This Sunday, April 28, many Iranians will quietly mark the 73rd anniversary of the election of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1951 as prime minister, the last leader to hold the position courtesy of a democratic election in Iran.
The famed Iranian political figure rose to prominence as part of a national movement to tackle inequalities compounded by the exploitative relationship between the British-owned oil company (then known as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company but today recognised as BP) and the Iranian government.
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His decision days later to nationalise the oil industry prompted the British and American governments to begin plotting for his removal, which they duly achieved in an orchestrated coup in August 1953. This profoundly anti-democratic manoeuvre succeeded in concentrating power in the hands of the authoritarian Shah (the dictator of choice for the West), whose ruthless regime would ultimately provoke an uprising that would empower religious fundamentalists to seize control in 1979, maintaining a firm grip to this day.
As has so often been the case, examinations of history and the root causes of so many conflicts betrays the cynical and fundamentally misleading nature of the narratives we are so often fed by those who would purport to lead us.
For all the talk of the evil Iranian regime, objective analysis of what has transpired over recent days can only lead to the conclusion that it is the leadership of Iran that continues to act in a relatively more responsible manner in a clear effort to resist Israel’s reckless attempts to provoke the Arab state into a conflict that could have dangerous repercussions across the globe.
The past seven months have not merely witnessed Israel launch a genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people, but simultaneously endeavour to antagonise neighbouring Arab peoples by launching illegal murderous attacks in multiple countries - all without any intervention from Israel’s greatest protector, the United States.
The calculated decision to escalate matters by bombing an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria - and killing up to a dozen people in the process - was glossed over by those in the western media and political circles keen to give cover to Netanyahu.
Objective analysis of what has transpired over recent days can only lead to the conclusion that it is the leadership of Iran that continues to act in a relatively more responsible manner in a clear effort to resist Israel’s reckless attempts to provoke the Arab state into a conflict
It continues to be a sobering experience watching prominent liberal personalities in Britain and America fail to raise their voices for the plight of the wretched and oppressed of Palestine, yet history will surely record one of the lowest points as being the moment we realised ‘never again’ came with an asterisk as the official guardians of the victims of the Nazi holocaust at Auschwitz shamefully rallied to the cause of the butchers of Palestine.
Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel left no-one dead, and appears to have been telegraphed to increase the probability of that outcome. Meanwhile, Israel racks up another unspeakable atrocity, killing 11 Palestinian children in a playground, an event prompting little comment from the moral guardians of the West, including Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, who rushed to Israel “to show solidarity” following the retaliatory drone strikes from Iran.
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The unrelenting brutality being visited upon the people of Gaza exposes the moral bankruptcy of those who would seek to proclaim truth and justice to be on the side of the West’s greatest proxy nation in the Middle East. The troubling truth is that Israel is out of control, and this is causing alarm even in Western capitals. It is one thing to continue beating on and murdering Palestinians; quite another to provoke conflict with Iran.
The American political scientist, Samuel Huntington, was wrong about many things, but it is difficult to argue with the accuracy of his observation that “the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion... but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”
The much vaunted rules-based international order is but another means to assist the United States and its allies in pursuing their selfish interests across the globe.
That was the case when the Iranian people’s greatest chance of developing a secular democracy was extinguished by the self-proclaimed defenders of the Free World just over seven decades ago. Everything we are seeing today tells us that little has changed.
