The most strategically well-placed country in the Middle East is going nuclear, its president is a fiend and America is the most selfless country on God’s green earth. The Iranian people are crying silently on the inside. Right? Even if you believe this, you should know that the Iranian people do not want the U.S. to intervene on their behalf. They remember the last time it happened.
In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, arrived in Tehran. He spent nearly a million dollars to pay crowds in poor south Tehran to march in protest and bribed newspaper editors to run disparaging headlines of the Iranian Prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Four days later, Mossadegh, a Mahatma Ghandi-like figure of international independence, was ousted in a coup d’etat organized and carried out by the CIA and MI-6. An oppressive puppet Shah was installed to manage the country.
Even if you adopt the notion that Iranians may not know what’s good for them and that they should be helped against their wishes, you should note that this particular event is remembered by most educated Iranian youths as one of the most shameful events in Iran’s history.
Mossadegh, who had a Swiss education, opened the Iranian presses and supported womens’ rights. He nationalized Iran’s oil and gave the profits to the people. It could be said that the Iranian people were, for a time, effectively governed by their own elected representatives. He was revered as a hero and the U.S. took him away and put him in a prison cell.
As a thank you for the Westerners’ “helpful” intervention in 1953, Iranians threw out the Shah in the Revolution of 1979, then stormed the U.S. embassy and took it hostage. The lesson to be learned from this is that “intervention” should not be forced upon a people, as it will likely be reciprocated in kind.
Most importantly, the threat of regime change by U.S. intervention endangers nearly all of the efforts that reformist Iranians have made in recent years. It gives the theocratic government an excuse to crack down on internal opposition, which is finally gaining traction.
Out of defense of nationalism, even progressive Iranians will overlook their resentment of the regime and stand behind their unpopular leaders, as they did in 1980, when coming off the heels of a rushed revolution, they were assailed by a U.S.-backed war against them from Iraq. They had no choice but to put governmental issues on hold until their country was protected.
If you expect reform in Iran, the best course of action is to wait. Iran must be allowed a peaceful transition to a democratic government that represents the will of the people, and it must come from within.
