Meditation on Iran
Yeah, I lied
So the article on Socialism is taking far more effort than I anticipated (should I be surprised? No). In the meantime (if it ever gets done) I have a brief outpouring of thought about Iran.
For a fairly long time, Iran did it’s own thing. They ruled themselves, and were fine. During World War II, they predicted that Germany would win, and were accordingly swept up and occupied by Britain and Russia. In 1943, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill issued the Tehran Declaration to guarantee the post-war independence and boundaries of Iran.
In 1951, the prime minister (not the Shah) of Iran got the parliament to vote to nationalize (the government would take control of) a major British oil company. Britain established a blockade to try to prevent it, and it didn’t work. The prime minister (after a short stint out of power) briefly exiled the Shah before the M16 and CIA staged a coup and ousted him, restoring the Shah.
After this, the Shah began a series of reforms later known as the White Revolution in an effort to modernize the nation, taking it from what had effectively been a semi-modern feudal system with some more advanced ruling political structures to a more modern nation with large land owners and many workers in cities. This led to widespread dissatisfaction as huge numbers of former farmers were put out of work and the nation struggled to shift from a medieval system to a modern one.
The large number of working class people whose livelihoods fell apart during these reforms gathered to protest, and the Iranian Revolution - spearheaded (to some extent, Khomeini was at the time in exile) by Ruholla Khomeini - gathered active support from about 10% of the population of Iran (most revolutions only gather about 1%). The Shah fled, Khomeini returned and overthrew the interim government, after which he established the theocratic Islamic “Republic” with himself as the supreme leader.
Khomeini rose to power supported by the “Shia Ulama” (religious scholars) who were afraid that classes - such as the peasantry and women - who had not previously had access to government positions would steal their places, and that their lands (the Shia were often major landholders) would be distributed to the peasantry. This led to Khomeini severely restricting the personal freedoms of Iranians and establishing an extremely theocratic rule. Before the revolution, Iranians enjoyed freedom of dress, mixed-gender socializing, expression of secular lifestyle, and had freedom of speech, press, and assembly - all of which was lost.
Now that we’ve established the context of modern Iran…should the United States be intervening?
The United States has two “declared” purposes in Iran: to prevent Iran gaining nuclear weapons, and to protect American interests (read: oil shipments) in the Middle East.
The first of these, in my opinion, is justifiable. Iran has been attempting to create weapons of mass destruction for decades, and while I am not opposed to nations having nuclear arsenals for the purpose of safety via mutually assured destruction, I do not trust the current Iranian administration with those weapons.
Now, many people have raised the point: “we’ve been told Iran is close to nuclear weapons for decades now, and it hasn’t happened! We shouldn’t worry.”
Do you think Iran has stopped trying to create these weapons? The only reason they don’t have them is because the US continues to attack and destroy Iranian nuclear facilities. Is this a long term solution? While theoretically it could be, it should not be and will cause even more problems in the future than it already has.
The protection of American interests is debatable at best - and the threat that “a civilization will die tonight” (thank you for another very carefully considered, well-thought-out statement, Mr. President) is absolutely out of proportion for the fact that our gas prices have risen a dollar.
The problem is that the current Iranian administration is not a nation that wishes to function within the modern world. While they have every right (I will go into this in a little more detail, don’t take this fully at face value) to dictate what goes on within their borders, they shouldn’t be able to simply blockade the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt international trade.
As for boots on the ground and the missiles the US and Israel have been firing at Iran, that’s a whole new can of worms. One primary concern has been the bombing of a school in Minab, where it is approximated 40 schoolgirls between the ages of 7 and 12 were killed. Israel stated that they were not aware of any operations in the area, and the United States, while conducting an investigation, has not made any official statement (although insider rumors seems to say that it was a US missile.)
This should not happen. The US has held itself as the higher standard for warfare, and while that image was damaged by the Vietnam War, has held true to some extent. On the flipside, some Iranians have complained that ultimately the deaths were the fault of the Iranian government, saying:
“People have no shelters, the internet is cut, phone lines are down, and there has been no warning to keep children out of school. In these conditions, the minimum requirement should be to stay at home.”
Some have said that the US is a war machine, and that between it and Iran, it is not the lesser of two evils. While I acknowledge that the United States has been part of many wars in its time, let’s reflect on the Iranian Protests earlier this year, where Khomeini had between 6,500 and 43,000 people shot in the street while they called for reform (the numbers vary widely - the Iranian government states around 3,117 people were killed, while other prominent Iranian organizations put the number far higher, between 25 and 36 thousand, and outside human rights associations place it in the tens of thousands. Regardless, the fact that the Iranian government itself acknowledges they killed thousands of people in the streets should be a warning sign.)
At the present moment, we exist in a fragile ceasefire, with the Strait of Hormuz blocked (or simply avoided by ships) and the United States holding a full blockade - the price of medicine has now risen by 400% in Iran.
Should the United States put boots on the ground and try to establish some form of democracy in Iran? It didn’t work in Afghanistan, and there seems to be no reason it should work in Iran either. Immense loss of life on both sides is inevitable should we try to do so - Iran is a cornered rat, and those loyal to the regime will fight tooth and nail to the end, with nothing to lose.
Unfortunately, I think that the best policy at the present moment is to let well enough alone. While it seems the younger Khomeini is walking in the steps of his father, we aren’t sure yet, and he hasn’t been in power long (he is currently recovering from injuries sustained during US and Israeli strikes, and hasn’t had much opportunity to exercise his authority). Should we see an actual attempt at nuclear weapons again, then perhaps we can intervene. But it seems that the Iranian people are starting to become fed up with their old rulers, and that perhaps we should let them have the chance to take matters into their own hands, instead of leaving them to cower in their shelters as our (AI-guided, apparently inaccurate) missiles fly overhead.
