In addressing the question of Iran and how to deal with it, Some believe that two major historical events should guide the actions of the present conduct.
The first is the coup that overthrew Mossadegh’s government in 1953. At the time, Britain’s ire with nationalization of Iran’s oil fields converged with the obsession of the US with the “communist threat” at the dawn of the Cold War, and they jointly engineered the removal of a democratically elected government, albeit a government that had been faltering and governing by improvisation.
As has become common knowledge, the Shah only returned to Tehran from his home in Rome alongside CIA Director Allen Dulles.
Mossadeghism, of course, is different from Khomeinism. The former was weakened above all by the defection and opposition of the Islamists under the leadership of Ayatollah Kashani. This shift had driven Mossadegh to compensate by strengthening ties with the communist Tudeh Party, a move that, in turn, exacerbated American fears around Mossadegh’s “communism.” Yet, two and a half decades later, Khomeinism revitalised this Islamist hostility toward Mossadeghism after having allied with its remnants at the outset of the revolution. Beginning with the resignation of Mehdi Bazargan’s government (the first postrevolutionary government of Iran) just months after its formation, the Mossadeghists were either killed, imprisoned, or marginalised.
Nonetheless, Mossadegh’s overthrow became a deep trauma that plagued the Iranian political consciousness and remains common to many actors and social groups that share little else in common.
As for the second major event, it was Saddam Hussein’s attack on Iran in late summer 1980, which triggered a conflict that would go on for eight years, leaving over a million people dead, costing over 400 billion dollars, and ending with neither side achieving a decisive victory.
The war paradoxically solidified both belligerents. Eager to reclaim the Shatt al-Arab territories that Iraq had lost to Iran with the 1975 Algiers Agreement, Saddam successfully crushed the fundamentalist Shiite opposition to Baath rule, which included the execution of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, and, as demonstrated by the purges at Khuld Hall shortly after he took power, quashed opposition within the Baath Party itself. As for the Iranian authorities, they dealt with the war waged against them as the opportunity they had been waiting for to transition to one-party rule and to dispose of their former companions of convenience like the Mossadeghists and the communists, and to clamp down on ethnic and regional uprisings like those declared by armed groups in Khuzestan (Arabistan) and Iranian Kurdistan.
Accordingly, the capacity to unify a fragmented body- whose fragmentation has been aggravated by Khomeinist rule, which has now been in place for just under half a century- was common to both interventions.
On the other hand, many Iranians, especially after having been subjected to unprecedented repression, now see foreign intervention as a potential solution, if not the only solution; all the more so as cracks have begun to emerge within the boundaries of the regime itself. Here, several compelling arguments emerge, foremost among them the urgent need to end the bloodshed, sever the head of the “Axis of Resistance” rather than merely amputating its limbs, and the opposition’s inability to dislodge this regime and confront its extreme violence. One could also add that historical precedents suggest “Oriental despotism” that rarely leads societies to rise up for freedom, and on the rare occasions when they do, success was often far-fetched.
However, regardless of toppling Mossadegh and Iran’s war with Iraq there are some reasons for caution. Persians make up less than half of Iran’s population, and their relations with the Azerbaijani, Baluchi, Kurdish, Arab, and other minorities are far from harmonious. That is despite Iran’s relative success, historically, in consolidating the national centre and keeping the periphery in its orbit. Many comparable cases suggest that this kind of political system is far more likely to undermine the national fabric than to strengthen it. All of these factors are likely to couple a shift in Iran, especially if it comes through foreign intervention, with civil war, particularly at this Global moment when inflamed identities dominate horizons. We can imagine the serpents could emerge from this Pandora’s box and bite Iran, the region, and the world with waves of refugees and displacement as resources diminish, as well as the repercussions for terrorism, drug trafficking, and the proliferation of whatever enriched uranium and biological and chemical weapons the current regime has diligently nurtured and safeguarded.
Lest we forget, we are speaking about a country of 93 million people that has a surface area of approximately 1.65 million square kilometers- larger than France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and Portugal combined. It shares borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and Iraq; the waters of the Gulf are all that separate Iran from Arab Gulf states, and it is not far from southwestern Russia.
On top of that, there is no unified opposition to the regime. If we set aside talk of oil, the Shah’s pampered son, and, tomorrow, maybe many Rivieras, no alternative project appears to have taken shape, even in the minimal sense.
There is no doubt that the regime engages in blackmail and deliberately stokes panic over catastrophic outcomes instead of preventing them by offering genuine concessions, first to its own people, and second to the world. Nonetheless, advocating intervention, given the harrowing potential repercussions, which would make intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan seem like unqualified successes, calls for counting not to ten, but to a thousand.
