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Iran has had a turbulent history in just its recent past. From a democracy in the 1950s, Iran seems to have moved backwards, from an authoritarian regime (backed by Britain and the US) that overthrew the democratic one, to a religious fundamentalist regime toppling the authoritarian one and taking an anti-US stance.

The US ended its support for Iran and instead supported Iraq in a brutal war through the 1980s against Iran where over 1 million people died. More recently, Iran was described as being part of an axis of evil by US President George Bush, as part of his war on terror.

The US has also accused Iran of pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, while Iran says it is only pursuing peaceful development. Internally, movements towards moderate policies and democratic values are gaining traction, but not with hardliners in power trying to hold on. This section looks into these and related issues.

Iran was unique in the region for having successfully resisted colonialism, mainly by the British Empire and Imperial Russia. In the 1920s, Reza Shah Pahlavi staged a coup against the ruling dynasty and embarked on a modernization drive, building industry, railroads, national education, etc. His autocratic rule however, was disliked.

During World War II, in order to prevent a potential pro-Nazi coup orchestrated by the Axis powers, the Soviet Union and Britain invaded Iran securing the petroleum infrastructure. Seeing the Shahs son as being more supportive, the Allies forced the Shah to step aside. Iran became a major route of arms from Allies in the west, to the Soviets during the war.

In 1951, a pro-democracy nationalist, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was democratically elected as Irans first Prime Minister. In 1953, the Mossadegh government chose to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later renamed to the British Petroleum Company, now known as BP), which controlled of the nations oil reserves, feeling that proceeds from oil should be used to invest in the development of Iran, rather than siphoned off as profits.

This was a risky move by Iran, for they would risked the wrath of the British who stood to lose a lot of power, wealth and influence gained via control of such a major energy source.

However, this move to nationalize such an industry has to be taken in context: This was at a time amid global feelings of nationalism, with both burgeoning and fledgling movements to oust former colonial rulers who had weakened themselves during the Second World War as they fought each other. The third world had seen its chance to break free, and so feelings of nationalism and revolution were ripe around the world.

Iran was one of the few early successful democratic regimes, though development would be a challenge. Nationalizing the oil company was therefore part of this drive for non-alignment away from the superpowers influence.

For Britain, this was another nail in the coffin of their once great empire that stretched across the globe. Having lost their prime jewel, India, a few years earlier, their world status was unofficially reduced and no longer were they the great empire. Losing other places around the world must have been quite shocking and disappointing to those who still held colonial attitudes. However, they had partnered with a new power that had risen during the Second World War: the US.

As explained in the Control of Resources section in more depth, the US now took on a role to help transform the global system into one that it could dominate but also help rebuild Europe to stave off a rising Communist threat.

Furthermore, as J.W. Smith puts it (see previous link), the populations on the periphery of empire who provided their cheap resources [were] taking the rhetoric of democracy seriously and breaking free, which alarmed historic colonial empires.

Breakaway countries posed the threat that they may side with the Soviets, rather than be associated with the West, due to the feelings of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism.

Other countries, while breaking away from colonialism, may not have necessarily defected to the Soviet side, but may have attempted an independent form of development.

Irans nationalizing of the oil company signaled such a threat, for it was important to Britains wealth. Like so many other countries throughout the world in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and even 80s, popular regimes that were, or showed, democratic tendencies were treated with suspicion, for fear of going Communist.

Sometimes this fear would be used as an excuse to get involved in those countries for other reasons (usually economic and geopolitical ones, to continue the traditions of imperial adventures and colonial aspirations of control and dominance).

Hence, the US and Europe supported and tolerated so many dictatorships, for puppet regimes were easier to control and manipulate, and they could put their own populations in order, rather than US and Europe resorting to (too many) expensive wars. Of course, where it was deemed necessary, as always happens throughout history, military might would be employed (Vietnam being one vivid example).

After Mossadeghs announcement of the nationalization of the oil industry, Britain responded with an embargo. The embargo had serious effects on the economy, thus allowing criticism against Mossadegh to fester. Convincing the US of a communist link, Britain managed to get the US to agree to deal with Iran. Operation Ajax, a CIA-backed plot, allowed the Shahs son, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, to overthrow Mossadegh.

This operation involved a lot of illegal propaganda in a foreign country (unfortunately not uncommon), which Dan De Luce, of the British newspaper, the Guardian summarized:

The CIAwith British assistanceundermined Mossadeghs government by bribing influential figures, planting false reports in newspapers and provoking street violence. Led by an agent named Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, the CIA leaned on a young, insecure Shah to issue a decree dismissing Mossadegh as prime minister. By the end of Operation Ajax, some 300 people had died in firefights in the streets of Tehran.

The crushing of Irans first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms. The anti-American backlash that toppled the Shah in 1979 shook the whole region and helped spread Islamic militancy, with Irans new hardline theocracy declaring undying hostility to the US.

For roughly a quarter-century, Iran suffered repressive and autocratic rule by the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. He was seen by the West favorably for he had a Western education and liked many aspects of modernism (though not democracy, it would appear).

The Shahs rule seemed paradoxical for some. While he supported womens rights, extending suffrage to them, he also supported royalists in Yemens civil war. He maintained close diplomatic relations with both Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also instituted land reform which wrestled away land from some elites, with the idea of redistributing it to small farmers.

However, corruption and lack of sufficient land caused resentment among many farmers. The Islamic clergy also saw various sources of their power diminishing, as clergy were also required to pass examinations, and as family and educational systems underwent changes.

However, rather than democratizing, the Shah instituted one-party rule, stating concerns and fears of a communist party taking power. His authoritarian rule caused much controversy. The religious clergy were therefore able to gather a lot of support.

The excesses of the Shahs authoritarian rule fueled what eventually became the Iranian Revolution of February 1979 which saw his overthrow.

However, one autocratic regime was replaced by another. This revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, ushered in rule by a conservative religious clergy, the mullahs, and saw Iran become the Islamic Republic of Iran.

A documentary on PBS in 2000 (unfortunately I do not recall the name) revealed that many people had supported the revolution and overthrow of the Shah, including many women, indicating how bad life was under the Shah. They were however eventually disillusioned by the religious clergy they had supported for not fulfilling many promises they thought they would. Many women interviewed regretted how their lives had become more oppressed, for example.

Iranian students held US embassy personnel hostage for over a year, accusing them of trying to overthrow the revolutionary government and reinstall the shah. Khomeini encouraged the hostage crisis, rather than stop it, and this episode marked the beginning of thorny relations with the US, who feared Iran not so much militarily, but from its potential ability to export Islamic revolutions all over the Middle East, threatening the stability that the US had created for itself.

Neighboring Iraq also saw an opportunity to gain more power, as Khomeini had disbanded the once mighty military.

Just as Christianity has many branches, such as Catholicism and Protestantism, so too does Islam, with Shia and Sunni Muslims. Furthermore, culturally, Iranians are not Arabs like Iraqis are, and historically, Iraq (as Mesopotamia) and Iran (as Persia) had often been involved in conflicts, wars, and territorial disputes. The 1980s looked set to continue that pattern, as many of these these cultural and religious differences contributed to their terribly costly and destructive war of the 80s, known as the Persian Gulf War.

Iran and Iraq have had border disputes for centuries. These ultimately spilled into a terrible war from 1980 to 1988 that witnessed all sorts of war crimes from both sides. This war cost 1 million casualties in Iran alone, and over $1 trillion between the two countries.

The US and the Reagan regime supported Iraq and then ruler, Saddam Hussein, because Irans Islamic Revolution had seen their favored puppet regime in Iran overthrown. Providing military, economic, and political assistance to Iraq, Saddam Husseins army waged a long war.

Both sides attacked each others oil tankers (and even tankers belonging to countries not involved in the conflictIran attacked other Arab countries tankers for example). Both also attacked each others cities, and as has been thoroughly discussed now in the build up to the US war on Iraq, Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons (weapons of mass destruction) against Iran.

Iraqs Saddam Hussein, perhaps with ambitions to be the leading Arab nation and have a strong Middle East centered around Iraq, had been favored by the US in this war who were happy to ignore Iraqi war crimes, as from their point of view, defeat of Iran was paramount.

Later, Husseins ambitions to unite Arab lands under one large nation (with him as ruler no doubt) was one of the concerns raised in 1991 after he overstepped his bounds (as a dictator subservient to US ambitions in the region) and invaded Kuwait. US raised the specter of a Hitler or anti-Christ type of force in the region, that had to be quashed.

As David Gowan noted in his book, Global Gamble, (Verso, 1999) and J.W. Smith in his work on Economic Democracy, (IED Press, 2006), this was an example of one power (the US) not tolerating another power (a potentially enlarged Iraq or a united Arab people) for it threatened access to important resourcesa major source for US world dominance. Having served its use, Iraq was to remain subservient again, or face repercussions.

Political activist, Stephen Shalom, lists a time-line of the Iraq war from the perspective of US interest and notes the following key events:

When Iraq invades Iran, the U.S. opposes any Security Council action to condemn the invasion. U.S. soon removes Iraq from its list of nations supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred to Iraq. At the same time, U.S. lets Israel provide arms to Iran and in 1985 U.S. provides arms directly (though secretly) to Iran. U.S. provides intelligence information to Iraq. Iraq uses chemical weapons in 1984; U.S. restores diplomatic relations with Iraq. 1987 U.S. sends its navy into the Persian Gulf, taking Iraqs side; an overly-aggressive U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290.

What is interesting about the above is that the US seemed to be involved in pitting both sides against each other. The Iran-Contra scandal (US selling arms to Iran and using proceeds to fund guerrillas in Nicaragua) revealed more murky goings on, that even saw Israel being the conduit for the arms sales (discussed further below).

Internationally, other actors also backed different sides in this war: the US, France, UK, Germany, many Arab countries (including Egypt and Saudi Arabia), China and the Soviet Union all backed Iraq in various ways, from providing chemical weapons, other military equipment, financing, and more. Support for Iran came from Syria, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, and Yugoslavia. (One can see how some wars since have reflected these sides. Iraq later overstepped its bounds and fell out of favor with the US, which is now well known.)

Commentators note that many Iranians look back to this period with anger and sadness at Western involvement against them and for not doing anything to stop the chemical warfare, and in effect being isolated internationally.

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Outside Israel, Iran has the largest Jewish population in the region. Many leading figures in Israel have come from Iran originally, as well.

Under the Shah, Israel enjoyed a good relationship with Iran. However, with the Islamic Revolution, the ruling clergy and Israel have had a more hostile relationship with Iran not recognizing Israel.

Yet, even during this non-relationship, Israel was used as a conduit by the United States to sell weapons to Iran as part of the Iran-Contra scandal (discussed further below).

In more recent years, as the US has stepped up criticism of Irans nuclear program as being a nuclear weapons program (discussed further below), Israel has planned for the possibility of taking out various missile and other targets in Iran. Israel has also considered using tactical nuclear weapons to take out Irans nuclear facilities, The Sunday Times reveals.

Although it has not admitted it officially, Israel is widely believed to have 200-400 nuclear weapons and is the only nuclear power in the region. In the past it has bombed an Iraqi facility suspected of being part of a nuclear weapons program.

Israels conflict with the Palestinians and the overflow into South Lebanon gave rise to militant opposition, Hezbollah perhaps being the most well known amongst them. Regarded as a terrorist organization by many nations, Iran and some others feel it is an organization fighting a legitimate cause and has actively backed Hezbollah.

Fred Halliday, a noted expert on Middle East affairs and professor of international relations at the prestigious London School of Economics, had managed to talk to Hezbollahs deputy head, and its political strategist, Sheikh Naim Qassem, who noted that Hezbollah regards the Iranian spiritual leader, in this case Khamenei, as its ultimate authority. All major political decisions regarding Hezbollah are referred to Iran.

The decision by Hezbollah to enter Lebanese politics in 1992, for example, was determined by Ayatollah Khamenei himself who took the final decision, in favour of participation.

Qassem also admitted helping Hamas and Islamic Jihad inside Israel and Palestine, even though they are Sunni Muslims, not Shia like Hezbollah. He also said Hezbollahs actual activities were limited to within Lebanon, and the disputed area of the Shebaa farms near the Syrian border. If true, Iran isnt directly supporting suicide bombers in Israel as some have claimed, though it could certainly be indirect.

However, Iran has constantly denounced Israel, and various rulers and leading officials have announced death to Israel in various forms. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejads outrageous claims of wiping off Israel from the map and questioning the Holocaust is just the most recent episode, unfortunately.

Yet, recognizing the new geopolitical realities and because Ahmadinejad is not the real source of power in Iran, as discussed further below, the ruling clergy had actually offered peace and normalized relations with Israel and to put pressure on Hezbollah to become a fully political unit, which the US refused.

The recent conflict in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel, which saw Israel suffer a humiliating defeat, on the one hand need not have happened with hindsight, and on the other hand, has strengthened Iran and Hezbollahs influence in the region further.

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As discussed further below, relations during and since Irans Islamic Revolution has been thorny to say the least. The Iran-Contra scandal revealed US selling weapons to its own enemy for other agendas. More recently, as part of the US War on Terror, Iran has been labeled as being part of the Axis of Evil, accused of developing nuclear weapons, and being threatening to other countries in the region, in particular Israel.

Even though the US has seen Iran as an avowed enemy since the Islamic Revolution, and the US encouraged and supported Saddam Husseins long war against Iran, the Iran-Contra scandal revealed that the US sold arms to Iran.

This episode was one of the largest scandals in US history whereby the US sold arms to Iran and used proceeds to fund the Contras, a brutal anti-communist guerrilla organization in Nicaragua accused of many crimes against humanity and believed to be responsible for the deaths of some 30,000 people.

But some of these arms deals originated from the Iranian hostage crisis which had occurred during then-US President, Jimmy Carters watch, where he lost a lot of popularity over it.

A documentary that aired on a British cable channel (cannot recall details unfortunately) explained how Reagan, challenging Carter in the US presidential race, used a propaganda stunt that also helped him achieve popular support. Reagan and George H. W. Bush had struck a deal with the Iranian mullahs to provide weapons if they released the hostages the day after he was sworn in as President, rather than before, during Carters term.

Investigative journalist for Associated Press, Newsweek, PBS and others, Robert Parry, broke many of the Iran-Contra stories and is quoted here for further details and insight:

In exchange [for the hostages release], the Republicans agreed to let Iran obtain U.S.-manufactured military supplies through Israel. The Iranians kept their word, releasing the hostages immediately upon Reagans swearing-in on Jan. 20, 1981.

Over the next few years, the Republican-Israel-Iran weapons pipeline operated mostly in secret, only exploding into public view with the Iran-Contra scandal in late 1986. Even then, the Reagan-Bush team was able to limit congressional and other investigations, keeping the full historyand the 1980 chapterhidden from the American people.

The false history surrounding the Iranian hostage crisis also has led to the mistaken conclusion that it was only the specter of Ronald Reagans tough-guy image that made Iran buckle in January 1981 and that, therefore, the Iranians respect only force.

The hostage release on Reagans Inauguration Day bathed the new President in an aura of heroism. It was viewed as a case study of how U.S. toughness could restore the proper international order.

In effect, while Americans thought they were witnessing one reality another truth existed beneath the surface, one so troubling that the Reagan-Bush political apparatus has made keeping the secret a top priority for a quarter century.

The American people must never be allowed to think that the Reagan-Bush era began with collusion between Republican operatives and Islamic terrorists, an act that many might view as treason.

Parry continues to detail how successive administrations have sought to keep that information away from the public.

(Given some of the recent tensions between Iran and Israel, it would be natural to wonder why Israel would have agreed to deliver US weapons to Iran. Parry notes that at that time Israel, although detesting Iran, thought that being a non-Arab country might be a potential ally. It is perhaps a bitter irony that today these two nations are perhaps at complete opposites, with Irans support of Hezbollah as the recent crisis in Lebanon showed.)

Into the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were signs of Iran moving toward a more moderate state, and increasing democratization (though only in the most earliest of forms). However, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the US quickly moved to an aggressive stance against major countries it had long disliked, and labeled Iran as being part of an Axis of Evil trying to invoke the ominous image of Hitler and the Axis powers. At the same time US President George Bush called for a reinvigorated push for democracy (starting with an invasion of Iraq, that has now seen the country immersed in a civil war).

With Iran, however, this democratization push has had the reverse effect. By supporting outside forces and openly indicating it would fund opposition forces within Iran as well, the US helped push the Iranian ruling regime to a more aggressive and authoritarian position. As such, the reformist Khatami fell out of favor with the ruling clergy who backed the more hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. (This is discussed further below.)

Forcing democracy from the outside has almost never worked, and the experience of Iraq clearly shows that (putting aside for the moment whether the realpolitik agenda of the US is actually democracy or other geopolitical aims such as consolidating power).

Iran, with Russian assistance, has been developing a nuclear program. Iran has long insisted it is for the development of nuclear energy, not weapons, which the US Bush Administration had asserted, and the Obama Administration also maintains.

The US and some other Western countries have wondered why Iran, with such large oil and gas reserves would want or need nuclear power. Iran has answered that it wants to diversify its sources, which has not convinced the US.

The BBC asked eight commentators for their views about the Iran nuclear issue. One of them was Radzhab Safarov, director of Moscow-based Center for Iranian Research, and an advisor to the Russian State Duma chairman. Safarov said that Russia is not worried about allegations that Iran might possess technology of dual nature because the Iranian nuclear program has a completely peaceful nature, and there is no evidence to the contrary.

He further notes that if Russia suspected a covert nuclear weapons program, Russia would have blocked this project and suspended co-operation with Iran in this field, because it would have been against its own interests as their common border in the Caspian sea would threaten Russias national interests in the area.

Safarov, also makes an interesting comment: I dont think any country has a right to interfere with the Iranian nuclear program, because it is a completely internal affair. This is of interest for a few reasons:

Stephen Zunes, writing for Foreign Policy In Focus, is highly critical of the US position on Iran:

Having already successfully fooled most of Congress and the American public into believing that Saddam Husseins Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration and congressional leaders of both parties are now claiming that it is Iran that has an active nuclear weapons program. As with Iraq, the administration does not look too kindly on those who question its assumptions. When the IAEA published a detailed report in November 2004 concluding that its extensive inspections had revealed no evidence of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration responded by attempting to oust the IAEA director.

For the time being, the Iranians have been able to avert a crisis through negotiations with representatives of the European Union (EU). Iran agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment and processing programs until a permanent deal is reached, which the Iranians hope will also include political and economic concessions from the Europeans.

[Controversial US Ambassador to the UN John] Bolton has argued for robust military action by the United States, if the UN Security Council fails to impose the sanctions that Washington demands.

The Bush administrations efforts have not received much support, however, in part because of U.S. double standards. The United States has blocked enforcement of a previous UN Security Council resolution calling on Israel to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA trusteeship. Washington has also quashed resolutions calling on Pakistan and India to eliminate their nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

[Despite US criticism] the United States is still obligated under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to allow signatory states in good standing to have access to peaceful nuclear technology. Ironically, this provision promoting the use of nuclear energy was originally included in the NPT in large part because of Washingtons desire to promote the nuclear power industry.

Under pressure from the US, in September 2005, the UN nuclear body responsible for monitoring compliance with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found Iran to be non-compliant in its NPT obligations and most member states voted to threaten Iran with referral to the UN Security Council in November.

It did not happen, as Iran and the EU led efforts for further negotiation.

As award-winning Indian journalist, Siddharth Varadarajan, has written in the Indian daily, The Hindu (where he is deputy editor), there was a lot of spin and diplomatic manipulation behind the scenes to get the vote against Iran. In his report to the IAEA Board of Governors on September 2, 2005, Director General Mohamed ElBaradei noted that all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities. Dr. ElBaradei said, however, that the IAEA was not yet in a position to conclude that there were no undeclared nuclear activities taking place in Irana requirement that stems not from the safeguards agreement but only from the Additional Protocol that Iran said it would voluntarily adhere to in 2003.

It was despite that, and with US pressure, Varadarajan notes, that the IAEA Board of Governors voted to find Iran in non-compliance and that non-compliance is defined as diversion of safeguarded material for prohibited purposes, something Dr. ElBaradei had explicitly ruled out.

If the IAEAs inability to make such a declaration were to become grounds for reporting a country to the Security Council and threatening it with sanctions, Varadarajan also adds, no less than 106 countriesas emphasized by the European Union last yearwould have to be put in the dock because they have either not signed or not yet ratified or implemented the Additional Protocol.

As Varadarajan warns in another article, claims as ridiculous as some that surfaced during the Iraq war build-up, are appearing again about Iran as part of a propaganda effort. Examples he cites include the Iranian laptop discovered with incriminating evidence of a nuclear warhead, and even the US spinning Irans transparent disclosure of some information to the IAEA as a discovery by diplomats close to the IAEA of what appeared to be the design for the core of a nuclear warhead, even though the IAEA did not find this. Instead, this was leaked as news!

An episode in September 2006, seemed to replay events two years earlier. Although already quoted further above, a part of Stephen Zunes report is repeated here: When the IAEA published a detailed report in November 2004 concluding that its extensive inspections had revealed no evidence of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration responded by attempting to oust the IAEA director.

In September 2006, the IAEA repeated this finding. The US responded with exaggerations and lies to counter the impact of the IAEAs assessment:

A US House Intelligence Committee report claimed that Irans nuclear development program was far more advanced than what the IAEA and its own US intelligence had shown. (How it would know better was not clear.) The Washington Post reported that the IAEA sent the panel a letter decrying its recent report on Iran as outrageous and dishonest and that it contained at least five major errors.

Phyllis Bennis, from the Institute for Policy Studies, summarizes a key example of lies:

The Bush administration actions aimed at building support for war against Iran remain. A senate report on Iran, drafted by a top assistant to UN-bashing John Bolton, claimed among other things that Iran was enriching uranium at the level of 90%the level needed for nuclear weapons. It was such an egregious lie that even the usually cautious UN nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, responded with a harsh rebuke, indicating that they are watching Irans enrichment, and that it remained in the 3.5% range needed for completely legal nuclear powernot close to 90%.

The US House Intelligence Committee report also tried to taint the IAEA head, ElBaradei by saying he removed a senior inspector that had raised concerns about Irans program and that there was an unstated policy of preventing inspectors at the IAEA from telling the truth about Iran.

The irony perhaps is that it was the US House Intelligence Committee that was preventing the telling of truth to the American and world public. Not only had that inspector not been removed, but the IAEA responded that the unstated policy was an outrageous and dishonest. Policy analyst Carah Ong has more details, and the Washington Post reposted the IAEA letter .

And perhaps as another warning of a looming propaganda campaign, Bennis notes, Donald Rumsfelds Pentagon has recently opened a new Iran Directorate whose job description appears very similar to the 2002 role of the now-closed Office of Special Plans, finding or creating intelligence material that could be used to justify war against Iraq.

Read more from the original source:
Iran Global Issues