Bill O'Reilly - The Triumphant of Evil

The Triumphant of Evil

Bill O'Reilly
Thursday, Mar 24, 2011

The opposition to military action in Libya is fascinating. President Obama is taking incoming from both the left and the right as various agendas collide against neutralizing Qaddafi in Libya. The dissent is all over the place, so let's try to simplify the situation.

We begin with a quote from Edmond Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

That's true. We have seen it time and again throughout history. When evil is not confronted, it can win, often with devastating results.

There is no question that Qaddafi was on the verge of slaughtering his opposition. His mercenaries and highly paid military were closing in on the rebel strongholds and amnesty would be not be forthcoming, as the colonel himself publicly proclaimed. So, finally, the U.N. acted, and a no fly zone was approved. After waffling around for weeks, President Obama then swung into action, ordering U.S. planes and missiles into the skies. Then he went to Brazil.

Immediately, the far-left erupted. Ralph Nader is calling for impeachment. Michael Moore suggests that Obama give back the Nobel Peace Prize, and Congressman Dennis Kuchinch wants to cut off funding for any military action against Libya.

On the right, Pat Buchanan banged the isolationist drum: "Why is the United States, all the way across the ocean, got to go in and stop Arabs from killing Arabs ... why are we in there?"

To prevent a massacre? I believe that's the reason, Mr. Buchanan.

Congressman Ron Paul was equally blunt: "What are we doing? We are in this crisis and they decide to spend all this money. It makes no sense at all."

So here's my question for Mr. Paul. Would you be comfortable, Congressman, watching thousands of human beings being slaughtered by a terrorist dictator when you know that your country has the power to prevent that?

In fact, the no fly zone was up and running in hours, and Qaddafi's forces have been badly damaged. Now the rebels have a chance to eventually overthrow the terrorist dictator, and mass murder has been avoided, at least for the time being.

This is not a complicated issue. If America is, indeed, a noble country, it should act to save lives when it can. That doesn't mean we get bogged down in quagmires like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam again, but when quick, decisive action can defeat evil, it should be taken.

I believe in the basic nobility of America. I also believe few other nations have the motivation and power to confront evil as this country does. If it's only all about us, if all we think about is our own sacrifice, then American exceptionalism disappears.

We did the right thing in Libya.

While I can certainly sympathize with the plight of the rebel forces in Gaddafi's crosshairs, I wonder why O'Reilly's expression indignation found no voice for the plight of those in the Darfur region of Sudan, or Rwanda, or Somalia, or North Korea or any of the other places where people are being slaughtered or facing oppression and death on widespread basis.

Not only that, but do we even know who the opposition to Gaddafi is? In recent days I've heard reports that elements of al Qaeda and/or the Muslim Brotherhood are fomenting the opposition. This may or may not be accurate, but do we actually know who the opposition is?

The fact is, I think O'Reilly is full of hot air on this one. Some of those concerns above are legitimate. Should we be taking military action? Do we have a legitimate national security interest in Libya?

And more importantly, what exactly is our objective there? To protect civilians from Gaddafi? What if he hangs on? How long do we play the "civilian protector" role then?

Good questions. I didn't exactly agree with his column because of the points you made.

The biggest is,

dblboggie wrote:but do we actually know who the opposition is?

Many opposed the Shah in Iran. Look at what we got in the end.

TexasBlue wrote:Good questions. I didn't exactly agree with his column because of the points you made.

The biggest is,

dblboggie wrote:but do we actually know who the opposition is?

Many opposed the Shah in Iran. Look at what we got in the end.

Yeah... Carter really screwed the pooch on that one.

Now we await the final outcome with Egypt to see if Obama screwed the pooch on it.

dblboggie wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:Many opposed the Shah in Iran. Look at what we got in the end.

Yeah... Carter really screwed the pooch on that one.

What would you have had Carter do?

I can only think of one course of action available to Carter to stop the revolution: the application of US military force. Fly over there and cut the protesters down from helicopter gunships.

I'd like to think that's not the American way.

EDIT: maybe I should split this off and start a new topic in the History section?

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:Many opposed the Shah in Iran. Look at what we got in the end.

Yeah... Carter really screwed the pooch on that one.

What would you have had Carter do?

I can only think of one course of action available to Carter to stop the revolution: the application of US military force. Fly over there and cut the protesters down from helicopter gunships.

I'd like to think that's not the American way.

But we had promised the Shah our full support and vowed that we would back him to the hilt. The Shah was a modernizing force in Iran, and it was a small radical religious minority who were deadset against that modernization and wanted to drag the country back into the stone-age - religiously speaking. Had Carter offered even a modicum of moral support, the Shah might well have quelled the uprising of these religious radicals. He did not. And now we have the Iran of today. A regime far more brutal, far more repressive, and far more dangerous to the region and the world.

Thank you very much Jimmy.

International politics is always about compromise and the backing of the lessor of two evils is often the only choices one has - particularly when you are dealing with countries with no history of democratic institutions. The Persian Empire had survived for 2500 years and almost overnight that monarchical history was snuffed out and replaced by a brutal theocracy.

I admit it is a thorny issue. I don't know, what choice would you have made?

kronos wrote:EDIT: maybe I should split this off and start a new topic in the History section?

Naw, I think it's fine as it is (so far).

I agree.

And I think this could be a very good discussion to have.

What should we have done? Did Carter or the CIA even have a real bead on was evolving in Iran? If not, why?

For that matter, were they any other theocracies extant at the time that might have served to give the Administration and intelligence agencies some insight into what Iran might have evolved into if the Shah were overthrown?

If so, why did the Administration take such a hand's-off approach to the situation in Iran?

What were the political implications of backing or abandoning the Shah here in the US?

These and many other questions are up for discussion here.

This could be a good thread indeed.

It's one thing watching a shit hole like Yemen go Islamic. It's another watching a huge country like Iran. They're a major player in the ME, even now, as they were then.

TexasBlue wrote:It's one thing watching a shit hole like Yemen go Islamic. It's another watching a huge country like Iran. They're a major player in the ME, even now, as they were then.

The thing is, Iran (which is Persian and not Arab) under the Shah was a force for modernization and a moving away from Islamic fundamentalism, as well as being an ally of the West.

Once we abandoned the Shah, things went to hell in a hand-basket very quickly. Now, we have a very large and well-armed Islamic theocracy who has been nothing but a force for instability in the Middle East. And we know that they have been supplying insurgents in Iraq with advance explosives to kill our troops in Iraq, providing help to Palestinians to kill Israelis, and are likely behind many other destabilizing acts in the region.

It's kind of hard to see how failing to back the Shah was a good thing.

But then again, what would we have needed to do to secure his position? And would that have been acceptable to the American public? Or could it have been made acceptable by a reasoned explanation to the American people by the President?

dblboggie wrote:The thing is, Iran (which is Persian and not Arab)

I know this. They speak Farsi.

My point is somewhat what yours is. The Shah wasn't much better than what they have now but they had many more freedoms than now. Just don't mess with the Savak. (translation:ساواک)

TexasBlue wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The thing is, Iran (which is Persian and not Arab)

I know this. They speak Farsi.

My point is somewhat what yours is. The Shah wasn't much better than what they have now but they had many more freedoms than now. Just don't mess with the Savak. (translation:ساواک)

Yeah, the Savak were pretty heartless... but then one must consider who they were dealing with (as heartless as that itself seems). We are talking about radical Islamic fundamentalists who were agitating for an overthrow of the government. I believe the Shah and the Savak were much better than what we have now.

Could the Shaw have handled this minority opposition better? Could he have been a little more reasonable in his approach to Islamic tradition? Sure... almost certainly. But hindsight is always 20/20. Given the facts on the ground at the time, I still believe we should have backed the Shah and persuaded him to adjust his modernization programs to ameliorate the more negative aspects of that modernization - but to do that in the background, out of sight.

dblboggie wrote:But we had promised the Shah our full support and vowed that we would back him to the hilt.

How would we do this, short of the brutal measures I mentioned above?

The Shah was a modernizing force in Iran, and it was a small radical religious minority who were deadset against that modernization and wanted to drag the country back into the stone-age - religiously speaking.

You are seriously understating the size, scope and popularity of the revolution. It was HUGE--possibly the largest popular uprising in history. On December 10-11, 1978, 10% of the country's population was demonstrating on the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people were protesting in every major city. Possibly a million in Tehran.

How the hell could Carter have stopped this? A revolution that size is absolutely unstoppable.

And it wasn't entirely fueled by Islamist yearnings. There were all kinds of competing agendas at work. The one thing they had in common was that they hated the Shah.

Had Carter offered even a modicum of moral support, the Shah might well have quelled the uprising of these religious radicals. He did not.

How? His army had declared itself neutral. That's why I say the only real way to stop the revolution would've been the application of US military might. The Shah simply had no muscle to put down this uprising (of millions).

And now we have the Iran of today. A regime far more brutal, far more repressive, and far more dangerous to the region and the world.

Yes, but that's hindsight talking. I really don't see what we could have done to avert the revolution, aside from either brute force, or, a very different foreign policy with Iran starting from at least 1953.

Thank you very much Jimmy.

It was completely out of his control. This wasn't some flash crisis that just popped up in the middle of his administration, it had roots that went back decades. There were huge historical forces at work here. They were bigger than Carter. The POTUS is not omnipotent.

International politics is always about compromise and the backing of the lessor of two evils is often the only choices one has - particularly when you are dealing with countries with no history of democratic institutions.

Iran (or Persia as it was called then) was actually the first country in Asia to experiment with democracy, beginning in 1906 with the Constitutional Revolution, which established the Majlis (parliament). This was done to limit the power of the shahs.

Among the architects of this revolution was Mohammed Mosaddegh, who would be elected prime minister in 1951. With the near-unanimous support of the Majlis, he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This was not popular in the West, so in 1953, the CIA backed a coup (known as Operation Ajax) to remove Mosaddegh from power. (The Cold War also was also a motivating factor).

As you can see, Iran did have a very young history of democratic institutions. But we didn't like the results, so we aborted their experiment in democracy.

The Persian Empire had survived for 2500 years

Not continuously, though. You had the Achaemenids, Alexander, the Parthians, the Sassanids, the Caliphate, the Mongols, the Safavids, etc..

and almost overnight that monarchical history was snuffed out and replaced by a brutal theocracy.

True. But this is hindsight talking. Khomeini did not advertise that his regime would be a brutal theocracy. It was not even clear as the revolution was unfolding what sort of new regime would emerge. Part of Khomeini's task, once the Shah had fled, was to consolidate the revolution--crush intra-revolutionary opposition.

I admit it is a thorny issue. I don't know, what choice would you have made?

Honestly? No clue. I'd probably watch helplessly as the Shah's power crumbled. What else could I do? Massacre the protesters? That's the only other course of action I can think of, and I don't think I'd have the stomach for it. I'd certainly find it hard to talk the talk about democracy after doing that.

The Shah's time was up. He'd lost. If I were Carter and I had a time machine, I'd go back to the year 1953 and let the Shah seize power on his own, if he could, without our help. (No Shah, no revolution.) But since (as Carter), I do not have a time machine at my disposal, I really see fuck-all I can do.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:But we had promised the Shah our full support and vowed that we would back him to the hilt.

How would we do this, short of the brutal measures I mentioned above?

I’m not sure. In fact, I don’t have a clue what we had in mind when that promise was made – or just how the government intended to give substance to that promise.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The Shah was a modernizing force in Iran, and it was a small radical religious minority who were deadset against that modernization and wanted to drag the country back into the stone-age - religiously speaking.

You are seriously understating the size, scope and popularity of the revolution. It was HUGE--possibly the largest popular uprising in history. On December 10-11, 1978, 10% of the country's population was demonstrating on the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people were protesting in every major city. Possibly a million in Tehran.

How the hell could Carter have stopped this? A revolution that size is absolutely unstoppable.

And it wasn't entirely fueled by Islamist yearnings. There were all kinds of competing agendas at work. The one thing they had in common was that they hated the Shah.

Actually, they came to hate the Shah. There was a lot of intrigue by fundamentalist Islamists supporting Khomeini laying various events like the big movie theatre fire at the Shah’s feet (even though we know the fundamentalists hated the Western-style theaters).

As for what Carter was to do to stop it, I cannot say. As I note above, if the promise was made to back him, then it seems fair to assume some kind of plan to give that promise substance. As I recall (it was a long time ago) there were recommendations by some in the Administration that the US offer military support to the Shah, but this never got any further than talk.

As for the Iranian people, there are many who believe that the US’s lack of intervention and expressions of sympathy for the revolution by American officials that tipped the scales in Khomeini’s favor.

And I think we can both agree that there were many in those massive protests (probably a majority) who were simply looking for democratic reforms in forcing the ouster of the Shah; and what they got was something far worse than the Shah, and far more brutal.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Had Carter offered even a modicum of moral support, the Shah might well have quelled the uprising of these religious radicals. He did not.

How? His army had declared itself neutral. That's why I say the only real way to stop the revolution would've been the application of US military might. The Shah simply had no muscle to put down this uprising (of millions).

I think the Shah was just overwhelmed, and I have no memory of the military declaring itself neutral. If we had delivered on our promise before the fatal summer of 78 (when the thing virtually exploded), we might have

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:And now we have the Iran of today. A regime far more brutal, far more repressive, and far more dangerous to the region and the world.

Yes, but that's hindsight talking. I really don't see what we could have done to avert the revolution, aside from either brute force, or, a very different foreign policy with Iran starting from at least 1953.

Actually, I’d place responsibility for the start of this unfortunate chain of events on the British. Had the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC – later BP) just been willing to cut a fairer deal with Iran over the development and export of that country’s oil reserves, none of this would have come to pass. Instead, AIOC’s insistence on the status quo (the raping of Iran essentially) finally led to Mosaddegh nationalizing the oil industry. Rather than taking their licks, the British government cut Iran off at the knees and embargoed their oil exports and when that didn’t move the needle, they finally persuaded Eisenhower that Iran was leaning toward the Soviet Union and persuaded him to have the CIA engineer the overthrow of Mosaddegh. And all because AIOC didn’t want to go 50/50 with Iran on their oil.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Thank you very much Jimmy.

It was completely out of his control. This wasn't some flash crisis that just popped up in the middle of his administration, it had roots that went back decades. There were huge historical forces at work here. They were bigger than Carter. The POTUS is not omnipotent.

I realize that the President is not omnipotent, but even Iranians fault him for failing to deliver on his promise for the revolution’s success. Had he given the Shah help early enough, we might no be in this mess today.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:International politics is always about compromise and the backing of the lessor of two evils is often the only choices one has - particularly when you are dealing with countries with no history of democratic institutions.

Iran (or Persia as it was called then) was actually the first country in Asia to experiment with democracy, beginning in 1906 with the Constitutional Revolution, which established the Majlis (parliament). This was done to limit the power of the shahs.

Among the architects of this revolution was Mohammed Mosaddegh, who would be elected prime minister in 1951. With the near-unanimous support of the Majlis, he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This was not popular in the West, so in 1953, the CIA backed a coup (known as Operation Ajax) to remove Mosaddegh from power. (The Cold War also was also a motivating factor).

As you can see, Iran did have a very young history of democratic institutions. But we didn't like the results, so we aborted their experiment in democracy.

Yes, a very tiny and limited stretch of democracy. And I didn’t realize you’d written here about the AOIC, before I had written what I have above. But it wasn’t that the nationalization of the AOIC wasn’t popular in the West.. it wasn’t popular in Britain or with the AOIC. The US were lied to to gain Eisenhower’s support for operation Ajax. And it was only because the AOIC refused to cut a fairer deal with Iran on exploiting their oil reserves.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The Persian Empire had survived for 2500 years

Not continuously, though. You had the Achaemenids, Alexander, the Parthians, the Sassanids, the Caliphate, the Mongols, the Safavids, etc..

Actually, the Achaemenids were the Persian Empire. And Persia was ruled by monarchs in a nearly unbroken line (the Mongols did indeed screw that up for a little while) up to the last Shah.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:and almost overnight that monarchical history was snuffed out and replaced by a brutal theocracy.

True. But this is hindsight talking. Khomeini did not advertise that his regime would be a brutal theocracy. It was not even clear as the revolution was unfolding what sort of new regime would emerge. Part of Khomeini's task, once the Shah had fled, was to consolidate the revolution--crush intra-revolutionary opposition.

Which he did with brutal efficiency.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I admit it is a thorny issue. I don't know, what choice would you have made?

Honestly? No clue. I'd probably watch helplessly as the Shah's power crumbled. What else could I do? Massacre the protesters? That's the only other course of action I can think of, and I don't think I'd have the stomach for it. I'd certainly find it hard to talk the talk about democracy after doing that.

The Shah's time was up. He'd lost. If I were Carter and I had a time machine, I'd go back to the year 1953 and let the Shah seize power on his own, if he could, without our help. (No Shah, no revolution.) But since (as Carter), I do not have a time machine at my disposal, I really see fuck-all I can do.

Again, I can’t help wonder – if Carter had acted on his advisors council to give military support (as distasteful as that might have seemed at the time), we might not be having this conversation.

Then again, the Shah seemed unrepentant about his regimes excesses and unwilling to make concessions to the religious leaders in the country on some of his more militant Westernizing “reforms.” So perhaps you are right. Maybe his time was just up. Too bad it couldn’t have been a saner transition.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:But we had promised the Shah our full support and vowed that we would back him to the hilt.

How would we do this, short of the brutal measures I mentioned above?

I’m not sure. In fact, I don’t have a clue what we had in mind when that promise was made – or just how the government intended to give substance to that promise.

Fair enough. Apparently Zbigniew Brzezinski wanted to invade. Carter ruled that out.

The use of the military in a situation like this seems ridiculous to me. What would that even entail? Khomeini wasn’t fighting with weapons. He was fighting with casette tapes sent from France.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The Shah was a modernizing force in Iran, and it was a small radical religious minority who were deadset against that modernization and wanted to drag the country back into the stone-age - religiously speaking.

You are seriously understating the size, scope and popularity of the revolution. It was HUGE--possibly the largest popular uprising in history. On December 10-11, 1978, 10% of the country's population was demonstrating on the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people were protesting in every major city. Possibly a million in Tehran.
How the hell could Carter have stopped this? A revolution that size is absolutely unstoppable.
And it wasn't entirely fueled by Islamist yearnings. There were all kinds of competing agendas at work. The one thing they had in common was that they hated the Shah.

Actually, they came to hate the Shah. There was a lot of intrigue by fundamentalist Islamists supporting Khomeini laying various events like the big movie theatre fire at the Shah’s feet (even though we know the fundamentalists hated the Western-style theaters).

There were many reasons to hate the Shah, independent of anything Khomeini did. The economy was in tatters, inflation was soaring, and of course there was SAVAK. Of course, Khomeini fanned the flames of this fire—probably without him, there would be no revolution—but then again, he couldn’t have fanned the flames if the fire had no fuel to begin with.

dblboggie wrote:As for what Carter was to do to stop it, I cannot say. As I note above, if the promise was made to back him, then it seems fair to assume some kind of plan to give that promise substance. As I recall (it was a long time ago) there were recommendations by some in the Administration that the US offer military support to the Shah, but this never got any further than talk.

EDIT: looks like I forgot to respond to this bit, but your point about keeping promises is addressed further down. As mentioned above, Brzezinski did float the idea of an invasion, and (I believe) also the idea of another coup d'état, both of which Carter dismissed.

dblboggie wrote:As for the Iranian people, there are many who believe that the US’s lack of intervention and expressions of sympathy for the revolution by American officials that tipped the scales in Khomeini’s favor.

Who knows. It seems odd that a revolution that was defined largely by its opposition to foreign (American and Soviet) influence would look to foreign powers for a green light.

dblboggie wrote:And I think we can both agree that there were many in those massive protests (probably a majority) who were simply looking for democratic reforms in forcing the ouster of the Shah; and what they got was something far worse than the Shah, and far more brutal.

I'd definitely agree with that.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Had Carter offered even a modicum of moral support, the Shah might well have quelled the uprising of these religious radicals. He did not.

How? His army had declared itself neutral. That's why I say the only real way to stop the revolution would've been the application of US military might. The Shah simply had no muscle to put down this uprising (of millions).

I think the Shah was just overwhelmed, and I have no memory of the military declaring itself neutral. If we had delivered on our promise before the fatal summer of 78 (when the thing virtually exploded), we might have

Hey, I have no memory of any of this. I was 4 at the time. Everything I know on the topic, I’ve read about, decades after the fact. That the military declared itself neutral is something I read.

Looks like you didn’t you finish this bit. I know how that goes, though.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:And now we have the Iran of today. A regime far more brutal, far more repressive, and far more dangerous to the region and the world.

Yes, but that's hindsight talking. I really don't see what we could have done to avert the revolution, aside from either brute force, or, a very different foreign policy with Iran starting from at least 1953.

Actually, I’d place responsibility for the start of this unfortunate chain of events on the British. Had the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC – later BP) just been willing to cut a fairer deal with Iran over the development and export of that country’s oil reserves, none of this would have come to pass. Instead, AIOC’s insistence on the status quo (the raping of Iran essentially) finally led to Mosaddegh nationalizing the oil industry. Rather than taking their licks, the British government cut Iran off at the knees and embargoed their oil exports and when that didn’t move the needle, they finally persuaded Eisenhower that Iran was leaning toward the Soviet Union and persuaded him to have the CIA engineer the overthrow of Mosaddegh. And all because AIOC didn’t want to go 50/50 with Iran on their oil.

Clearly, responsibility for Ajax is shared. It is not deflected completely to the British. If Eisenhower was duped by Churchill, that is surely a failing on his part. And the fact is, whatever his motive was, whether oil or the Cold War, Eisenhower still made a calculation and decided that the overthrow of a democratically-elected PM was the right thing to do.

Of course, I realize that the Cold War might have followed a very different course if Iran hadn’t been our ally for a quarter century. Note that the USSR invaded Afghanistan right after the revolution; this might have happened much sooner if the Soviets didn’t have to fear an Iranian counterattack in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I do see how black-and-white things really aren’t.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Thank you very much Jimmy.

It was completely out of his control. This wasn't some flash crisis that just popped up in the middle of his administration, it had roots that went back decades. There were huge historical forces at work here. They were bigger than Carter. The POTUS is not omnipotent.

I realize that the President is not omnipotent, but even Iranians fault him for failing to deliver on his promise for the revolution’s success. Had he given the Shah help early enough, we might no be in this mess today.

As we’ve been discussing, I’m just not sure what this would realistically entail. You’re right that promises that are made should not be broken, but on the other hand, promises that cannot be kept should not be made.

At some point, if this discussion is going to go on, we’ll need a catalog of what Carter did and didn’t do in support, and in active opposition, to the Shah.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:International politics is always about compromise and the backing of the lessor of two evils is often the only choices one has - particularly when you are dealing with countries with no history of democratic institutions.

Iran (or Persia as it was called then) was actually the first country in Asia to experiment with democracy, beginning in 1906 with the Constitutional Revolution, which established the Majlis (parliament). This was done to limit the power of the shahs.
Among the architects of this revolution was Mohammed Mosaddegh, who would be elected prime minister in 1951. With the near-unanimous support of the Majlis, he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This was not popular in the West, so in 1953, the CIA backed a coup (known as Operation Ajax) to remove Mosaddegh from power. (The Cold War also was also a motivating factor).
As you can see, Iran did have a very young history of democratic institutions. But we didn't like the results, so we aborted their experiment in democracy.

Yes, a very tiny and limited stretch of democracy. And I didn’t realize you’d written here about the AOIC, before I had written what I have above. But it wasn’t that the nationalization of the AOIC wasn’t popular in the West.. it wasn’t popular in Britain or with the AOIC. The US were lied to to gain Eisenhower’s support for operation Ajax. And it was only because the AOIC refused to cut a fairer deal with Iran on exploiting their oil reserves.

I did edit my post abit. Sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused.

I don’t think the fact that it was tiny and limited is any reason to dismiss it. Or indeed, to abort it, as Ajax did. Who knows, without Ajax, Iran might have a century of democracy under its belt by this time. Of course, history could have taken other courses that would have snuffed out democracy.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The Persian Empire had survived for 2500 years

Not continuously, though. You had the Achaemenids, Alexander, the Parthians, the Sassanids, the Caliphate, the Mongols, the Safavids, etc..

Actually, the Achaemenids were the Persian Empire. And Persia was ruled by monarchs in a nearly unbroken line (the Mongols did indeed screw that up for a little while) up to the last Shah.

The Parthians, Sassanids and Safavids (and Pahlavis) were as well, but these were all different empires in the same place. And the empire was also broken up by the invasions of Alexander (after which it was ruled as part of the Seleucid Empire) and the Islamic Caliphate, which overthrew the Sassanids. But this rather tangential…and broadly speaking, you are right, Iranian history his been predominantly imperial.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:and almost overnight that monarchical history was snuffed out and replaced by a brutal theocracy.

True. But this is hindsight talking. Khomeini did not advertise that his regime would be a brutal theocracy. It was not even clear as the revolution was unfolding what sort of new regime would emerge. Part of Khomeini's task, once the Shah had fled, was to consolidate the revolution--crush intra-revolutionary opposition.

Which he did with brutal efficiency.

I can’t disagree with you there.

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I admit it is a thorny issue. I don't know, what choice would you have made?

Honestly? No clue. I'd probably watch helplessly as the Shah's power crumbled. What else could I do? Massacre the protesters? That's the only other course of action I can think of, and I don't think I'd have the stomach for it. I'd certainly find it hard to talk the talk about democracy after doing that.
The Shah's time was up. He'd lost. If I were Carter and I had a time machine, I'd go back to the year 1953 and let the Shah seize power on his own, if he could, without our help. (No Shah, no revolution.) But since (as Carter), I do not have a time machine at my disposal, I really see fuck-all I can do.

Again, I can’t help wonder – if Carter had acted on his advisors council to give military support (as distasteful as that might have seemed at the time), we might not be having this conversation.

No, we’d be having a very different conversation about whether it was right or wrong to send in our military to supress a popular uprising, and this discussion would not be informed by the hindsight of anything Khomeini did after 1979—that would be within the realm of speculation, and we’d be discussing what would happen “if” we hadn’t invaded in hypothetical terms.

dblboggie wrote:Then again, the Shah seemed unrepentant about his regimes excesses and unwilling to make concessions to the religious leaders in the country on some of his more militant Westernizing “reforms.” So perhaps you are right. Maybe his time was just up. Too bad it couldn’t have been a saner transition.

And you may be right too. Perhaps there was a solution to all this that I just don’t see that could have averted Khomeini, and convinced the Shah to change his ways.

kronos wrote:Hey, I don't remember anything about this. I was 4 at the time. Every I know on the topic, I’ve read about, decades after the fact. That the military declared itself neutral is something I read.

I was in 11th grade when the revolution happened. Of course, Dbl was just getting into the nursing home back then.

You old, man.

At least I'd been born. Not everyone here can say that. I don't remember any of the Carter presidency though; my political memory begins with Reagan.

What was it like in the US at the time, do you remember? I've seen news coverage from the time on Youtube; seems like everyone was amazed by the sheer numbers out on the street. What were people saying about what Carter should or shouldn't have done? (If you remember--I wasn't exactly the most astute observer when I was in 11th grade and the Gulf War was getting underway).

kronos wrote:You old, man.

Yep, but I'm not the most senior person here in the age category. That one belongs to the other old fart in here.

kronos wrote:At least I'd been born. Not everyone here can say that. I don't remember any of the Carter presidency though; my political memory begins with Reagan.

My memories of presidents began with Nixon. I remember the Watergate hearings being on TV and it pissing me off because I was missing my shows. Back then, there was no cable TV. I remember watching Nixon resign on TV. I remember Ford but vaguely because there was nothing to his presidency. I remember Carter very well. I didn't like him very well. His economic policies almost ruined this country. His lolly-gagging on the Iran hostage crisis really hacked me off. I wrote a huge paper on that in my history class (or maybe it was social studies).

kronos wrote:What was it like in the US at the time, do you remember? I've seen news coverage from the time on Youtube; seems like everyone was amazed by the sheer numbers out on the street. What were people saying about what Carter should or shouldn't have done? (If you remember--I wasn't exactly the most astute observer when I was in 11th grade and the Gulf War was getting underway).

It was interesting to see but it wasn't really big news until the hostage crisis. Then everyone knew where Iran was and everything else that related to it. Many were pissed at Carter for allowing it to drag on for 444 days. That was abominable.

dblboggie wrote:Not only that, but do we even know who the opposition to Gaddafi is? In recent days I've heard reports that elements of al Qaeda and/or the Muslim Brotherhood are fomenting the opposition. This may or may not be accurate, but do we actually know who the opposition is?

That rumour was begun by Qadaffi himself. He stated this on Libyan state television along with a whole load of other paranoid rantings, including how he would turn the tables on western Imperialists and (no doubt in his mind) conquer the world. I see no good reason to believe that either Al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood are behind this.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:But we had promised the Shah our full support and vowed that we would back him to the hilt.

How would we do this, short of the brutal measures I mentioned above?

I’m not sure. In fact, I don’t have a clue what we had in mind when that promise was made – or just how the government intended to give substance to that promise.

Fair enough. Apparently Zbigniew Brzezinski wanted to invade. Carter ruled that out.

The use of the military in a situation like this seems ridiculous to me. What would that even entail? Khomeini wasn’t fighting with weapons. He was fighting with casette tapes sent from France.

Actually, he was fighting with much more than cassette tapes. You forget the very reason he was exiled. He was agitating against the Shaw back in 1963 and a part of that campaign was deliberate lies about the number of people killed or wounded in the suppression of religious fanatics who were the Ayatollah’s “army.”

In fact, I would submit that long before the “popular” uprising, Khomeini was organizing radical Islamists and fighting an insurgent war against the Shah. Khomeini’s was the most organized opposition to the Shah – and even in exile he wielded significant power.

In fact, for the short time that he was in Paris, the French President suggested to the Shah that Khomeini be snuffed out.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The Shah was a modernizing force in Iran, and it was a small radical religious minority who were deadset against that modernization and wanted to drag the country back into the stone-age - religiously speaking.

You are seriously understating the size, scope and popularity of the revolution. It was HUGE--possibly the largest popular uprising in history. On December 10-11, 1978, 10% of the country's population was demonstrating on the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people were protesting in every major city. Possibly a million in Tehran.
How the hell could Carter have stopped this? A revolution that size is absolutely unstoppable.
And it wasn't entirely fueled by Islamist yearnings. There were all kinds of competing agendas at work. The one thing they had in common was that they hated the Shah.

Actually, they came to hate the Shah. There was a lot of intrigue by fundamentalist Islamists supporting Khomeini laying various events like the big movie theatre fire at the Shah’s feet (even though we know the fundamentalists hated the Western-style theaters).

There were many reasons to hate the Shah, independent of anything Khomeini did. The economy was in tatters, inflation was soaring, and of course there was SAVAK. Of course, Khomeini fanned the flames of this fire—probably without him, there would be no revolution—but then again, he couldn’t have fanned the flames if the fire had no fuel to begin with.

Actually, I would not describe their economy as being in tatters. Sure, there were some shortages and inflation as a result of the Shah’s economic programs, but hell... there are still shortages in Iran and there is still high inflation and high unemployment (double digits for both). And the SAVAK, for all their brutality, were dealing with an equally brutal, vicious and deceitful enemy. This is not

As for the revolution, one of the more interesting components of it is that it was not prompted by economics or class divisions – it was primarily a religiously motivated affair. Sure, there were those who were agitating for democratic reforms and so on – but mostly this was a fundamentalist Islamic revolution. In fact, in Iran it is known as the Islamic Revolution. This was the real fuel behind the revolution – much of the rest was mere window dressing and propaganda by the Khomeini’s people.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:As for what Carter was to do to stop it, I cannot say. As I note above, if the promise was made to back him, then it seems fair to assume some kind of plan to give that promise substance. As I recall (it was a long time ago) there were recommendations by some in the Administration that the US offer military support to the Shah, but this never got any further than talk.

EDIT: looks like I forgot to respond to this bit, but your point about keeping promises is addressed further down. As mentioned above, Brzezinski did float the idea of an invasion, and (I believe) also the idea of another coup d'état, both of which Carter dismissed.

Actually, I think Carter was cool on another coup d'état by the military, but this was long after the cause was lost. Unfortunately, that didn’t materialize.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:As for the Iranian people, there are many who believe that the US’s lack of intervention and expressions of sympathy for the revolution by American officials that tipped the scales in Khomeini’s favor.

Who knows. It seems odd that a revolution that was deifned largely by its opposition to foreign (American and Soviet) influence would look to foreign powers for a green light.

That opposition to American and Soviet influence was the rallying cry of Khomeini – neither East nor West was his slogan. It was his beef with the Shah. The fundamentalism he preached loathed the Western influence and the modernizing the Shah was implementing. This sentiment was only popular with the Islamic fundamentalists within Iran. And even so, many of them still did not want to see a theocracy replacing the Shah.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:And I think we can both agree that there were many in those massive protests (probably a majority) who were simply looking for democratic reforms in forcing the ouster of the Shah; and what they got was something far worse than the Shah, and far more brutal.

I'd definitely agree with that.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Had Carter offered even a modicum of moral support, the Shah might well have quelled the uprising of these religious radicals. He did not.

How? His army had declared itself neutral. That's why I say the only real way to stop the revolution would've been the application of US military might. The Shah simply had no muscle to put down this uprising (of millions).

I think the Shah was just overwhelmed, and I have no memory of the military declaring itself neutral. If we had delivered on our promise before the fatal summer of 78 (when the thing virtually exploded), we might have

Hey, I don't remember anything about this. I was 4 at the time. Every I know on the topic, I’ve read about, decades after the fact. That the military declared itself neutral is something I read.

Looks like you didn’t you finish this bit. I know how that goes, though.

Oh... I guess at 4-years-old the Iranian Revolution wouldn’t be something on yer radar.

I was in my 20’s... and I had friends who had been working in Iran and got out before the shit hit the fan. They really loved the country and the people. They said Iranians were very warm and welcoming to Americans.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:And now we have the Iran of today. A regime far more brutal, far more repressive, and far more dangerous to the region and the world.

Yes, but that's hindsight talking. I really don't see what we could have done to avert the revolution, aside from either brute force, or, a very different foreign policy with Iran starting from at least 1953.

Actually, I’d place responsibility for the start of this unfortunate chain of events on the British. Had the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC – later BP) just been willing to cut a fairer deal with Iran over the development and export of that country’s oil reserves, none of this would have come to pass. Instead, AIOC’s insistence on the status quo (the raping of Iran essentially) finally led to Mosaddegh nationalizing the oil industry. Rather than taking their licks, the British government cut Iran off at the knees and embargoed their oil exports and when that didn’t move the needle, they finally persuaded Eisenhower that Iran was leaning toward the Soviet Union and persuaded him to have the CIA engineer the overthrow of Mosaddegh. And all because AIOC didn’t want to go 50/50 with Iran on their oil.

Clearly, responsibility for Ajax is shared. It is not deflected completely to the British. If Eisenhower was duped by Churchill, that is surely a failing on his part. And the fact is, whatever his motive was, whether oil or the Cold War, Eisenhower still made a calculation and decided that the overthrow of a democratically-elected PM was the right thing to do.

Of course, I realize that the Cold War might have followed a very different course if Iran hadn’t been our ally for a quarter century. Note that the USSR invaded Afghanistan right after the revolution; this might have happened much sooner if the Soviets didn’t have to fear an Iranian counterattack in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I do see how black-and-white things really aren’t.

Yeah, there’s the real take-away here. Nothing is ever black-and-white in the real world – as much as we’d like to imply that in debates that don’t hold any real consequences in the defense of an ideology – political or religious. When push comes to shove in the real world, decisions that are less than ideal will have to be made on information that is far from complete. That’s why leaders get the big bucks.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Thank you very much Jimmy.

It was completely out of his control. This wasn't some flash crisis that just popped up in the middle of his administration, it had roots that went back decades. There were huge historical forces at work here. They were bigger than Carter. The POTUS is not omnipotent.

I realize that the President is not omnipotent, but even Iranians fault him for failing to deliver on his promise for the revolution’s success. Had he given the Shah help early enough, we might no be in this mess today.

As we’ve been discussing, I’m just not sure what this would realistically entail. You’re right that promises that are made should not be broken, but on the other hand, promises that cannot be kept should not be made.

At some point, if this discussion is going to go on, we’ll need a catalog of what Carter did and didn’t do in support, and in active opposition, to the Shah.

I agree. I will have to break out Google and see what I can ferret out.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:International politics is always about compromise and the backing of the lessor of two evils is often the only choices one has - particularly when you are dealing with countries with no history of democratic institutions.

Iran (or Persia as it was called then) was actually the first country in Asia to experiment with democracy, beginning in 1906 with the Constitutional Revolution, which established the Majlis (parliament). This was done to limit the power of the shahs.
Among the architects of this revolution was Mohammed Mosaddegh, who would be elected prime minister in 1951. With the near-unanimous support of the Majlis, he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This was not popular in the West, so in 1953, the CIA backed a coup (known as Operation Ajax) to remove Mosaddegh from power. (The Cold War also was also a motivating factor).
As you can see, Iran did have a very young history of democratic institutions. But we didn't like the results, so we aborted their experiment in democracy.

Yes, a very tiny and limited stretch of democracy. And I didn’t realize you’d written here about the AOIC, before I had written what I have above. But it wasn’t that the nationalization of the AOIC wasn’t popular in the West.. it wasn’t popular in Britain or with the AOIC. The US were lied to to gain Eisenhower’s support for operation Ajax. And it was only because the AOIC refused to cut a fairer deal with Iran on exploiting their oil reserves.

I did edit my post abit. Sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused.

I don’t think the fact that it was tiny and limited is any reason to dismiss it. Or indeed, to abort it, as Ajax did. Who knows, without Ajax, Iran might have a century of democracy under its belt by this time. Of course, history could have taken other courses that would have snuffed out democracy.

No worries. And perhaps we shouldn’t dismiss that brief experiment – but I wonder if, in the absence of Ajax, Iran would have long held that democratic tradition. Fundamentalists like Khomeini were not alone in Iran. And Khomeini was not going to accept anything less than a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy in Iran - if one reads his writings this is only too clear.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:The Persian Empire had survived for 2500 years

Not continuously, though. You had the Achaemenids, Alexander, the Parthians, the Sassanids, the Caliphate, the Mongols, the Safavids, etc..

Actually, the Achaemenids were the Persian Empire. And Persia was ruled by monarchs in a nearly unbroken line (the Mongols did indeed screw that up for a little while) up to the last Shah.

The Parthians, Sassanids and Safavids (and Pahlavis) were as well, but these were all different empires in the same place. And the empire was also broken up by the invasions of Alexander (after which it was ruled as part of the Seleucid Empire) and the Islamic Caliphate, which overthrew the Sassanids. But this rather tangential…and broadly speaking, you are right, Iranian history his been predominantly imperial.

Yeah, it is tangential, but it is an interesting history, no? The Persians in their heyday were probably the most civilized society on earth.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:and almost overnight that monarchical history was snuffed out and replaced by a brutal theocracy.

True. But this is hindsight talking. Khomeini did not advertise that his regime would be a brutal theocracy. It was not even clear as the revolution was unfolding what sort of new regime would emerge. Part of Khomeini's task, once the Shah had fled, was to consolidate the revolution--crush intra-revolutionary opposition.

Which he did with brutal efficiency.

I can’t disagree with you there.

Yeah, history is pretty clear on this point.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:I admit it is a thorny issue. I don't know, what choice would you have made?

Honestly? No clue. I'd probably watch helplessly as the Shah's power crumbled. What else could I do? Massacre the protesters? That's the only other course of action I can think of, and I don't think I'd have the stomach for it. I'd certainly find it hard to talk the talk about democracy after doing that.
The Shah's time was up. He'd lost. If I were Carter and I had a time machine, I'd go back to the year 1953 and let the Shah seize power on his own, if he could, without our help. (No Shah, no revolution.) But since (as Carter), I do not have a time machine at my disposal, I really see fuck-all I can do.

Again, I can’t help wonder – if Carter had acted on his advisors council to give military support (as distasteful as that might have seemed at the time), we might not be having this conversation.

No, we’d be having a very different conversation about whether it was right or wrong to send in our military to supress a popular uprising, and this discussion would not be informed by the hindsight of anything Khomeini did after 1979—that would be within the realm of speculation, and we’d be discussing what would happen “if” we hadn’t invaded in hypothetical terms.

Perhaps. I kind of think that nothing short of killing Khomeini would really have halted the revolution. And that would have had to occur well before ‘78.

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Then again, the Shah seemed unrepentant about his regimes excesses and unwilling to make concessions to the religious leaders in the country on some of his more militant Westernizing “reforms.” So perhaps you are right. Maybe his time was just up. Too bad it couldn’t have been a saner transition.

And you may be right too. Perhaps there was a solution to all this that I just don’t see that could have averted Khomeini, and convinced the Shah to change his ways.

If it was to be averted, I think it would have had to have been much, much earlier in the Shah’s reign – and it would likely have had to include dealing with Khomeini.

TexasBlue wrote:

kronos wrote:Hey, I don't remember anything about this. I was 4 at the time. Every I know on the topic, I’ve read about, decades after the fact. That the military declared itself neutral is something I read.

I was in 11th grade when the revolution happened. Of course, Dbl was just getting into the nursing home back then.

Whippersnappers!

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Not only that, but do we even know who the opposition to Gaddafi is? In recent days I've heard reports that elements of al Qaeda and/or the Muslim Brotherhood are fomenting the opposition. This may or may not be accurate, but do we actually know who the opposition is?

That rumour was begun by Qadaffi himself. He stated this on Libyan state television along with a whole load of other paranoid rantings, inclusing how he would turn the tables on western Imperialists and (no doubt in his mind) conquer the world. I see no good reason to believe that either Al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood are behind this.

I had heard those rantings of Qadaffi, including that al Qaeda was drugging peoples coffee with hallucinogens and so on. But I seem to recall slightly more credible reports that there was some involvement by these organizations. Those reports could, of course, be entirely wrong - but I don't think anyone was basing this on Qadaffi's rantings. That would be just ridiculous. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time the media have swallowed a whopper hook-line-and-sinker.

kronos wrote:You old, man.

At least I'd been born. Not everyone here can say that. I don't remember any of the Carter presidency though; my political memory begins with Reagan.

What was it like in the US at the time, do you remember? I've seen news coverage from the time on Youtube; seems like everyone was amazed by the sheer numbers out on the street. What were people saying about what Carter should or shouldn't have done? (If you remember--I wasn't exactly the most astute observer when I was in 11th grade and the Gulf War was getting underway).

My very first political memory was in the 4th grade, when we received the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated. I remember watching the news and seeing LBJ being sworn in as President on Air Force One. I began to get a little more interested in politics as LBJ neared the end of his term in office in 68 as I was rapidly approaching draft age at that time.

Nixon was the first President I ever voted for (he turned out to be a big-government person sadly). And I distinctly remember Ford and the scorn the media heaped on this poor man. But I thought he did the right thing when he pardoned Nixon in order to put Watergate behind us.

And I vividly remember Carter and his abortion of a Presidency because I was one of those sitting in long lines at the gas station during the 79 gas crisis... the fact that I could not buy gas when I wanted, but had to buy it only on those days the government allowed. I remember being horrified when a gallon of gas reached 75 cents... and even more horrified when it reached a dollar! When I was a kid we could get gas for 25 cents a gallon, and when I got my first car, I could get gas for 30 cents/gallon.

And those damn "chats" he had with the nation wearing those cardigan sweaters used to drive me nuts! The nation was in a very bad way, and I can distinctly recall thinking how much worse can it get! We had double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates - it was insane! I was extremely concerned for the future of our country at that time. And the funny thing is that I thought that Carter was a decent enough guy at the time he took office, but oh how he soon fell so short of expectations. Rather than attempting to buoy our mood, he adopted a "let's get used to how piss poor things are going to be" position and that just drove me nuts. When Reagan came along I was so on board with his message of the innate greatness of America, his optimism about our future (so diametrically different from Carter's pessimism) and I couldn't wait to vote for the guy.

It's funny, because Regan was the governor of California when I first moved there, and was shortly replaced by Jerry (Moonbeam) Brown.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Suffice it to say that I'm an old fart. I remember Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford and believe it or not, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi and Anwar Sadat (and both of the latter two's assassinations).

And while I'm not all that old relatively speaking, I have the stories of my parents which stretch back to the early 20th century when flight was a new thing and not everyone had indoor plumbing and electricity.

It's funny to think that when I was a kid, the word "computer" didn't really exist in the popular lexicon. There were no "wireless" anything. No "cable" TV. Hell, no color TV. For phones, we had "party lines" (some of you youngsters probably don't even know what those were). A "long distance" call was an extremely special and rare event. Just in my brief life we have made so many technological advances that when I think back on it, it blows my mind.

I've gone from typing press releases in triplicate (with carbon paper) and delivering them in person (a task that took an entire day to do), to typing them in Word and delivering them by email in an instant.

You younger ones here have no idea how far we've come in such a short time.

I can actually relate to much of that, believe it or not. I was born after color TV became widespread, but I remember having to walk up to the TV and manually turn the channel knob. Some of my friends had remotes at their house and that struck me as state-of-the-art. Computers have been household items for as long as I can remember, but I remember when the monitors were almost 2 feet deep. CDs became big shortly after I got into music; my tape collection became obsolete. I used a GPS in 1998 that was a big yellow plastic box with buttons on it; now the technology can fit into any cellphone. I remember surfing the net circa 1996 and thinking how much it sucked; there was nothing interesting on it.

I find the 20th century--the century all of us here were born in and came of age in--fascinating, for the unbelievable magnitude of change that swept the world, compared to previous centuries. I wonder if the 21st will make the 20th seem like a time of stasis (or a letdown?) by comparison.

I remember when cell phones were as big as a car.