Earlier this month the United States assassinated
senior Iranian General Qassem Suleimani
claiming he was undermining security
But does the United States really care about democracy and good governance in the middle east?
Suleimani was Iran’s second most prominent
public figure and was the commander of the
Quds Force, the extra-territorial wing of
the country’s revolutionary guard or IRGC.
a bit like the SAS, just a lot bigger, with
its own ballistic missile program and….
aviator sunglasses, lots of them.
Suleimani was killed because the United States
claimed it had information revealing imminent
attacks against American targets.
And  yet there’s little to confirm that - indeed
the hit has so far only escalated tensions
in the region - but you might have noticed
that even those critical of the action did
a lot of  throat clearing regarding
Suleimani saying he was ‘not a good guy’.
I’m not here to deny that. After all this
is a career soldier who specialised in proxy
wars and covert operations - he was loved
and revered by some, hated by others - think
Napoleon, Alexander or jack nicholson in a
few good men.
You can’t handle the truth!
What is more he was an extension of Iranian
foreign policy
in the region which many view as being at
odds with democracy and human rights.
But here’s the thing: Suleimani might have
been a ‘bad guy’
but he wasn’t all that different
from any of about five dozen current
and former American politicians and bureaucrats
—
indeed if anything,
he was considerably more restrained in the
use of force.
Yes, he was involved in a lot of bloody wars
—
but so has every US president since 2000,
and besides,
most of the wars he fought in were started
or fuelled by America.
If he is liable for extra-legal execution
where would we draw the line?
Hypocrisy? You bet.
But does that explain why so many Iranians
dislike the West?
Iran has experienced significant protest in
recent months,
but the response to Suleimani’s death has
been nationwide mourning
in a huge display of Iranian nationalism..
One which is far stronger and more anti-colonial
in content than many on both sides of the
Atlantic can begin to comprehend.
The question is why?
To answer that you have to go back 1901 when
William Knox D’Arcy first negotiated an
oil concession with the Shah of what was then
called Persia,
Mozaffar al-Din.
In exchange for exclusive rights to prospect
for oil across most of the country for the
next six decades, the Shah received £20,000
(£2m in today’s prices), an equal amount
of equity in D’Arcy’s company and 16%
of any future profits.
By 1908 it had become clear that this was
an astonishing deal for the Englishman and
within a few decades the refinery at Abadan,
in south Iran, would be the single largest
in the world. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company,
the predecessor of today’s British Petroleum,
was now a global energy giant.
But despite tapping such extraordinary abundance,
the people of Iran saw little return for this
geological good fortune. By WW2 the British
exchequer received more money through taxes
paid by what was then the Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company than Iran itself did in royalties.
This is for oil in their own country - it’s
kind of like a football agent demanding they
represent the next bright thing and then taking
home more of their paycheck than the player
themselves.
Oh come on!
This is important when considering the post-war
welfare state,
because while Britain could have built it
without foreign oil,
as was the case with Sweden for instance,
it would have been unable to do so
whilst both maintaining its global military
reach
and reducing it’s national debt.
Furthermore the strategic importance of Iran’s
oil went beyond just the UK.
A report published by the US state department
in 1951 noted that the loss of the country’s
oil on the world market would significantly
impact Europe’s economic recovery, which
was a problem given the prospect of Moscow’s
rising influence on the continent. Of even
greater concern, however, were projections
regarding a crisis based on the loss of Middle
Eastern oil altogether – a very real possibility
given growing nationalist sentiment in the
region and the demise of Europe’s empires.
For Washington this would make European rearmament,
something of critical importance in arresting
the spread of communism, impossible and would
force “profound changes” in the economic
structure of key allies in the recently formed
NATO.
Little of this concerned Iran’s new National
Front, a political party led by Dr Mohammed
Mossadegh that fused national-popular, liberal
and social democratic forces around nationalising
the country’s oil. When word reached Tehran
in 1950 that the threat of precisely that
had persuaded the Arabian American Oil Company
(ARAMCO) to a profit-sharing agreement of
50/50 with Saudi Arabia, it seemed inarguable
that Iran should follow suit.
But there was a problem: with far less money
than the US, Britain had no interest in a
similar arrangement regarding what was then
the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. With defence
spending above 10% of GDP, and domestic politics
requiring greater government intervention
than nearly ever before, Britain just couldn’t
afford to renounce these massive resource
revenues.
In February 1950 Mossadegh, along with seven
other members of the National Front, were
elected to the Majlis – Iran’s parliament.
That November the Majlis’ Oil Committee,
now headed by Mossadegh, recommended the rejection
of the ‘Oil Supplemental Program’, a proposal
designed to defuse the argument for full nationalisation.
Mossadegh’s manoeuvring was opposed by the
new prime minister, Ali Razmara, an establishment
voice who was against national ownership.
In March that year Razmara told the Majlis
that Iran was incapable of running its own
oil industry – three days later he was assassinated
by a young militant attached to the Fada’iyan-e
Islam. From there events moved quickly with
the impetus shifting behind the nationalisation
movement decisively. That march, the Majlis
overwhelmingly approved the ‘Oil Nationalisation
Plan’ before the Senate ratified it two
days later. By late April Mossadegh had been
chosen as the country’s new prime minister.
Oil nationalisation and Mossadegh’s elevation
should have been a founding moment for a modern,
democratic Iran. Here was the emergence of
something that Britain and the United States
have always since claimed that they want:
a democratic government based on principles
of constitutionalism and national sovereignty.
There was still a monarch, Shah Reza Pahlavi,
but he was subject to the rule of law and
constitutional monarchy - a bit like the Queen
is in Britain today.
Furthermore Mossadegh, previously a lawyer,
was secularly minded and would in time oversee
land reform, the introduction of social security
and a deeper separation of powers.
Yet the response from Britain’s Labour government,
which had embarked on a pretty similar agenda
at home, might sound familiar: they threatened
legal action against anyone who purchased
oil from and refined in Iran. As a result
the country’s industry came to a halt and
after several failed attempts to reach a compromise
Dean Acheson, then US Secretary of State,
concluded that the British were “determined
on a rule-or-ruin policy in Iran.”
American indifference meant Iran’s fragile
experiment in self-government briefly endured,
but that changed with the election of Dwight
Eisenhower in 1952. After entering the White
House the following January, Winston Churchill
persuaded him that Mossadegh – while a secular
liberal – would have to work with the country’s
Moscow-aligned Tudeh party. Consequently the
two men agreed to remove him through what
would be come to be known as ‘Operation
Ajax’, an ultimately successful coup funded
and coordinated by the CIA with British involvement.
That meant re-centralising power in the unelected
monarch Shah Reza Pahlavi, unwittingly laying
the foundations for the country’s Islamic
Revolution that would remove him in 1979.
Confronted with a rising nation, whose pursuit
of self-government and public ownership was
perceived to be at odds with their national
interests, Britain and America removed an
elected leader and empowered an autocrat.
It wouldn’t be the last time.
And Mossadegh? He was sentenced to three years
solitary confinement in 1953 - after which
he remained under house arrest until 1967.
Because of fears of how his funeral might
be politically received, he was denied a public
funeral and buried in his living room.
To understand the revolution in 1979, which
brought to power a repressive regime which,
yes, is anti-colonial in nature (you can be
both things) you have to understand the removal
of Mossadegh by the great powers two and a
half decades earlier. Britain and America
demonstrated that self-government would not
be tolerated and that their calls for democracy
in the middle east were hollow and hypocritical.
So when people say Suleimani was a ‘bad
person’ - maybe. The thing is, the west
undermines, removes and even kills the good
ones too. Until that ends it has no moral
high ground and rather than serve the cause
of democracy it will sabotage it.
