IHT:
[Ahmadinejad] went on to list so-called "crimes" stretching back 60 years, including the effort to halt Iran's nuclear program and actions following the Islamic revolution in 1979. Some news reports said Ahmadinejad also demanded that America apologize for its role in supporting the 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh and installed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi who ruled until he was ousted in 1979.
I stand by my initial statement that he needs to apologize for taking hostages. Think that's unreasonable? Well, at least I'm not asking for an apology for the Greco-Persian Wars.
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Stephen Kinzer makes clear in the preface to the 2003 edition of All The Shah's Men that the overthrow of Mossadegh (rejected by Truman, embraced by Eisenhower) resonates very loudly with Iranians still. They feel they have had to endure the Shah and the current theocracy as a result of our actions to overthrow Iran's democratic government.
We must appeal to the Iranian voters as they will choose a new President on June 12th. In part, we must act to "depower" Ahmadinejad. An argument can be made, after all, that he came to power as a response to President Bush offering to aid democratic reform in Iran. Visions of the U.S. actions in 1953 no doubt raced through the minds of normal Iranians. Iranian voters selected the biggest bastard on the electoral list in response.
We need to stay out of Iran's internal political decisions and present ourselves as respectful of Iranian decision and as posing no threat. The hope being that Iranians will feel free to select someone less belligerent and harmful to Iran and the region than Ahmadinejad has proved to be.
Our new President gets this. This is not a case of getting all "mushy" on Iran. The fact is, the Bush approach--ignoring, then threatening--has yielded gains for Iran only. Deflating the current windbag, already much despised by Iranians, opens the way to gains for us. An apology to Iranians, as opposed to Ahmadinejad, for deposing Massadegh would be a small and even appropriate price to pay to achieve our objectives in Iran and the Middle East, including watching Ahmadinejad being voted out of power.
"They feel they have had to endure the Shah and the current theocracy as a result of our actions to overthrow Iran's democratic government."
Fuck that noise. The theocracy can be blamed on nobody but themselves.
All Iranians are complicit in the establishment of the theocracy? I assure you that is not the case. Khomeini gained fame and a following because he was arrested and then exiled by the (our) Shah. That following was not universal, and his revolt was only one part of the society's revolt against the Shah. Khomeini and the clerics seized power; they were not elected to rule.
Moreover, as watching Head Wind at the Freer Gallery on Sunday proved, the Iranians are a long way from listening to and following either the current President or the theocracy. Clearly, love of the theocracy was NOT the motivation for Iranians electing Mohammad Khatami.
The Iranians will free themselves of this rule, we need to allow them to do that rather than interfere. This lesson is quite clear from our history over the past sixty years, including Bush's encouragement for democratic reform.
"All Iranians are complicit in the establishment of the theocracy?"
If the blame lies with either the United States "as result of our actions to overthrow Iran's democratic government" or "All Iranians," then it's All Iranians. It is fucking bullshit to blame actions that occurred 1953 for Iran's 2008 government.
Actions by the British crown in 1774 still affect our government today. The hostage-taking in 1979 affects our approach 29 years later. The current Iraqi government came to power that year, 26 years after Operation Ajax. People hold on to their history and allow it to drive their actions and responses. That seems pretty normal.
It is also normal to resent the actions of an outgroup and blame them more than blaming oneself. Being realists, we have to engage with that condition when we interact with the Iranians. It is fruitless to engage with our image of idealized Iranians when they do not exist. Bush has proved that.
Ahmadinejad is a lame duck. We need to talk past him to the Iranians. An apology for 1953, long desired and still unexpected, would further swing the Iranian public to support for the United States. Again, Head Wind was instructive.
It's actually about time someone asked for an apology for the Persian Wars. (Sorry. Too much Herodotus lately.)
In 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, "The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. ... But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."
Which is very close to, but not quite, an apology. I don't believe the actions of 1953 had a huge effect on the Iranian government of 2008, but it did have a huge effect on the Iranian government of 1953-1979. And there are still people in Iran old enough to remember that. Keep in mind that Iranians took hostages after the United States allowed the Shah to enter the U.S. (for treatment for cancer at the Mayo Clinic). Many Iranians claimed that they feared a U.S.-backed coup and reinstallation of the Shah. I tend to agree that Iran should apologize for the hostage crisis since they had no actual reason to fear that this was true.
But we can be big enough to admit that, even though we thought we were doing the right thing at the time, Operation Ajax was a mistake. It was, after all, the first time in history that the U.S. had removed a democratically elected leader. I'm not a bleeding heart on this issue (or even remotely). I am prepared to defend virtually all of the U.S.'s actions during the Cold War including Vietnam (which was probably a mistake militarily, but for which the U.S. had plenty of justification), Korea, Guatemala, Chile, etc. But there were some occasions where circumstances have shown that we made errors. Operation Ajax was one such.
Most governments are a reaction to the preceding government. In a Democracy, the changes are usually evolutionary, like the U.S. history of the Articles of Federation and the Constitution or the successive French Republics.
Like our Revolution, the Iranians needed a revolution to overthrow a tyranny. That tyranny had to exist in order to create the need for revolution. Khomeini needed the Shah and his repression or the former would not have been arrested and exiled, and his unique ideas on cleric rule would not have had an audience much less a following.
If we had allowed Iranian Democracy to continue, the changes more likely would have been evolutionary. Khomeini would have remained a minor cleric with odd ideas. And the revolution that we and most Iranians have come to resent would never have occurred. Call the revolution an unintended consequence of Operation Ajax, but it is a consequence just the same.
We should also note that the impetus for Operation Ajax came from the the British, not from the Americans. Truman thought the idea was ridiculous. Eisenhower did not. That was perhaps because when Eisenhower came into office the British argument subtly shifted from "Help us get our oil concession back" to "the Russians are coming!"
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