Iran
How the West Found a New Way to Create their Empires
The narrative I have followed is that
written by Brian Lapping based on the series televised by Granada called ‘End
of Empire’. When the book went to second edition in 1989 Brian gave the
following as a reason why the British might be the last of the old-style
empires.
“The massacres that are the essential means
to keep such empires going are now hard to carry out secretly. The increasing
difficulty that major powers consequently have in exercising their will over
small ones justifies the decision to call this book ‘End of Empire’.”
Unfortunately, anyone with a modicum of
knowledge about the World today will know that this was a pipedream.
As Lapping pointed out,
“The British did not often use this word (‘massacre’)
for the actions of their own colonial governments. The common euphemism was
‘punitive expedition’.”
Today one of the favourite terms would be
‘Deposing a brutal dictator.’ Oddly enough, it has to be noted that, only
dictators who have irritated the West and, in particular, the USA, tend
to be considered sufficiently brutal to justify the large scale massacre of a
country’s population.
The other all-pervading euphemism is ‘War
on terror.’ Again terror is seen to emanate only from those who fail to do the
bidding of the Empire or from nations which have strategic importance to the
Empire builders. The atrocities and terror caused by that Empire builder and
its friends are of course immune to attack on this basis.
Old-style Empire and the massacres that
accompany it are still very much in vogue. The big change would seem to be that
the ability to hide such massacres in full public view and even to create a
call for them within the general population has increased dramatically. The mass
media has fallen almost completely under the control of those most likely to
profit from empire building thus creating the necessary mask of decency and
democracy required to keep the intelligent and generally decent population of
the west in complete ignorance of their Government’s true nature.
If you are in any doubt that this is
happening today and that the West is still the main propagator of tyranny, I
would urge you to consider current events in the Middle East as you read this
factual account from the very offices of the perpetrators of these same events
more than half a century ago.
The Coup
We have already heard that arms were
deposited in Iran long before the coup took place. C M Woodhouse describes in his
autobiography how he went to the British base Habbabiyah in July 1952 to pick
up these arms and have them buried for future use. The Rashidian family had
their £1.5 million ‘bonus’ ready to put into the hands of mercenaries and
British supporters. Mussadeq was keeping up his side of the business by
steadily alienating the powerful Iranians who used to support him and now hawks
in the Whitehouse were more than happy to place a Western puppet back in charge
in Iran.
At the end of 1952, Woodhouse went in
person to Washington to convince the Americans that Britain
had everything in place to assure the success of a pre-emptive coup. He was
able to play on American paranoia over fear of Communism at the time to
convince them that, without such a manoeuvre, Iran
would surely fall under Communist rule. It did not require a lot of persuasion
to bring them on board.
A replacement Prime Minister for Mussadeq was
agreed upon. General Fazlollah Zahedi wasn’t top of the British list but he
seemed to bear no grudge about his imprisonment for four years by the British
in Palestine.
Back in London, meanwhile, MI6
approached Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of the US
president and now head of CIA in the Middle
East, to take charge of the operation in Iran. The
British, who had been caught spying by Mussadeq, were now removed from Iran, so
they did not have the manpower themselves to carry out the coup.
Even
with everything in place, it still took till mid summer 1953 for John Foster
Dulles in the USA and Winston Churchill in Britain
to give the go ahead.
It was now up to the Shah to fire his Prime
Minister and replace him with the Western man of choice, Zahedi.
As usual the Shah showed indecisiveness and
uncertainty about the proceedings. Perhaps wisely, he did not trust his Western
co-conspirators. MI6 arranged the return of his sister Princess Ashraf to Tehran in the hope
that she could strengthen his resolve. They even arranged coded messages in a
BBC broadcast by President Eisenhower to reassure the Shah that he was safe. Nevertheless,
the Shah fled without signing the two crucial documents. The CIA had to follow
him to his retreat in the Caspian Sea to finally pin him down and get his signature on the documents.
By now everyone had become aware that a
plot was being perpetrated and this brought Mussadeq’s supporters out into the
streets again. This time, the Rashidians had their hired agent provocateurs
ready. These ruffians infiltrated the crowds in the guise of Tudeh members and
created fear by throwing rocks at mosques and priests.
Mussadeq countered by taking control of the
army and for a time he seemed to be in a good position to outwit the coup,
sending Zahedi into hiding in the American Embassy. He was outmanoeuvred,
though, when Kermit Roosevelt took over a small radio station from which he
could run his side of the operations. The Rashidians had done their work well
and they pulled out all the stops to turn the crowd against their old hero.
Richard Cottam stated
‘That mob that came into the North Tehran and was decisive
in the overthrow was a mercenary mob. It had no ideology. That mob was paid for
by American dollars and the amount of money that was used has to have been very
large.’
Leading the demonstration was a famous
weight lifting team calling ‘Long Live the Shah’. Jugglers and acrobatics, paid
by Rashidian gold, followed, drawing a large crowd. Homs Katouzian, an Iranian university
teacher recalls seeing lorry loads of ‘ruffians and thugs’ carrying clubs and
sticks shouting anti Mussadeq slogans.
Along with the growing popular
dissatisfaction, this was enough to rouse the crowds against Mussadeq. Having
lost his popularity in the streets, he gave himself up gracefully to be tried
for treason in a military court. It is estimated that, by the end of his trial
he had already won back his standing among ordinary Iranians.
The USA was
now the main power in Iran and the Shah set about a Western agenda of militarization and
modernisation. This did not sit well with the strongly religious people of Iran and
he became increasingly repressive in an attempt to quiet dissent. He did not
have the ruthlessness of his fellow Middle-East dictators, however, and in
1979, he was once again forced to flee by an Islamic uprising led by the
Ayatollah Khomeni. Soon afterwards Britain, Russia
and the USA were all removed from the country as the new Islamic Government,
for better or worse, took power into its own hands.
Syria 2012
Fast forward thirtythree years and the
West is still doing everything it can to thwart Iranian independence and get
its hands on Iranian oil. Iran has
suffered crippling economic sabotage over the years which has forced it to
stand on its own feet well beyond the capabilities of other puppet Middle Eastern
countries.
The war-mongering speeches by Blair, Netanyahu
and many in the US republican elections show clearly that the USA and
Nato still has this great independent country firmly in its sights.
Syria is a friend of Iran and
it too has stood up for independence from the West. It has little by the way of
resources but it would be a great stepping stone on the way to the defeat of
independent minded countries anywhere in the World and in particular Iran.
Current events in Syria have
been instigated by the West in very much the same way as the coup in Iran half
a century ago. The Western media mocks claims by the Syrian Government that the
violence is being supported if not orchestrated by foreign sources. The desire of the Syrian
people for a peaceful outcome and the great deal of support for Assad is
completely ignored by our media. Assad’s constant call for reform and an end to
violence is also ignored, while his military operations trying to defeat armed
uprisings all over Syria are depicted as murderous. I have no love for Assad. He is an unethical, immoral dictator of the same ilk as many of the puppets kept in power by the West. He has brought his country to this place because of his wanton disregard for human rights in Syria and his desire for reform has very much been forced upon him. Nevertheless, the one-sided media reports in the West have little to do with a wish to make life better for the Syrian people. If this was a motive, the news would be full of similar reports and calls for intervention in many many other countries. Strangely news of attrocities in Bahrain, Yemen etc are missing completely.
If the well-being of the Syrian people was of importance to the Western media, we would also be hearing how the UN would be called upon to ensure innocent people were not going to be the victims in their thousands as in every other country the UN has entered 'for the good of the people'.
Putting Britain in Syria's Shoes
Think about it. If this was happening in Britain,
what would our government be doing.
We know that our militaristic police would
be out in force beating up the innocent unarmed protestors who will have been
encouraged on facebook, twitter etc to come out against some particularly bad
laws being passed in Parliament. We know this was a ploy used in the downfall
of Libya.
To create a call for intervention, there
needs to be a violent uprising in the country. Arms would therefore be smuggled
in from China, Russia or anyone else determined to bring Britain
down.
It is well known that the West had Turkey
and Kuwait do this in their determination to bring Syria
down.
Mercenaries would now be showing up from London to Glasgow, shooting
into crowds of unarmed protestors causing confusion and further media frenzy
against the UK government who is being blamed for all the attrocities in the media.
Why would any Government do this knowing
their enemies are watching and increasing the protests as a result? It makes no
sense at all.
The reports of the shootings cause greater
dissent in the country and many people believe that the coalition is
responsible for the shooting.
Armed groups in Manchester and Liverpool start terrorising the
population shooting police and encouraging dissenters to take up arms.
Surely by now the army would be deployed to
end the armed resistance. In effect, civil war has broken out in cities all over Britain. The army is now spread thin on the ground. As the armed groups, including
revolutionaries and foreign mercenaries, are driven out of some cities, they
gather in Leeds where they have a core of popular support. Those who dissent will
be violently disposed of and the World media claims success for the
revolutionaries in Leeds. Any violent deaths can always be laid at the door of the Conservative
regime.
The army would undoubtedly be in open
conflict with the armed insurgents by now and innocent people will be killed in
the crossfire. The media would thus be able to show how brutally the British
Government deals with dissent and the death toll would be loudly laid at their
feet to add to the growing call for armed intervention.
Armed intervention would obviously create
much more opposition in the population as it becomes aware that they are being
taken over by a foreign state. A very bloody war ensues with possibly half a
million deaths depending on how long we manage to keep our powerful enemies at
bay.
At last the UK would be proclaimed free while puppet polititians would be given the powerful positions in Government and our resources put out to tender at bargain prices among our 'saviours'. The free citizens could now go about the business of rebuilding the country. It won't be easy of course because a lot of violent people are armed and a lot of armed people will be bearing grudges for many years to come.
All of you, including Amnesty and Avaaz who should know better, who cry for intervention, imagine if this were your counry.
