Trump’s State Department spent over $1m in Iran to exploit unrest for ‘regime change’, documents reveal
At
the end of 2017, a dozen cities across Iran, including the capital
Tehran, were rocked by spontaneous protests which continued into the
New Year. What role did the United States play?
Part
9 - Using human rights to promote monarchy
While
the US government routinely uses Iran’s abysmal human rights record
as a core justification for its anti-regime efforts, its alliance
with similarly abusive Gulf regimes like Saudi Arabia – in the name
of isolating and weakening the Iranian regime – discredits the idea
that US policy is genuinely motivated by humanitarian or democratic
considerations.
Longstanding
US interests in Iran are candidly described in a 1977 research
memorandum published by the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies
Institute, authored by then SSI analyst and Iran specialist, Dr.
Robert Ghobad Irani.
“In
terms of population, resources, land, and power potential, Iran and
Saudi Arabia remain the two principal centers of power in the Persian
Gulf area, with Iran clearly being in the leading position. The
principal significance of Iran and Saudi Arabia lies in their huge
oil reserves and tremendous oil production. The Gulf area contains
approximately 70 percent of the known oil reserves of the Western
World and presently produces about 30 percent of the Western World’s
annual oil supply. The main producers are Iran and Saudi Arabia.”
The
memorandum goes on to highlight the need for the US to support a
specific brand of pro-Western leadership:
“Ideally,
both the United States and the USSR must improve their understanding
of the rapid and complex changes that are taking place in the Gulf
area. They should mutually agree to encourage moderate, pragmatic,
and farsighted leaders in the area.”
That
rules out real democracy. The memorandum celebrated the overthrow of
the democratically-elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh,
lamenting that his government oversaw “the nationalization of
the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company”; and welcomed the “return
to power” of the previously deposed monarch, the Shah – which
was, we now know, covertly orchestrated by a coup backed by MI6 and
the CIA.
According
to Amnesty International in 1975, the Shah’s Iran retained “the
highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of
civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief.”
This was not considered a problem for US strategy.
“Iran
will remain the pivotal center of power in this area, followed by
Saudi Arabia. As such, Tehran and Riyadh, assisted by the West, will
play decisive roles in maintaining a promonarchial balance of power
in the Gulf region,” the US Army SSI paper said. “As long
as these two major regional powers remain moderate, pro-Western, and
anti-Communist, the balance of power in the Gulf area will also
remain favorable to the West.”
This US
vision was dramatically overturned two years later under the 1979
revolution.
But the
US government’s favouritism toward undemocratic solutions has not
waned. In early 2017, the son of the late Shah, Reza Pahlavi, was
broadcast into Iran via the US government-funded VOA and Radio Farda,
advocating the idea of “peaceful regime change,” through
protest and civil disobedience.
Such
pro-Shah Western broadcasting offers few if any criticisms of the
repressions and inequality of the era, instead romanticizing it as a
glorious past.
Pahlavi
had previously written formally to Trump to congratulate him on
winning the 2016 elections.
It is
not entirely surprising then that in the recent demonstrations, many
protestors across Iran chanted pro-Shah slogans calling for the
re-instatement of monarchical rule, such as “Reza Shah, rest in
peace”, “What a mistake we made by taking part in the revolution”
and “Bring back the Shah”.
Insight:
US ‘democracy promotion’ activities in Iran have pro-Shah
leanings which have resulted in many Iranian protestors calling for a
return of the monarchy. This suggests that US propaganda has had a
degree of success in influencing the sentiments of a significant
proportion of protestors.
The
Trump administration has adopted an approach to Iran which appears
designed to justify a more militarized strategy, aimed at weakening –
and ultimately toppling – the incumbent regime. Generating a
justification to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal seems to be a core
component of this strategy.
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