Democracy for the Middle East? Bah, humbug!"

Firas Al-Atraqchi By Firas Al-Atraqchi
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)

(YellowTimes.org) – Mainstream media, talk shows and online columns in the past few weeks have been festooned with the urgent call to liberate Iraq from dictatorship and install democracy in the region. "Liberating the Iraqi people," we are told, makes for a sound moral and legal argument. "Other Arab nations will become democratic," we are also told.However, to the informed reader and Middle East analyst, the call to liberate Iraq is a thinly veiled hypocrisy that is as much an insult to the intelligence as it is to the people of the region.

History provides ample proof that no undertaking in the Middle East has been for the liberation of the peoples of the region.

Iraq's eastern neighbor, Iran, is perhaps the most illuminating case in point. In 1906, an intelligent, nationalistic, and affluent character by the name of Mohammed Mossadegh worked diligently to bring constitutional reform to Iran. Mossadegh was most concerned with Russo-Anglo attempts to carve up Iran as a chessboard for early twentieth century imperialism. He sought to create a free and stable Iran, free from tyranny and oppression.

In 1951, the Iranian people held their first, and last, truly democratic elections and chose Mossadegh to lead Iran. His first act was to nationalize the oil industry, which had been under British colonial rule.

In 1951, journalist J.H. Carmical, reporting for the New York Times, wrote "Since Anglo-Iranian is owned by British interests, with the British Government holding a majority of the stock, nationalization of the Iranian oil properties would be a severe blow to the British economy." (New York Times Archives, March 25, 1951)

Sensing that it would lose all-important oil revenue, the British government sought U.S. help in staging a coup to overthrow Mossadegh and return the pivotal oil fields to Western control.

On August 19, 1953, the New York Times reported that "there has been considerable speculation here over General Schwarzkopf's recent visit to Iran. He returned to the United States last week after a trip to Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and Iran. State Department officials said the department had arranged for General Schwarzkopf's visits to Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan, but that he had made the Iranian visit on his own initiative 'to meet old friends' there."

The Soviets charged that Schwarzkopf (father to Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf of the Gulf War) had secretly paid 5 million dollars to a General Zahedi who led the coup, and that the CIA and British SIS had helped funnel the funds. It was revealed later (this is all well documented history now) that Iranians covertly working for the CIA and posing as communists harassed Iran's Shiite religious leaders and staged the bombing of a prominent cleric's home in a campaign to turn the country's Islamic religious community against Mossadegh's government.

After much legal wrangling and an initially-failed coup attempt, Mossadegh was ousted on August 20, 1953 and the Shah of Iran once again ruled Iran with an iron grip. Mass executions of Mossadegh loyalists followed as Iran was returned to serfdom and a virtual vassal state.

Rather than protest the overthrow of a democratic institution, an August 6, 1954 New York Times editorial charged that "underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism." Message: Iran got what it deserved for wanting to control its own oil resources!

However, the Shah's hold on Iran was untenable, at best, as Iranian society admired and supported Mossadegh. Consequently, to ensure that no harm would come to the Shah and oil interests in Iran, the CIA and the Israeli Mossad in 1957 began to train, equip, and mentor a new police force in Iran, the Savak, who came to be known as one of the world's most brutal security forces. Its main task was to suppress opposition to the Shah's government and keep the people's political and social knowledge as minimal as possible. Amnesty International would later report that the Savak had the worst human rights record, far outpacing the loathed East German Stasi, and the Soviet KGB.

From an Amnesty International report in 1976: Iran, under the CIA-backed Shah, had "the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran."

What are we to surmise from the above? A democratic election, the first of its kind in the Middle East, is thwarted and overthrown for oil interests. And the result? Less than 25 years later, a fundamentalist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini would rise to power in Iran and extremism would spread throughout the Middle East.

Revolutionary Iran, having overthrown the Shah, would then turn its hatred and bitterness on Israel and the U.S., accusing them, and rightly so, of having supported the Shah's brutal treatment of his own people.

Freedom for the Middle East? Hardly. More like freedom to siphon oil from the Middle East. Ask any Iranian and they will proudly tell you that Mossadegh brought a shining moment to Iran's modern history.Within a year of the Iranian revolution, a war erupted between Iraq (former U.S. "friend" in the region) and Iran.Could this be punishment for overthrowing the Shah?[Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism and Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry.]Firas Al-Atraqchi encourages your comments: fatraqchi@YellowTimes.org

 

IRAQ: 1,000 U.S. Inspectors To Hunt Doomsday Weapons;

Despite calls by U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission Executive Chairman Hans Blix for his weapons inspectors to be allowed back into Iraq, the United States plans to send 1,000 of its own inspectors to Iraq to hunt for weapons of mass destruction, a U.S. defense official told CNN yesterday. The official said the group should be fully operational within weeks.

The deployment of the U.S. team of inspectors -- consisting of military personnel, government intelligence analysts, civilian scientists and private contractors -- is a bid to put more people into the country and undertake a more organized weapons search, based on intelligence leads, CNN reports (CNN.com, April 18).

Former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq Charles Duelfer is already in Baghdad directing the U.S. search for banned weapons, the Washington Times reports (Stewart Stogel, Washington Times, April 18). The United States has enlisted about 10 former U.N. weapons inspectors to help in the search for weapons of mass destruction, a U.S. official said.

Some former U.N. inspectors warned that a slow start to U.S. efforts to find chemical, biological and nuclear arms increases the chances that some could end up in the hands of terrorist groups. "There is pressure to find something pretty quickly, of course," said former chief U.N. inspector Terence Taylor. "I have no doubt something will be found, but it may take a little while."

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. forces are taking steps to ensure the credibility of evidence that may be found, adding that U.S. teams will need assistance from Iraqis with knowledge of the country's arms programs. "It is not like a treasure hunt where you just run around looking everywhere, hoping you find something," he said.

"This is a mammoth effort," said Amy Smithson, director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project at the Henry L. Stimson Center. U.S. forces "need all the help they can get," she said. "Not only are these people well familiar with the tricks that the Iraqi regime has used in the past, but they know the programs, they know the weapons, they know the individuals who were involved and can really be a valuable asset," she added (Reuters/Business Recorder, April 18).

Blix told BBC that although no weapons of mass destruction have been found, it is too early to say whether Iraq is free of them. He said U.N. inspectors found evidence that could be the tip of a hidden iceberg of banned weapons but could also be the remnants of an abandoned program.

"I think that the world would like to have a credible report on the absence or eradication of the program of weapons of mass destruction," he said. If U.N. inspectors returned, they "would be able not only to receive the reports of the Americans and the Brits of what they have found or not found, but ... would be able to corroborate a good deal of this," he said (BBC Online, April 18).

U.N. inspections would have "considerably more credibility" than an operation outside the United Nations, Blix said. "The alliance came as liberator and occupiers, and that can prove to be a disadvantage," he told Der Spiegel. "If its experts now should really discover weapons of mass destruction, their authenticity might be called into question" (Tony Czuczka, Associated Press/Chicago Tribune, April 18).

Retired U.S. intelligence officials yesterday said the U.S. government should be "embarrassed" over the apparent failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "It's going to be very embarrassing when it turns out they have nothing to declare," said former defense intelligence analyst Eugene Betit. Former CIA station chief Ray Close said he is "hoping they will be embarrassed into acknowledging a role for some independent body. And who could it be but the U.N.?" (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo! News, April 18).

Annan Concerned Over Northern Insecurity, Kurdish Land Seizures

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday expressed concern about reports of murder, looting and forced expulsions of Arabs in northern Iraq. Amid reports of widespread intimidation and displacement in and around the city of Kirkuk and in other areas, Annan called for respect for human rights, including the right to live free from intimidation and forced expulsion (U.N. release, April 17).

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sent thousands of Arabs from southern Iraq to the country's predominantly Kurdish north during his rule. Since Kurdish forces entered the area around Kirkuk along with U.S.-British troops, though, Arabs living near Kirkuk have reportedly been receiving eviction notices.

Senior Kurdish officials have said Hussein's bid to make the region's population more heavily Arab was a wrong that must be righted, but they have advocated a gradual, legal and humane approach. Groups of Kurdish militiamen, however, are reportedly taking the matter into their own hands.

"They came and told us we have to leave so that there will be no killing," said an Arab living outside Kirkuk, Khalaf Nasaf I-Shumari (Ilene Prusher, Christian Science Monitor, April 18).

"It was our land," said Khader Rashid Rahim, a Kurdish trader. "Years ago, three of my brothers were killed by Saddam's government. They took all of our property and forcibly moved us away."

"The return of the displaced people has to be done through an orderly process -- hopefully, an international process -- that will take into consideration the rights of all the communities of Kirkuk," said senior Kurdish leader Barham Salih (Borzou Daragahi, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 18).

Confusion Arises Over Leadership In Baghdad

The Chicago Tribune reports confusion over the leadership of the city of Baghdad, with various people declaring themselves to be in charge of the capital. Shiite dissident Mohsen al-Zubaidi, for example, has declared himself the governor of Baghdad and issued a proclamation urging tribal leaders to disarm their followers and cooperate with U.S. forces (Liz Sly, Chicago Tribune, April 18).

Zubaidi is a member of the Iraqi National Congress, which is led by reported U.S. favorite Ahmed Chalabi (Reuters II/Business Recorder, April 18). U.S. officials disavowed any involvement in al-Zubaidi's self-styled Executive Council for the Reconstruction of Baghdad. The Tribune reports that al-Zubaidi has claimed to derive his authority from elections during the past five days involving "important personalities" (Sly, Chicago Tribune).

"We are in dire need of the U.S. government in order to restore peace and order in Baghdad and help the people of Iraq," al-Zubaidi said. "We think the United States of America respects the right of people to rule themselves," he said.

Al-Zubaidi said his council is working to restore power, resume supplies of fuel and cooking gas and set up a radio station (Reuters II/Business Recorder). Chalabi returned to Baghdad Wednesday and yesterday moved into a palace that once belonged to Hussein's son, Uday (Sharon Behn, Washington Times, April 18).

In southern Iraq, British troops were criticized yesterday for reappointing officials from Hussein's party to lead reconstruction efforts in Basra. British forces cited the difficulty of finding qualified people not linked to the old ruling party (Jack Fairweather, London Telegraph, April 18).

Exiled leader Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, the biggest Iraq opposition group, yesterday called on Iraqis to converge Tuesday on the Shiite holy city of Karbala to "oppose any sort of foreign domination and support establishment of an Iraqi government that protects freedom, independence and justice for all Iraqis" (Ali Akbar Dareini, AP/Boston Globe, April 18).