M. Reza Vaghefi, Ph.D. —
Introduction
The above headline (N.Y.T. January 9, 2020) is followed by a detailed accounting of downing of Iran Air 655 during which 290 people including 66 children died in the Persian Gulf waters. A great deal of misinformation abounds (and we blame Russians as the master of misinformation?). The fact that the Iranian pilots and other military personnel were fully aware of the fact that Persian Gulf was covered by some of the most advanced military assets of the United States is undeniable and by the same token it is meaningless to say that “it was by accident that IranAir flight was downed by Captain of Vincennes.
President George Herbert Walker Bush ordered $300 million compensation to the families of people drowned, which of course was never fulfilled.
A partial truth came out when the U.S Navy investigated this tragedy and found that “a pattern of reckless aggression by Vincennes” had caused this tragedy. Despite this ugly incident Captain Rogers was decorated for “Exceptionally Meritorious Conduct’, (NYT Jan.9, 2020.)
A few years after General Soleimani’s assassination was justified because he had killed so many Americans, which may not be true. Even if this were true, Isn’t this what military people do all over the world with their conceived or real enemies? The author is not justifying any killing of anybody but in judging you must see both sides. One may like or dislike the Islamic regime’s behavior, but one also should look at all sides in order to come to a reasonable conclusion.
The background
The most important phenomenon in a relationship is mutual trust, a fact that applies to individual human being and governments. The only difference being that it has a fundamental implication when it comes to governments because it involves not only physical being of the state but millions of people that reside in each country. Therefore in a seminal work Karim Sadjadpour indicates that “a sound U.S. policy must reconcile the short-term objectives of countering Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions without hampering the long-term goal of a representative Iranian government that is driven by the national interest of its people rather than the revolutionary ideology of its rulers:” NYT.8-14-2022, p.6
The most important ingredient in building relationship is Trust. At this moment there is a tremendous deficit of this phenomenon on both side and most likely more on the Iranian side. Years of animosity has solidified a sense of not believing what the United States proclaims. That was evident from early years when President Carter, who had a rocky relationship with the new regime, informed the leaders that Iraq was planning to attack Iran. The message fell on deaf ears as the new regime had no faith in Carter’s message. This lack of confidence was exasperated by many other episodes and over time left a deep feeling, among the leaders of the new regime that they must depend on themselves and the organizations they create to insure survival of the autocracy.
Close cooperation of the United States and Israel has enhanced the notion that the United States may not be telling them the truth. From acts of sabotage on nuclear plants, assassination of top nuclear scientist and many other incidents have left a big gap between the two sides which would be hard to fill.. Examples of deep animosity turned over to friendship and trade abound. Japan and the United States come to mind. From massive destruction to close cooperation provides a reasonable scenario which may help establish a working relationship that may help world peace and rejuvenate parties at a time that world is in a precarious situation. Another episode that is a constant reminder among the hawks in the Islamic regime is that no matter what the regime does to stabilize the conditions it is not appreciated by the United States. The case in point is Afghanistan. After the fall of Taliban in 2003, the able Iranian representative Dr. M.J. Shariff was commissioned to made strenuous effort to install Hamed Karzai as president of the country. In his annual address to the Congress the former president George W.Bush, not known for his bright mind and global vision, included Iran as member of “Axis of Evil’ together with Iraqi president Saddam Hossein and the leader of North Korea. In Tehran it was considered a slap in the face and an insult in addition to being contemptible reward for having helped the United States install the Afghani leader.
United States and Iran
The story of the United States relations with Iran goes a few decades earlier than what has evolved where U.S. is the villain to be used as usurper of power to her advantage. Years before the clergy took control, there was an attempt by the leaders of the country to make the British behavior, suffocating Iran, a bit tolerable. The list is long and requires more pages and space that can be afforded here.
The 1943 Tehran conference where President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin set to discuss WWII issues was a landmark as far as Iran was concerned. At that conference President Roosevelt being fully aware of the emerging global conditions and for Iran to be a neighbor of a Communist regime, asked his aid General Hurley to study the Iranian conditions and make recommendations for the future of Iran so that the country can make necessary reforms. “Primary goal was promotion of democracy and riding Iran of colonial forces”. A. Milani, The New Republic, December 2, 2009. “Iran can achieve for herself the fulfillment of justice, freedom of conscience, freedom of press, speech, freedom want, equality of opportunity and to a degree from fear”, Ibid, p.27. There was almost a unanimous agreement that the man to lead Iran in order to actualize this admirable goal was Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Later, and in a comparatively free election Mossadegh was elected at the top of 12 deputies allotted to the Capital city, Tehran. In the new Parliament was recommended for the job of premiership. He told the Parliament that he would accept the job if they agreed to the law nationalizing the Iranian oil which for many years had been exploited by the British. The Parliament fulfilled his request after which he was recommended to the King and installed as Prime Minister. In the process of governing Mossadegh came to the conclusion that Shah was not cooperative and, in many ways, he would try to counter his democratic work by using the armed forces that were under his command.
To meliorate situation Dr. Mossadegh reorganized the cabinet in which he reserved the position of Minister of Defense for himself. He proposed the new cabinet to Shah where he immediately rejected it. Mossadegh resigned. There was a massive demonstration for couple of days, 30th of month of Teer, and finally Shah caved in and invited Dr. Mossadegh back and approved his cabinet. The clergy led by Ayatollah Kashani had participated in mass demonstration expecting some major reward. Soon after and before a new cabinet was selected, Ayatollah demanded to nominate several people (the messenger was Hossein Makki) for high level position in the government. This was antithesis to what Mossadegh believed. In his mind and believing in separation of powers, religion had no place in running the affairs of the State. The support from the clerical sector was contemptible to a degree that was totally unacceptable to Dr. Mossadegh.
- Dr. Mossadegh’s relationship with the clergy began to sour after this encounter and the warmth from that point began disappearing, and never recovered. Shah’s continued effort to concentrate power in his own hand continued despite the advice of many who considered the effort against the constitution and the American advising him to democratize in order to prevent upheaval. Numerous attempts were made in this effort. Shah had a cordial relationship with late President Richard Nixon but not with the succeeding administration. Of Mr. Jimmy Carter.
Justice William Douglas Visit
Before all these efforts a Justice of Supreme Court Justice William Douglas was asked to visit Iran and evaluate the condition there. His response was that Shah was an incorrigible despot and must be pushed to advance democratic movements. So, the question is what happened after all such efforts. A series of social acts followed although with mixed results. Some of the social plans recommended by the United States were fundamental to any human society but the Clergy rejected them off hand. Land reform which was supposed to change the structure of landlord and tiller of the land, Iranian feudal system to a modern one received serious opposition based on Islamic principle of sanctity of ownership. Woman suffrage, the ability to vote like men, was considered as creating harlotry and rejected outright. All these efforts intended to democratize the social structure had received mixed approval by some voters, but the religious side of society intended to use religion to sabotage the reforms.
The cause and Effect
The factor that triggered a major movement and shook the conscience of the natin was done without deep thinking by the government. Reza Shah, the founding king of the Pahlavi dynasty, was endowed with tremendous sense of nationalism. One of his acts which received an extraordinary support from the nation was cancellation of Capitulation, a decree that ignored Iranian jurisprudence in a situation that may be brought up by a foreign citizen., which had been imposed on Iran years ago. This had been surreptitiously reintroduced by H.A. Mansour, but it did not take a long time for Ayatollah Khomeini to find out which triggered a massive uprising to be crushed by Asadullah Allam with Shah’s blessing. Ayatollah was arrested and sent
to Turkey and then to Iraq. From there he continued his rhetoric and opposed the social development, in adequate as they were. He was finally sent to France where he had even more access to press and finally went to Iran. Shah left the country in tears. At this time, as has been written before, Shah was alone. All the trusted people who had helped him in critical moments had been, dismissed or insulted all due to Allam’s toxicity which had affected the Imperial Court during the last 10 years, a period most critical to Shah’s leadership in his tenure and the country. Before departing the country, Shah helped create government led by Shahpur Bakhtiyar, an honest man who loved Iran and was disgusted by British presence and influence.
But the government he had set up collapsed and a new provisional government headed by Mr. Mehdi Bazargan took the helm. According to Carter’s Diary “Ayatollah sent his representative to pledge increased friendship and cooperation and to make sure that we were supporting a stable government in Iran” page 296. the structure of the government and armed forces would remain intact, and Ayatollah would go to Holy city of Qom where he had begun his opposition to Shah’s regime. It did not take a long time for him to come back to Tehran. Meanwhile Bazargan and his foreign minister had a meeting with U.S representative in Algeria to evaluate the situation. An amazing decision not realizing the fluid emotions of the revolutionary people in Tehran.
The meeting was supposed to be confidential, but a Kuwaiti newspaper broke the news and militant students in Tehran thought of conspiracy to bring the Shah back, so they occupied the U.S. Embassy at Takhte Jamshid. Although Ayatollah Khomeini was passive about the issue, but later he found it useful for his plan to approve the takeover where U.S. diplomats were held for 444 days, that is the end of Carter’s presidency. This happened at a critical time when Ayatollah had promised to cooperate with the government. Obviously taking over the American Embassy with many diplomats in there was against international law and in direct contradiction from the pledge Ayatollah made to President Carter. From then on, the political relations between the two government have had no improvement but a state of belligerency has continued to the detriment of their respective citizens.
One outcome of this relationship has been series of sanctions that have been imposed on Islamic regime even though some were supposed to have been removed after the 2015 Nuclear agreement. And to compare the socio-economic conditions before and after the Islamic Revolution it is a fascinating to see the similarity between Shah’s regime and the clerical one. Then the well-to -do enjoyed the benefit of economic progress and the poor suffered. And here is de-ja vu. Whether the current regime realizes what is taking place or not may decide the future course of action.
Conclusion
The relationship would have improved long time ago if the interest of the respective nation were of major concern. But there are hawkish elements on both sides that prefer the status quo or even something worse. And the regimes on both sides cater to that sense of animosity and isolations. Each side would prefer to condemn the other for its failure; some prefer to condemn the Satan for many failures and the other side would continue the 444 days of Hostage crisis to prevent necessary compromises that are fundamental to any solution. Similarities abound. Take President Vladimir Putin who blames the West for attacking a peaceful neighbor to China that uses Taiwan in order to coerce its will at home. But “imposed consensus” will ultimately backfire and the price may not be inexpensive.