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.