza Khan, an army officer. Because of his high intelligence he quickly rose to become commander of the Tabriz Brigade of the Persian Cossacks.\u00a0 In 1921, General Edmond Ironside, who\u00a0 commanded\u00a0 a\u00a0 British\u00a0 force\u00a0 of\u00a0 6,000\u00a0 men\u00a0 fighting\u00a0 against\u00a0 the\u00a0 Bolsheviks in northern Persia, masterminded a coup (financed by Britain) in which Reza Khan lead 15,000 Cossacks towards the capital.\u00a0 He overthrew the government, and became minister of war.\u00a0 The British government backed this coup because it believed that a strong leader was needed in Iran to resist the Bolsheviks.\u00a0 In 1923, Reza Khan overthrew the Qajar Dynasty, and in 1925 he was crowned as Reza Shah, adopting the name Pahlavi.<\/p>\n

Reza\u00a0 Shah\u00a0 believed\u00a0 that\u00a0 he\u00a0 had\u00a0 a\u00a0 mission\u00a0 to\u00a0 modernize\u00a0 Iran,\u00a0 in\u00a0 much the same way that Kamil Ata Turk had modernized Turkey.\u00a0 During his 16 years of rule in Iran, many roads were built, the Trans-Iranian Railway was constructed, many Iranians were sent to study in the West, the University of Tehran was opened, and the first steps towards industrialization were taken. However, Reza Shahs methods were sometimes very harsh.<\/p>\n

In 1941, while Germany invaded Russia, Iran remained neutral, perhaps leaning a little towards the side of Germany.\u00a0 However, Reza Shah was sufficiently critical of Hitler to offer safety in Iran to refugees from the Nazis. Fearing that the Germans would gain control of the Abadan oil fields, and wishing to use the Trans-Iranian Railway to bring supplies to Russia, Britain invaded Iran from the south on August 25, 1941.\u00a0 Simultaneously, a Russian force invaded the country from the north.\u00a0 Reza Shah appealed to Roosevelt for help, citing Iran’s neutrality, but to no avail.\u00a0 On September 17, 1941, he was forced into exile, and replaced by his son, Crown Prince Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.\u00a0 Both Britain and Russia promised to withdraw from Iran as soon as the war was over.\u00a0 During the remainder of World War II, although the new Shah was nominally the ruler of Iran, the country was governed by the allied occupation forces.<\/p>\n

Reza Shah, had a strong sense of mission, and felt that it was his duty to modernize Iran.\u00a0 He passed on this sense of mission to his son, the young Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.\u00a0 The painful problem of poverty was everywhere apparent, and both Reza Shah and his son saw modernization of Iran as the only way to end poverty.<\/p>\n

In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh became Prime Minister of Iran through democratic elections.\u00a0 He was from a highly-placed family and could trace his ancestry back to the shahs of the Qajar dynasty.<\/p>\n

Among the many reforms made by Mosaddegh was the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s possessions in Iran.\u00a0 Because of this, the AIOC (which later became British Petroleum), persuaded the British government to sponsor a secret coup that would overthrow Mosaddegh.\u00a0 The British asked US President Eisenhower and the CIA to join M16 in carrying out the coup claiming that Mosaddegh represented a communist threat (a ludicrous argument, considering Mosaddegh’s aristocratic background).\u00a0 Eisenhower agreed to help Britain in carrying out the coup, and it took place in 1953.\u00a0 The Shah thus obtained complete power over Iran.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 goal\u00a0 of\u00a0 modernizing\u00a0 Iran\u00a0 and\u00a0 ending\u00a0 poverty\u00a0 was\u00a0 adopted\u00a0 as\u00a0 an almost-sacred mission by the young Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and it was the motive behind his White Revolution in 1963, when much of the land belonging to the feudal landowners and the crown was distributed to landless villagers.\u00a0 However, the White Revolution angered both the traditional landowning class and the clergy, and it created fierce opposition.\u00a0 In dealing with this opposition, the Shahs methods were very harsh, just as his fathers had been.\u00a0 Because of alienation produced by his harsh methods, and because of the growing power of his opponents, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.\u00a0 The revolution of 1979 was to some extent caused by the British-American coup of 1953.<\/p>\n

One can also say that the westernization, at which both Shah Reza and his\u00a0 son\u00a0 aimed,\u00a0 produced\u00a0 an\u00a0 anti-western\u00a0 reaction\u00a0 among\u00a0 the\u00a0 conservative elements\u00a0 of\u00a0 Iranian\u00a0 society.\u00a0\u00a0 Iran\u00a0 was\u00a0 \u201cfalling\u00a0 between\u00a0 two\u00a0 stools\u201d, \u00a0on\u00a0 the one\u00a0 hand\u00a0 western\u00a0 culture\u00a0 and\u00a0 on\u00a0 the\u00a0 other\u00a0 hand\u00a0 the\u00a0 country’s\u00a0 traditional culture.\u00a0 It seemed to be halfway between, belonging to neither.\u00a0 Finally in 1979 the Islamic clergy triumphed and Iran chose tradition.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in 1963, the US had secretly backed a military coup in Iraq that brought Saddam Hussein\u2019s Ba\u2019ath Party to power.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1979, when the western-backed Shah of Iran was overthrown, the United States regarded the fundamentalist Shiite regime that replaced him as a threat to supplies of oil from Saudi Arabia.\u00a0 Washington saw Saddam’s Iraq as a bulwark against the Shiite\u00a0 government\u00a0 of\u00a0 Iran\u00a0 that\u00a0 was\u00a0 thought\u00a0 to\u00a0 be\u00a0 threatening\u00a0 oil\u00a0 supplies from pro-American states such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

In 1980, encouraged to do so by the fact that Iran had lost its US backing, Saddam Hussein’s government attacked Iran.\u00a0 This was the start of an extremely bloody and destructive war that lasted for eight years, inflicting almost a million casualties on the two nations.\u00a0 Iraq used both mustard gas and the nerve gases Tabun and Sarin against Iran, in violation of the Geneva Protocol.\u00a0 Both the United States and Britain helped Saddam Hussein’s government to obtain chemical weapons.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 present\u00a0 attacks\u00a0 on\u00a0 Iran\u00a0 by\u00a0 Israel\u00a0 and\u00a0 the\u00a0 United\u00a0 States,\u00a0 both\u00a0 actual and threatened, have some similarity to the war against Iraq, which was launched by the United States in 2003.\u00a0 In 2003, the attack was nominally motivated by the threat that nuclear weapons would be developed, but the real motive had more to do with a desire to control and exploit the petroleum resources of Iraq, and with Israel’s extreme nervousness at having a powerful and somewhat hostile neighbor.<\/p>\n

Similarly, hegemony\u00a0 over\u00a0 the\u00a0 huge\u00a0 oil and gas reserves of Iran can be seen as one the main reasons why the United States is presently demonizing Iran, and this is combined with Israel’s almost paranoid fear of a large and powerful Iran.\u00a0 Looking back on the \u201csuccessful\u201d 1953 coup against Mosaddegh, Israel and the United States perhaps feel that sanctions, threats, murders and other pressures can cause a regime change that will bring a more compliant government to power in Iran – a government that will accept US hegemony.\u00a0 But aggressive rhetoric, threats and provocations can escalate into full-scale war.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0 do\u00a0 not\u00a0 wish\u00a0 to\u00a0 say\u00a0 that\u00a0 Iran’s\u00a0 present\u00a0 government\u00a0 is\u00a0 without\u00a0 serious faults.\u00a0 However, any use of violence against Iran would be both insane and criminal.\u00a0\u00a0 Why insane?\u00a0\u00a0 Because\u00a0 the\u00a0 present\u00a0 economy\u00a0 of\u00a0 the\u00a0 US\u00a0 and\u00a0 the world cannot support another large-scale conflict; because the Middle East is already a deeply troubled region; and because it is impossible to predict the\u00a0 extent\u00a0 of\u00a0 a\u00a0 war\u00a0 which,\u00a0 if\u00a0 once\u00a0 started,\u00a0 might\u00a0 develop\u00a0 into\u00a0 World\u00a0 War III,\u00a0 given\u00a0 the\u00a0 fact\u00a0 that\u00a0 Iran\u00a0 is\u00a0 closely\u00a0 allied\u00a0 with\u00a0 both\u00a0 Russia\u00a0 and\u00a0 China. Why criminal?\u00a0 Because such violence would violate both the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles.\u00a0 There is no hope at all for the future unless we work for a peaceful world, governed by international law, rather than a fearful world, where brutal power holds sway.<\/p>\n

An Attack on Iran Could Escalate<\/strong><\/p>\n

We recently passed the 100th anniversary World War I, and we should remember that this colossal disaster escalated uncontrollably from what was intended to be a minor conflict. There is a danger that an attack on Iran would escalate into a large-scale war in the Middle East, entirely destabilizing a region that is already deep in problems.<\/p>\n

The unstable government of Pakistan might be overthrown, and the revolutionary Pakistani government might enter the war on the side of Iran, thus introducing nuclear weapons into the conflict. Russia and China, firm allies of Iran, might also be drawn into a general war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

In the dangerous situation that could potentially result from an attack on Iran, there is a risk that nuclear weapons would be used, either intentionally, or by accident or miscalculation. Recent research has shown that besides making large areas of the world uninhabitable through long-lasting radioactive contamination, a nuclear war would damage global agriculture to such a extent that a global famine of previously unknown proportions would result.<\/p>\n

Thus, nuclear war is the ultimate ecological catastrophe. It could destroy human civilization and much of the biosphere. To risk such a war would be an unforgivable offense against the lives and future of all the peoples of the world, US citizens included.<\/p>\n

Recent research has shown that thick clouds of smoke from firestorms in burning cities would rise to the stratosphere, where they would spread globally and remain for a decade, blocking the hydrological cycle, and destroying the ozone layer. A decade of greatly lowered temperatures would also follow. Global agriculture would be destroyed. Human, plant and animal populations would perish.<\/p>\n

We must also consider the very long-lasting effects of radioactive contamination. One can gain a small idea of what it would be like by thinking of the radioactive contamination that has made large areas near to Chernobyl and Fukushima permanently uninhabitable, or the testing of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific in the 1950’s, which continues to cause leukemia and birth defects in the Marshall Islands more than half a century later. In the event of a thermonuclear war, the contamination would be enormously greater.<\/p>\n

We have to remember that the total explosive power of the nuclear weapons in the world today is 500,000 times as great as the power of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What is threatened today is the complete breakdown of human civilization and the destruction of much of the biosphere.<\/p>\n

The common human culture that we all share is a treasure to be carefully protected and handed down to our children and grandchildren. The beautiful earth, with its enormous richness of plant and animal life, is also a treasure, almost beyond our power to measure or express. What enormous arrogance and blasphemy it is for our leaders to think of risking these in a thermonuclear war!<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>John Scales Avery, Ph.D., who was part of a group that shared the 1995<\/strong><\/em> Nobel Peace Prize<\/strong> for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network<\/a> and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. \u00d8rsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and<\/em> received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent books are <\/em>Information Theory and Evolution and <\/em>Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century<\/a> (pdf).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Fri 3 Jan 2020, progressives in the United States and all peace-loving people throughout the world were horrified to learn that Donald Tromp had added to his long list of crimes and imbecilities by ordering the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, who is a hero in his own country, Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[120,267,1126,260,1050,504,742,88,767,109,287,1759,249,95,70,126,118,172],"class_list":["post-151145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-conflict","tag-geopolitics","tag-hegemony","tag-history","tag-imperialism","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-targeted-assassination","tag-trump","tag-us-military","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275074,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151145\/revisions\/275074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}