All the reportage about the current Iranian domestic crisis in the ‘Western Press’ is awash in hypocrisy! The record of ‘Western Meddling‘, starting with the Coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh, is irrefutable :
‘Mohammad Mosaddegh[a] (Persian: محمد مصدق; IPA: [mohæmˈmæd(-e) mosædˈdeɣ] ( listen);[b] 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967), was an Iranian politician. He was the head of a democratically elected government,[4][5][6] holding office as the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953, when his government was overthrown in a coup d’état aided by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency and the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service.[7][8]
SAVAK:
SAVAK (Persian: ساواک, short for سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور Sāzemān-e Ettelā’āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar, literally “Organization of National Intelligence and Security”) was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service of Pahlavi dynasty. It was established by Iran’s Mohammad Reza Shah with the help of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Israeli MOSSAD.[1] SAVAK operated from 1957 until the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when the prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar ordered its dissolution during the outbreak of Iranian Revolution. SAVAK has been described as Iran’s “most hated and feared institution” prior to the revolution of 1979 because of its practice of torturing and executing opponents of the Pahlavi regime.[2][3] At its peak, the organization had as many as 60,000 agents serving in its ranks according to one source,[4] although Gholam Reza Afkhami estimates SAVAK staffing at between 4,000 and 6,000.[5]
Or Sepâh?
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) (in Persian: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, translit. Sepâh-e Pâsdârân-e Enghelâb-e Eslâmi, lit. ‘Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution’ or Sepâh for short) is a branch of Iran’s Armed Forces founded after 1979 Revolution.[2] Whereas the regular military (or Artesh) defends Iran’s borders and maintains internal order, according to the Iranian constitution, the Revolutionary Guard (pasdaran) is intended to protect the country’s Islamic Republic system.[3] The Revolutionary Guards state that their role in protecting the Islamic system is preventing foreign interference as well as coups by the military or “deviant movements”.[4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Revolutionary_Guard_Corps
The popular political/economic discontent is a fact, as is the subversion practiced by Western bad actors, who wish to both foment and exploit this crisis for their own ends! America, Israel and their ‘Security Agencies’ are the main bad actors, as are their Neo-Conservative war mongering allies: whose blood lust is as unslakable, as their complete absence of military service, except for Sen. Tom Cotton and Sen. McCain. ‘We are all Iranian dissidents now‘ are the words that will escape this political necromancer’s mouth. Its as tired and shop-worn as his political opportunism. Straight Talk Express?
Political Observer
https://www.ft.com/content/0064cb72-efac-11e7-ac08-07c3086a2625
To all those who replied to my comment: thank you! That my modest polemic has raised the ire of so many FT readers makes my intervention worthwhile . The power of history as reply to the warmongers, who seek war with not just Iran, but with the world, as codified in Huntington’s ‘Clash’, is just Cold War paranoia writ large. In service to the collective hegemonic wet dream of the Foreign Policy Technocrats ,who populate the respectable Think Tanks of both Europe and America. And in America politicians like Cotton and McCain or public intellectuals, Porcine Spartans like Wm. Kristol, Jeffrey Goldberg, Robert Kagan.
What is the difference between SAVAK and Sepâh? One authoritarian regime replaces another? We need to look at the culpability of the West represented by the The Sykes–Picot Agreement and The Balfour Declaration as a continuation of a pernicious European imperialism, not to speak of the European/American interventions in the region since WWII.
If Zionism has legitimacy, why is Political Islam, even in its most radical anti-imperialist iteration, not granted the same legitimacy? Because it dares to assert itself against the Hegemon? Like the Soviets they are not rational political/moral actors, this according to the Cold Warriors of the last century. And the Neo-Conservative/Neo-Liberal alliance that represents today’s political center: in America, the New Democrats and the Republican ultra-nationalists.
Happy New Year,
StephenKMackSD
StephenKMackSD's Blog 