a relevant book review from today's SF Chronicle
Back to Article Review: What's fueled the U.S.-Iran war of words Ruth Rosen Sunday, October 21, 2007
The Iran Agend
The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisi
By Reese Erlic
POLIPOINT PRESS; 192 PAGES; $14.95 PAPERBAC
Some people are treated as pariahs when they tell the truth; later, history lauds them for their courage and convictions. Reese Erlich is one of those truth tellers. In January 2003, before the war in Iraq began, Erlich co-authored "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You," which deftly separated propaganda from reality and implicitly predicted the harsh and chaotic consequences that would result if the United States attacked Iraq. Read it again today and it seems eerily prescient.
Now Erlich has taken on another frightening subject - the story behind the recent war of words between Iran and the United States that could lead to an American military attack on that nation. In "The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis," Erlich investigates the origins of the rhetorical war that now exists between the two nations. Are these words simply meant to shore up their respective domestic audiences, as some have suggested? Perhaps, but that is not the only answer Erlich uncovers as he repeatedly visits Iran to excavate the origins of this recent exchange of threats.
Most Americans know very little about Iranian history, including the fact that Iran is Persian, not Arabic. Also little known is that the CIA funded and engineered a coup in 1953 against Mohammed Mossadegh, a democratically elected leader chosen by Time magazine as Man of the Year just two years earlier. In his place, the United States installed the Shah of Iran, who turned over 50 percent of Iranian oil production to U.S. oil companies.
Iranians have never forgotten that America violated its own democratic principles in order to control Iran's oil. It was against the shah's brutal reign, his lavish conspicuous consumption and his role as an American puppet that large parts of the population staged a coup in 1979 and took over the American Embassy.
When the Bush administration came to power, the goal of many neoconservatives, according to officials who spoke with Erlich, was regime change in Iran - after, that is, they had completed regime change in Iraq. That is why Iran was dubbed part of the "axis of evil." They wanted to topple the current leaders and to install, once again, an American ally who would allow the United States to dominate access to the region's oil.
But, asks Erlich, is it really necessary to dominate an entire region to secure access to energy sources? After all, "the United States can buy those energy resources on international markets, as do other countries. In order to maintain a steady supply of oil, Sweden doesn't unilaterally impose sanctions, prop up dictatorships, or overthrow governments." And, he asks, who benefits from America's aggressive policies? His answer: U.S. so-called "strategic interests" benefit corporations whose profits depend on domination of the region.
Erlich also reminds us that all the fearmongering about Iran's efforts to build a nuclear program masks the fact that the United States aided Iran's race to build nuclear reactors while the shah was in power. A declassified document from Gerald Ford's administration notes that Tehran should "prepare against the time - about 15 years in the future - when Iranian oil production is expected to decline sharply."
In 1967, in fact, Americans helped build Iran's first research reactor at the University of Tehran and even provided Iran with 5.85 kilograms of 93 percent enriched uranium. After the shah was deposed and fell ill, however, he could no longer function as America's ally. From then on, Iran's nuclear program marked the country as a sworn enemy of the United States.
If Erlich is critical of American foreign policy, he is certainly not a supporter of the mullahs or naive about Iran's current leaders. Based on interviews with Iranians, he vividly describes the rampant corruption of government officials, their fierce crackdowns on dissidents, and Friday prayer services at which 10,000 people scream "Death to America." He also reports the hideous impact of Shariah law on women, and the political and intellectual rigidity of a theocratic fundamentalist nation.
At the same time, he observes youth's attraction to all things American, as well as the subterranean power of the waning and hidden opposition movement, both of which should be supported by those who would like to see greater freedom in Iran. Where he is too uncritical is in his discussion of Iran's support of terrorist groups.
In recent months, the rhetoric between Tehran and Washington has escalated dramatically. On Sept. 2, the Sunday Times of London described an American plan for a three-day operation, bombing as many as 1,200 Iranian targets. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently boasted that his country now has 3,000 uranium-enrichment operational centrifuges, which the International Atomic Energy Agency doubts is true.
How much is smoke and mirrors, bluff and rhetoric? I certainly don't know. But "The Iran Agenda" can help readers understand why Iran and the United States may - or may not - soon be involved in yet another war.
Ruth Rosen, the author of the revised and updated book "The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America" (Penguin), is a visiting professor of history and public policy at UC Berkeley.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/21/RVBRS4MH2.DTL
This article appeared on page M - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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