Before the Jihad -- Iran

Countrycompilaters,

Rain, here in Western Florida we have been experiencing weeks of rain.  Midwinter, unmoving, dead center.
In Switzerland, prodded by John Kerry, talks are moving toward what is hoped to be some kind of status-in-place, at least, in devastated Syria.  Another conversation appears to have established at least the first stage of a stand-down between Iran and the West over Iran's production of fissionable materials.  The newly-elected Iranian president Rohani proclaims his countrymen prepared to freeze -- and even in several categories roll back -- Iran's nuclear production.  This appears to be devastating news to the Israelis and the Saudis, who want Iran neutralized.  In fact, diplomatically, this is a moment comparable with Reagan's exchange with Gorbachev during the late eighties that led to the dismantling of the Soviet empire and the end of the Cold War.

Collectively, Americans seem inclined to operate outside their own history.  I was reminded of this last week reading Stephen Kinzer's dual biography The Brothers, a very solid study of the machinations of Allen and John Foster Dulles during the Eisenhower administration.  Kinzer presents the pair as practitioners of "corporate globalism," an unapologetically ruthless promotion of Western commercial interests worldwide.  This translates too often into the interests of Sullivan and Cromwell, the Dulles' law firm -- Kinzer alludes to the ownership by the brothers of large blocs of United Fruit stock prior to the overthrow of Arbenz in Nicaragua and the law firm's involvement with Overseas Consultants, Inc., a consortium of American engineering firms "looking for a country to transform.  They settled on Iran, which the United States viewed as a strategic prize."  Foster separated mankind into "those who are Christians and support free enterprise. and there are the others."  The others were fair game.

Kinzer is kind enough to cite with favor passages from my own book, The Old Boys:  The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA.  Perhaps more than Kinzer, I traced out exactly how the CIA managed in 1953 to convulse the functioning parliamentary system in Iran, drive out the aged prime minister, Muhammad Mossadegh, who had announced his intention to nationalize Iran's oil fields, and leave Iran's resources in the hands of Anglo-Iranian -- a predecessor of British Petroleum -- and a condominium of U.S. oil majors. The unstable Shah, who had fled, returned and in effect turned Iran over to the Americans as a military base and center of operations throughout the Middle East.  His rule was brutal, abetted by SAVAK, the secret police we trained -- many ex-SS technicians were still in the employ of the CIA -- and assisted by experts from Mossad.

This was the CIA's first five-star exhibition in the political action category.  The star turn throughout was performed by Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt's gifted grandson, once a history instructor at Harvard and Cal Tech, who had been roaming the Middle East.  Roosevelt installed Nasser in Egypt and moved on to Iran, where, guided by British planning at MI6,  he slipped in from Baghdad hidden under a blanket in the back seat, picked up $100,000 at the American Embassy, and bribed enough generals and bodybuilders to terrorize the streets and take the country over.

Researching The Old Boys I got to know Kermit Roosevelt well.  By the eighties he had settled into dignified retirement in Georgetown.  By then the Ahatollahs were in charge in Iran.  The hostage crisis and fear of an October Surprise had hardened resentment on both sides. Under Reagan we had been reduced to sending Don  Rumsfeld to Iraq to offer Saddam Hussein -- initially, a CIA asset -- arms and intelligence with which to prosecute his ten-year war of attrition with Iran -- we weren't so skittish about sarin then -- and mistakes at every stage were setting us up for our own series of misbegotten wars.  Roosevelt seemed to anticipate this, and was increasingly depressed.  We talked, a number of times, and mutual friends told me later that once The Old Boys came out, Roosevelt came around, to some extent.  At least the truth was out there.

There is clearly a lot of distrust, on both sides, in Geneva today.  There is obviously opportunity.  Let's hope we take it.

And that the rain lets up.

Cheers,

Burton Hersh