Secrecy in diplomacy and intelligence-gathering is supposed to protect the nation. But secrecy also protects bad policy . . . including great crimes that undermine our security.
This week, the National Security Archive released onto the Web the first official admission that agents of the United States government brought down — by assassination and violent coup — Iran’s democratically elected president, Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, 60 years ago:
The explicit reference to the CIA’s role appears in a copy of an internal history, The Battle for Iran, dating from the mid-1970s. The agency released a heavily excised version of the account in 1981 . . . but it blacked out all references to TPAJAX, the code name for the U.S.-led operation. Those references appear in the latest release.
The sunsetting of the secrecy provisions on the information finally provides sunlight, transparency, to this crucial moment in history.
Crucial, because it involved public American support for Masaddeq’s successor, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, “the Shah of Iran.” The Shah became quite brutal in his embrace of “modernism” and (this is hard to write with a straight face) “Western values,” including the suppression of religious dissidents. This led to the fundamentalist Muslim backlash, with Mid-East Muslims widely interpreting American intervention and support for the Shah as both imperialistic and anti-Islamic, setting up the current “clash of civilizations” . . . in which neither side ends up looking good.
It’s interesting to note that much of the secrecy about the event not only covered up American crimes, but British ones.
America’s foreign policy seems so un-American. In so many ways.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “The National Confessional”
So,….in 60 more years we’ll be able to learn all the nitty details of the coup we led that kicked out Mubarak and installed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt through rigged elections?
Hard to justify withholding foreign aid for the coup that kicked out Morsi after we couped him in. Except on the principle that borrowing money to then give away to religious zealots that dislike us is hardly rational foreign policy.
…. America’s foreign policy seems so un-American. In so many ways ….
“America’s” foreign policy seems un-American because, for the most part, it is un-American.
As anyone who has ever been associated with it can attest, “America’s” foreign policy is in the hands of the basta*d-offspring of the Soviet-agent Alger Hiss et al-descended Foggy Bottom brahmanas and of that effectively autonomous apparat’s carefully-cloned Foreign(er) Service(ing) lackeys, sycophants and apparatchiks.
As one who (from a 7th-floor office and around the world) worked closely with them and with their 100% corrupted-by-association contractors and suppliers for almost six years and who has closely monitored their activities for decades, let me be unequivocal in saying that with friends like Foggy Bottom’s — who have more buddies in Moscow than in the Mid-West and in Peking than in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Phoenix — America needs no enemies.
Brian Richard Allen
Nicely done, drrik. Well said.
As to Mr. Jacob’s contention that our actions 60 years ago led to the current “clash of civilizations”, I would argue that the islamists started that back in the 1780s, when our newly minted nation came under attack on the seas from the islamists, who had long been doing the same to the European powers before we separated from Britain. Exactly which elements of America’s foreign policy T’d them off back then, Paul?
Actually, the islamists started the “clash of civilizations back in the 7th century. It is naive to think that even pulling all our vast presence out of the middle east- troops, embassies, oil companies and all- and even throwing Israel under the bus, would make any difference. The islamists hate the west, and we are just the current time period’s big target.
I doubt if Mr.Jacobs would disagree that the problems have evolved for more than 60 years. The point is that particular slice of history in many of our life times; what we suspected was interference in another countries internal affairs has finally been admitted. In my opinion each time we interfere we throw more gasoline on the fire.
Harry Truman once said (allegedly)
about Samoza of Nicaragua (and I paraphrase), “Of course he’s an SOB, but at least he’s OUR SOB.”
I’m not sure we will ever be able to clean up the side effects from supporting deranged dictators just because they were not communists.
Why support someone that is just as bad as the communists? I don’t know, and both my WWII era parents are gone, so this is another thing I won’t be able to ask them about.
RE: Samoza–the family SAVED THOUSANDS OF JEWS AND OTHERS FROM THE NAZI DEATH MACHINE,, and wanted to save more, bt FDR said no.
As to Iran–it was (and is ) located in somewhat of a strategic area. AND THE SHAH, for ALL of his shortcomings, did try and have a pluralistic society and pull the country into the 20TH century. The Ayatollahs have succeeded in trying to drag it back down to th7th-probaby 1/2 way there.