Would It Kill Us to Apologize to Iran for the Coup? Obama & Iran

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/would-it-kill-us-to-apolo_b_163957.html


"When President Obama told al-Arabiya, "if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us," the most widely reported Iranian response was President Ahmedinijad's suggestion that if the U.S. truly wants good relations with Iran, it should begin by apologizing for U.S. "crimes" against Iran, including U.S. support for the coup that overthrew Iranian democracy in 1953.

Not surprisingly, there hasn't exactly been a groundswell of popular support in the United States for President Ahmadinejad's suggestion. Just 11% of U.S. voters think America should apologize for "crimes" against Iran, according to a poll from Rasmussen.

Of course, if you know anything about the United States, you wouldn't leap to the conclusion that Americans, as a country, are a bunch of jerks who can't admit when they've done anything wrong. Occam's Razor suggests a simpler explanation: most Americans have little knowledge about the history of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. As far as they know, the U.S. hasn't done anything wrong. So why should we apologize?

Unfortunately for us, outside our borders U.S. foreign policy isn't judged according to what we know, but according to what our government does and has done. And it is well known in Iran and throughout the Middle East that the U.S. (at the urging of and with the assistance of the UK) organized a coup against the democratically-elected Iranian government of Mohammed Mossaedgh in 1953, in retaliation for Mossaedgh's stubborn insistence that Iran's oil belonged to Iranians. And for the next twenty-five years, the U.S. kept in power a dictatorship in Iran, actions justified in no small measure by the alleged need to protect "our oil" that God had misplaced "under their sand."

........"

The Folly of Attacking Iran: Lessons from History
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJRcOF7rEfQ

They took Americans hostage and used them to put Reagan in power here in the US. Fuck apologies.

us. Possibly more. I can't imagine that was their goal.

The media played up the inability to end the hostage situation daily.

The coup happened back in the '50s. The hostage crisis is a direct result of those actions. Not to mention the SARAK secret police that the CIA set up during the Shahs reign. :eyes:

"...When I was finally out of breath, the hostage taker paused for a moment, and then he leaned into my cell and said, in very good English, ‘You have no right to complain, because you took our whole country hostage in 1953.’”

That story really reinforced to me the connection and the fact that those hostage takers took those hostages not out of nihilistic rage, but for a very specific reason that seemed to make very good sense to them. In 1953, the Iranian people had chased the Shah out, but CIA agents working inside the American embassy in Tehran organized a coup and brought him back. So flash forward to 1979, people of Iran have chased the Shah out again. He has been admitted into the United States.

People in Iran are thinking, “It’s all happening again. CIA agents working in the basement of the American embassy are going to organize a coup, and they’re going to bring the Shah back. We have to prevent 1953 from happening again.” That was the motivation for the hostage taking, although I don’t think any of us really understood that at the time..."

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/78/US_and_Iran.html

They chant down with the USA each year to prevent what? There is quite a load of Hatred there, and I understand why. That doesn't mean we should make nice with them.

Thanks for playing.

What a simplistic world view.

When Iranians put in a government that doesn't rape 16 year-olds before their execution to deny them access to heaven for being a virgin or executing non-of the book religious minorities, I'd seriously consider making amends.

n/t

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Mahmudnizhad

http://www.iranrights.org/english/memorial-case--2990.php

http://www.iran-e-azad.org/english/book_on_women/chapter2.html

http://www.iranian.com/Women/2004/February/Rights/index.html


And look what the current regime does to Homosexuals:



Just because they opposed Bush doesn't make them worthy of an apology. The Hostage crisis insults me because it violated some very basic and old rules on diplomacy. That aside, us apologizing to this regime would justify all these peoples deaths.

Got anything better? AP or UPI?

The hangings in Shiraz were prior to the World Wide Web, so no news sights or Google caches for them.


The hanging of homosexuals is recent and was well covered though -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071902061.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2859606.ece

Some of the more recent executions of women are on the web

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1705231.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5217424.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7516238.stm

I'd say it was a factual and blunt account no?

if we had turned him over to them, this could have been avoided. Time to apologize and pay whatever reparations they think is fair.

friends while the rest of the nation was kept in squalor. :(

I think Madeline Albright came close to apologizing -

"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. 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."

But that's really an explanation, not an apology.

Even so, to take hostages from an embassy seems like a horrible violation of the rules of international diplomacy. I've never worked for the State Dept and haven't studied diplomacy, but it just seems very wrong. And they were wheeling and dealing their own little coup here, helping Reagan get elected.

So, fine, we're even. Let's both apologize.

from both sides would make it even.

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/78/US_and_Iran.html

"...I was recently on a panel in the National Cathedral in Washington, and one of the other panelists – we were talking about Iran – was Bruce Laingen, who had been the chief American diplomat in Iran and was the most prominent figure among the hostages that were held there for 444 days. And I knew that Laingen had become an advocate of reconciliation with Iran, which I consider quite remarkable, considering the ordeal that he suffered, so I wanted to talk to him.

He told me an amazing story. He said, “I had been sitting in my solitary cell as a hostage for about a year, when one day the cell door opens, and there is standing one of the hostage takers, one of my jailers. And all of my rage and my fury built up over one year sitting in that cell just burst out, and I started screaming at him, and I was telling him, ‘You have no right to do this! This is cruel, this is inhumane! These people have done nothing! This is a violation of every law of god and man! You cannot take innocent people hostage!’” He said, “I went on like this for several minutes. When I was finally out of breath, the hostage taker paused for a moment, and then he leaned into my cell and said, in very good English, ‘You have no right to complain, because you took our whole country hostage in 1953.’”

That story really reinforced to me the connection and the fact that those hostage takers took those hostages not out of nihilistic rage, but for a very specific reason that seemed to make very good sense to them. In 1953, the Iranian people had chased the Shah out, but CIA agents working inside the American embassy in Tehran organized a coup and brought him back. So flash forward to 1979, people of Iran have chased the Shah out again. He has been admitted into the United States.

People in Iran are thinking, “It’s all happening again. CIA agents working in the basement of the American embassy are going to organize a coup, and they’re going to bring the Shah back. We have to prevent 1953 from happening again.” That was the motivation for the hostage taking, although I don’t think any of us really understood that at the time. .."

There is no way we're "even" even if being "even" were some kind of ethical measure. :puke:

Try Pepto bismol for the Nausea.


Has the current regime made amends for the TENS of thousands it has murdered?

How many? Got an answer for that?

O. Zero. Big fricking goose egg.

How many thousands were killed by SAVAK? Quite a few.

Give the bone a rest. It's not working.

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over again expecting a different result.

We're not "even". They didn't "hit us back". Get a grip on reality.

I'm more of an symbolic act kind of guy.

made a valid attempt to understand the details of the actions.

Trying to find some sound-bite symbolism while ignoring and/or abusing history is not the way to go.

Actually, it is one of the reasons we took part in the coup of 1953 in the first place. Sloppy thinking, and short-term values. The myopia exhibited in 1953 does seem to have left for some around here.

More's the pity.

and the subesequent coup with the hostage situation in 1979.

I just find it odd that when the Iranian people did overthrow the Coup, they unleashed another wave of terror on the population. I do not support an apology to Iran's current regime, but would support one if they overthrew that regime.

"...President Ahmedinijad's suggestion that if the U.S. truly wants good relations with Iran, it should begin by apologizing for U.S. "crimes" against Iran, including U.S. support for the coup that overthrew Iranian democracy in 1953..."

The only one that I see as unprovoked or unjustified is the Coup which brought back the Shah.

For a start:

The coup
the shah and his crimes
The fueling of the Iraq-Iran-war for nearly a decade, leaving several hundred thousand up to a million dead, (providing arms to both sides, AWACS-data for Saddam (remember Rumsfeld´s buddy Saddam? Brzezinski not objecting to Iraq claiming Khuzestan...)..

btw: This war stabilized the Iranian regime more than anything else. Although Ahmadinedjad might not have thought of this, but all the suffering the religious nuts brought to the Iranian people has an indirect US-connection. Ok, there were other players too, but in your right mind you can´t say, that western arms-sales to both sides could have happened without US-approval.

And today? Admittedly US agents acting inside Iran, fueling ethnic division, backing terrorists/freedom fighters and constantly threatening with war.
Hey, imagine the reversed situation, Iran occupying two of your neighbouring countries, sending personal inside the US to stir troubles, arming and backing hostile militia, trying to strangle your economy...and their best buddy constantly threatening to bomb your nuclear installations - and one of their presidential candidates even threatens to obliterate your country. I think in this case a mere apology wouldn´t do.

I just don't buy into the Iran can do no wrong bullshit. And frankly, I consider the actions of the Shah to be part of the Coup, which was a crime. The rest you list, I consider fair game, and not "crimes".


The current Iranian regime is horrific on women and minorities. I absolutely will not yield anything to those monsters. They got rid of the Shah (plus for them), they humiliated the USA for over a year (revenge on us), and they inflict wounds even now against us as we do against them. Ours and theirs may be slight, but they are inflicted none the less. But I will not have us backing down to them. Crack open a history book yourself and see what they do to Gays, Women, Baha'i believers. Fuck them.

Are you sure you know what you just said?
Why? Because they are sitting on "our" oil?

Where did I say Iran can do no wrong? But rest assured, the US has no moral high ground to judge them. None.
Sure, the Iranian regime is horrific. But it´s existence is linked to US policy. Strange how all this countries wind up worse after US-interventions.
And seeing the language you use and the "ours" and "theirs" mindset that seems to show I somehow doubt you really care for the Iranian people.

created by our coup. Turning our back on the foundation of our country.

And Reagan was headed in regardless of the crisis.

Read Kinzer's All the Shah's Men. An academic work that should be top on the list for all who think "we're even".

And continues to do so. The hostage crisis annoys me as an American, but the tens of thousands murdered by the current regime bother me even more.

part in the process, or has that escaped you?

on the hostage crisis and do not look further into our history with Iran.

Not sure if this link will work, another good book is "The Eagle and the Lion" by James A. Bill, the particular section on the SOFA starts near page 157, the entire book is not online.

http://books.google.com/books?id=FNBpbh-mDcoC&pg=PA158&lpg=PA158&dq=T+Cuyler+Young+%2B+SOFA&source=bl&ots=i0JbGDAY-g&sig=zsn7ljHn6VC76Apz36Hvyln3QOI#PPA159,M1


From an older post, some of the relevant information on reaction to the SOFA

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=357921&mesg_id=357949


Quote below is from page 5...

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj02-2/Zahrani.pdf



"...In October 1964, responding to what he
perceived as a capitulation of national sovereignty,
Ayatollah Khomeini denounced the
adoption by the Majlis of a Status of Forces
Agreement, under which U.S. personnel received
certain legal immunities. His statement
appealed to many Iranians, especially
university students, and the government responded
by arresting and then sending the
ayatollah into exile, first in Turkey and later
Iraq, where he remained until 1978..."


In the book "The Eagle and the Lion" James Bill had this to say.

"Few political observers or scholars of Iran then understood the long term significance of what was happening. One notable exception was T. Cuyler Young of Princeton University who witnessed first-hand in Iran the explosive anti-Americanism that rose in reaction to the SOFA."

"Young's views were brushed aside by the American foreign policy establishment, and the Council on Foreign Relations chose not to publish his excellent manuscript of Iran..."



Ayatollah Khomeini's 1964 Speech Condemning U.S. Immunity

http://www.underthesamesun.org/content/2004/06/ayatollah_khome.html

June 24, 2004

"...As I just posted, Bremer's last act is expected to be bestowing of blanket immunity to U.S. troops and perhaps contractors. "History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce," goes an oft-quoted phrase from Marx. I fail to detect the farce yet but repetition there is a lot of.

So, here's a trip down memory lane with excerpts from Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini's key speech in 1964 condemning a similarly blanket immunity deal the U.S. struck with the Shah of Iran. The very, very popular speech led to Khomeini's exile in Najaf -- marked a turning point in his rise:


...All American military advisers, together with their families, technical and administrative officials, and servants - in short, anyone in any way connected to them - are to enjoy legal immunity with respect to any crime they may commit in Iran! If some American's servant, some American's cook, assassinates your marja'-i taqlid in the middle of the bazaar, or runs over him, the Iranian police do not have the right to apprehend him! Iranian courts do not have the right to judge him! The dossier must be sent to America so that our masters there can decide what is to be done!..."

We've just had eight years of a regime. People spoke with us.

Another word to look into. Perspective.

Stop hanging gays in front of a crowd as they strangle and die? Stop conducting "marriages" for young women to be raped right before their execution to deny them virginity in death? Stop murdering religious minorities by hanging them one at a time and force them to watch?

That would be nice. But no, we should suck up to them and apologize?

Guess my "perspective" sees things you don't want to see or choose to ignore. I was satisfied to call it even at the hostage crisis, but some of the people on this board need the cold reality shoved back into their face. Maybe I'm just over the "Iran hated Bush, so they must be right" people. We should not suck up to that regime. I understand Obama wants to meet with them without conditions, and I guess I'll wait and see.

I have studied history, and I know what we did, not just in Iran, but in South America too. Ever look into just what the Contras did with our help? They bashed babies to death on rocks and cuts the breasts off nursing women so they couldn't nurse their children. All under Saint Ronnie Raygun's watch.


Open your eyes, and stop griping at me because my perspective is different.

and wants to get callouses from drumming the beats for war. The kind of perspective offered is contrary to humanity.

Iran's no innocent. Neither are we. Executing mentally disabled citizens. Denying millions basic civil rights. Starting a war of choice that has led to the death of a million citizens. It's a wonder anyone will speak with us.

I, for one, am glad that people will. Also glad that folks are not drumming away to have us invaded, nuked, or the like.

It is called perspective. Really. It does a body and soul good.

they were a lot safer as guests of the college students.

And giving us 8 years of Reagan.

to have a say in their government, it did not just begin in 1953 as far as the Iranians are concerned.

We erased decades of their struggle with the '53 coup.

n/t

democratically elected representatives are doing?

We were willing to pass judgment on the Afghanis, who have little control over who "represents" them. Enough judgment to kill them for letting the Al-Qaeda enabling Taliban to be in charge of them. bombing their weddings, etc.

Yet we, who picked Bush and the Republics on our own, through a valid vote, shouldn't have to be responsible for what they've done?

back in November, is there anything else they may consider a crime???

Albright says we played a part in the coup and that Eisenhower felt the reasons for the coup were justified for strategic reasons, she then acknowledges that it interrupted the political development of Iran.

Guess it is the difference between an acknowledgment and an apology.

:shrug:

When was that?



Mohammad Mosaddeq and
the 1953 Coup in Iran
Edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne

New Volume Reexamines a Seminal Event
in Modern Middle Eastern History

A Joint U.S.-British Regime-Change Operation in 1953 that Holds Lessons for Today

New Documents Shed Further Light on Secret U.S. Policy

June 22, 2004

For further information Contact
Malcolm Byrne 202/994-7043
mbyrne@gwu.edu
"This book … sheds vital new light on issues that remain crucial to the evolution of U.S.-Iran relations and to continuing questions about unilateralism and secrecy in U.S. foreign policy."

Nikki Keddie, UCLA
"Mark Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne have assembled a stellar array of talented scholars … This is an exceptional collection dealing with a uniquely important event."

Gary Sick, Columbia U.
"This multinational, multiarchival history is a magnificent addition to the literature on post-World War II international history."

Melvyn Leffler, U. of Virginia.

On the morning of August 19, 1953, a crowd of demonstrators operating at the direction of pro-Shah organizers with ties to the CIA made its way from the bazaars of southern Tehran to the center of the city. Joined by military and police forces equipped with tanks, they sacked offices and newspapers aligned with Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and his advisers, as well as the communist Tudeh Party and others opposed to the monarch. By early afternoon, clashes with Mosaddeq supporters were taking place, the fiercest occurring in front of the prime minister's home. Reportedly 200 people were killed in that battle before Mosaddeq escaped over his own roof, only to surrender the following day. At 5:25 p.m., retired General Fazlollah Zahedi, arriving at the radio station on a tank, declared to the nation that with the Shah's blessing he was now the legal prime minister and that his forces were largely in control of the city.

Although official U.S. reports and published accounts described Mosaddeq's overthrow and the shah's restoration to power as inspired and carried out by Iranians, this was far from the full story. Memoirs of key CIA and British intelligence operatives and historical reconstructions of events have long established that a joint U.S.-British covert operation took place in mid-August, which had a crucial impact. Yet, there has continued to be a controversy over who was responsible for the overthrow of the popularly elected Mosaddeq, thanks to accounts by, among others, former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Zahedi's son, who later became a fixture in the Shah's regime. Those versions of events virtually ignored the possibility that any outside actors played a part, claiming instead that the movement to reinstate the Shah was genuine and nationwide in scope.



http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB126/index.htm

Absolutely.

Great suggestion by Ahmedinijad.

Unfortunately, until Americans become better educated that won't be politically feasible. But I hope Obama works on it.

Sound familiar :)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=708887&mesg_id=708887

"No nation in modern history has deposed foreign leaders so often, in so many places so far from its own shores as the United States of America” – Stephen Kinzer

In his book, “Overthrow – America’s history of regime change from Hawaii to Iraq”, Kinzer explores all 14 instances of regime change, overt or covert, by the United States since 1893, including only those episodes where the intended regime change was successful and where the United States played the decisive role, rather than where it acted in concert with other nations or as part of a larger war (as in WW II or the Korean War). The 14 episodes describe regime changes in Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Honduras, Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

This is one of the most enlightening books I’ve ever read, and I believe that it is crucial to the future of our nation and our world that Americans become much more familiar with and learn to think critically about the issues covered by it. Unfortunately, we as a nation have a very long way to go in that regard. Far too many Americans merely accept the explanations provided to them by their government. Indeed, far too many Americans believe that “patriotism” is gauged by the extent to which one accepts their government’s explanations, and that it is “unpatriotic” to question or criticize their government during “war time”. The result of that has been the passive acceptance by too many Americans of immoral and cruel policies and actions perpetrated by our government in our name, throughout the history of our nation. Ours would be a much better nation and world if Americans more often considered the reasons for and consequences of those policies and actions..."

but certainly dialog with them. We are not their enemy or we certainly shouldn't want to be. Maybe in the next 4-8 years we can make it so no one can claim to be our enemy, better for the whole world.

"When President Obama told al-Arabiya, "if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us," the most widely reported Iranian response was President Ahmedinijad's suggestion that if the U.S. truly wants good relations with Iran, it should begin by apologizing for U.S. "crimes" against Iran, including U.S. support for the coup that overthrew Iranian democracy in 1953..."

We should not be their enemy, but our actions and language need to try and "put ourselves in their shoes"

It was one of Eisenhower's worst actions as president IMO. I wonder what he would think of it today, and if he himself would apologize if he were alive?

could have been if Iran continued with a secular leader.

Haiti for a start?

their right to determine their own government and lift the average person from poverty.

Although I would not say it is particularly funny.

7 page pdf

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj02-2/Zahrani.pdf

"Few upheavals in the Middle East have had wider aftershocks than the 1953 coup that overthrew the Iranian nationalist leader Mohammed Mossadeq. As seen by Mossadeq and his National Front Party, the chief issue was Iran’s right to nationalize a British oil giant that held exclusive rights to drilling and selling the country’s petroleum. As seen by the incoming Eisenhower administration
in Washington, something very different was at stake—a possible Soviet takeover in Tehran, its way prepared by Tudeh, the Iranian Communist Party. But to many Iranians, the United States betrayed its own values by covertly joining with Britain to depose an elected leader, and then abetting
the imperial ambitions of Shah Mohammed Pahlevi. For Americans, the unintended result was the rise of political Islam, leading to the 1979 revolution and the present continuing impasse in Iranian-U.S. relations.

Containing communism was the justification for the coup, but by the coldest reckoning the price was excessive. The Shah’s legitimacy was irreparably compromised by owing his throne to Washington. It is a reasonable argument that but for the coup Iran now would be a mature democracy. So traumatic
was the coup’s legacy that when the Shah finally departed in 1979, many Iranians feared a repetition of 1953, which was one of the motives for the student seizure of the U.S. embassy..."

“Life of Dr. Mossadegh”—A Look at the Iranian Leader Overthrown By the U.S.

http://www.democracynow.org/2003/8/25/life_of_dr_mossadegh_a_look


Discussion starts at the 16 minute mark and at the 44 minute mark Amy Goodman plays a segment of an old film from 1985 concerning the coup.

http://www.archive.org/details/dn2003-0825_vid

help me out here...

U.S. Demands Apology for 'Comfort Women'
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12372399

U.S. demands apology from Israel over China arms sales
http://www.observechina.net/info_eng/artshow.asp?ID=4973

US demands apology for UN official’s speech
http://209.85.175.132/search?q=cache:i9pfpPHhOEIJ:www.unaa.org.au/pdf/UNity%2520464.pdf+%22US+demands+apology%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=18#1

Apologise or we'll cut your funding, US envoy tells UN
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article673161.ece

Bush Forced to Make Apology
http://www.china.org.cn/english/international/94822.htm