Obama: Between the Shah and a Hard Place on Iranian Election

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

As I noted today on twitter, in 1953 -- under the direction of CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of Theodore Roosevelt) -- the United States overthrew a secular democratically elected President of Iran and replaced him with the Shah.

From that time until the seizing of the hostages and the Iranian Revolution by the Mullahs, the U.S. assisted the Shah in instilling fearful obedience in the Iranian population through SAVAK, whose agents were taught torture techniques by the U.S.

The Shah did little for the poor of Iran and ignored the Mullahs, which -- along with the horrifying reign of SAVAK -- led to the current theocratic state of Iran.

BuzzFlash discussed this a bit back in 2003, including an interview with Stephen Kinzer, author of the brilliant and fascinating "All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror."

Although the Dulles brothers persuaded Eisenhower to authorize the coup because they contended it would limit possible Soviet expansion, the real reason was that the deposed Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was demanding that the British no longer have a unilateral "sovereign" oil concession that they entirely controlled on Iranian soil.

Once again -- and it must warm the cockles of Dick Cheney's battered heart -- it was about the oil.

As a result, since 1979 we have experienced blowback of the most ruinous sort.

If Barack Obama were to forcefully declare the election a likely fraud, the wily Ahmadinejad would use it as a cudgel to whip up lingering resentment over the years of the Shah's cruel rule and the 1953 CIA coup of a democratically elected government.

So President Obama is between the Shah and a hard place.

BuzzFlash supports the Green Revolution, but short of some high-level defections in the military or the ruling Mullahs, this election -- as George W. Bush showed Americans -- is likely to stay stolen.

That is why Obama is playing it low-key, while allowing Secretary of State Clinton and Vice President Biden to make some vague statements about "questions that still have to be answered."

Because of a CIA coup over oil in 1953, and the propping up of the odious, pompous, cruel Shah, Ahmadinejad is hoping that he has checkmated the U.S. and the likely majority of his own population.

There are, no doubt, U.S. "assets" in Iran right now, but unless they've penetrated the highest ranks of the military or the Mullahs, the brute force of power will once again sustain the forces of tyranny, just as it did under the Shah.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

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