Why Iraq? Why Iran?

American Mideast relations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries:

A country song blares over the radio in the year two thousand and six, sung by a man who undoubtedly has little more ‘country’ in him than an oil baron sucking a stoagie in downtown Dallas. “Have you forgotten how you felt that day?” he sings. He refers to the fateful day of 9/11, and refrains, “You can bet the soldiers in Iraq know what they’re fighting for.” And this is a typical understanding of the American intervention in the Middle East. That we are there to prevent further terrorism and defend freedom. That we are there to establish democratic governments and aid the Arab peoples in becoming free, peaceful sustainable societies. It is an unfortunate misunderstanding that so many Americans believe that our invasion of Iraq was a response to 9/11, or that the two were even closely related. This idea is false. Robert Kagan, director for the “Project for a New American Century wrote in 1998 that “Any sustained bombing and missile campaign should be part of an overall political-military strategy aimed at removing Saddam from power.” General Colin Powell stated some time after Saddam Hussein had been deposed that Saddam had no clear ties to terrorism. But to retort the overconfidence of the country singer I heard on the radio the other day, and more importantly this commonly held and incorrect idea, I would like to address the question of why the American military currently occupies Iraq. What are we fighting for? Some would say oil, but even this is to simplistic and singular a reason, though it may contribute to the fact. The real reason that the American military’s presence in the Middle East tops the front of newspapers dates much farther back.

This follows the recent discovery of oil in western Persia (Iran) in 1908. Around this discovery, Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed but soon ran into financial difficulty around the problem of transporting oil from the site to the west. In 1914, just before the start of the First World War, Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill proposed a bill to the British Parliament to buy 51 percent of the floundering Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Anglo-Persian Oil was owned by the British government. In 1916, two diplomats, from Britain and France met and formed the Sykes Picot Agreement, stating that the former Ottoman Empire which had reigned since the sixteen hundreds, and which had been allied with Kaiser Wilhelm, should be divided as spoils among the victors. Modern day Iraq belonged to Britain, and the boundaries set up by them remain more or less the same to this day. The Sykes Picot Agreement states:

"That Great Britain has the right to build, administer, and be sole owner of a railway connecting Haifa with area (B) ... this railway is to facilitate the connexion of Baghdad with Haifa by rail ... There shall be no interior customs barriers between any of the above-mentioned areas."

Now there was a was to get it out, free of Tarriffs, no less. They could supply their battleships and transport vehicles with as much oil as they needed.

However, the Sykes Picot Agreement went against the promise that Britain had made to the Arab peoples for a free and independent Arabia in return for fighting alongside them in the war. Following this agreement, the land which had once been seated at the head of the world for hundreds of year in math, science, government, equality, humanitarian issues and even basic cleanliness was now once again in the hands of foreign colonialists.

In 1917, Anglo-Persian Oil began trading under the name British Petroleum; the name it still holds to this day. During this period following the war, Britain made several attempts to turn Persia into a weak protectorate, or even a territory of the UK. Throughout, it held soul ownership of the Iranian oilfields. Compounding the difficulties of the Iranian people, they were under the brutal dictatorship of the western supported Shahs, who used Savak secret police to kill and torture dissenters. By 1951, the government of Iran had lost so much credence due to allowing the British to take such liberties with their oil, the a coup occurred and Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh was elected as Prime Minister. He immediately nationalized Iran’s oil fields and dissolved the agreement held since 1908 with Brittish Petroleum. Under his government, free press began to emerge, and the tactics of crushing dissent during the former regime ceased. In 1953, however, responding to the nationalizing of Iran’s oil fields, the British government and the CIA under Eisenhower staged a coup d’etat to overthrow the democracy in Iran (Operation AJAX) and reinstate the inhumane but western friendly Shah and regain control of the oil fields. The Iranian people did not respond well. Having already tasted freedom, they did not take well to a brutal United States imposed dictator.

"The monarchy was toppled in Iran on February 11th, 1979 (22nd day of Bahman 1357, Persian calendar). Savak dissolved and the Iranian people, along with the political prisoners, tasted the blossoms of freedom (Bahar-e Azadi) for a few months. The banned and forbidden newspapers, magazines, and books started re-publishing until the religious dictatorship took place and then Savama was created that resembled Savak in different forms of oppression."

More to come.