How Iran fell out with the West
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
CIA didn't admit what they did for decades. Just recently admitted it and the real reason why ("resources"). Not crazy Arabs and their religious agenda: just a result of America doing horrible stuff to innocent people for decades for evil reasons. Admitted it, but no apologies or end to sanctions. Most Americans still read lies in history books. Politicians still screwing with them.
And that's just Iran. I'm sure you can only imagine that the truth behind situation in other Middle Eastern countries is similarly dark and with Western influence. phaedryx's link at least will get you started on this one. Next look up all that funding Bush Sr and CIA gave Saddam and bin Laden while docs warned that it could have "blowback." Can't blame them for later wars or terrorist attacks involving same names, though, can we?
I may be misremembering, but weren't the Americans supporting the crazy religious? At the time, they were considered less scary than the godless communists.
The enemy of my enemy etc...
- Did the Iranians pay market-rate compensation for the nationalization?
- Whose technology and investments made it possible to find and extract the oil to begin with?
- What were the terms of the deal, and in what way were those terms violated (or not) by the foreign oil companies? Is it an 'Iran says so' situation, or is there tangible proof of impropriety regarding the deals?
Suppose for a minute what you're hinting at is the truth: Iran ripped off British oil companies (hah!) in a strange case of reverse-colonialism, and it was totally unfair, and this even affected British civilians.
This still is in no way justification for toppling a democratically elected government and supporting a dictatorship. No matter what, commercial interests do not trump a country's rights. Even if Iran's oil nationalization had been completely unfair, Britain and the US would still be directly responsible for installing a dictatorship and indirectly responsible for Iran's "fall out with the West".
IIRC, it was the British who discovered and worked to extract the oil before oil became such a force in industrialization. When this first happened, oil wasn't that valuable and I believe the usual term was a flat fee per barrel extracted. The agreement was reach before Iran had any form of democratic government. As oil became more valuable in the period before, during, and after WWII, most governments who signed these deals renegotiated these deals once they realized how valuable the oil is. I believe they wanted to be paid based on market price per barrel.
"Legal basis" is a funny term to use when you're dealing with national governments. In truth, there is very little legal foundation for resolving these dispute until recently and even now it's pretty shaky. I mean, who's legal system do you use? It would seem since all this is happening in Iran, it should be Iranian laws. If that's the case, then the nationalization attempt was legal.
What actually happens, however, is that national governments get involved and other forms of leverage is used. I once talked to a lawyer for a major oil company involved with a dispute with Venezuela. The State Department was involved to some extend but at the end of the day, their leverage was their ability to extract the oil. So "legal basis" is usually not something involved in these sorts of disputes because usually the country with the oil has the upper hand in that case.
For example, Exxon getting court orders to try to have $12 billion in Venezuelan assets frozen in 2008. If I recall, Exxon in its case only received 10% of what it asked for in compensation though.
They certainly don't want that. Mainstream media continues to dutifully vilify Iran without context and make it look like our actions are purely self-defense against aggressive, religious nutjobs. Military and spooks continue playing games over there. Problems and potential blowback continue to add up. And so on and so forth.
1. The US organized a coup, removing liberal elected prime minister of Iran to bring back the king Iranians despised and have effectively overthrown. This would change the course of Iranian history forever:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
2. Iran hostage crisis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
3. US support of Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. Even when he started using chemical weapons against both Iran and his own people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...
For an article which wants to find why Iran fell out with the west, it is not merely ignorant to remove the first and most important cause of the current mistrust. It looks very much like propaganda.
"The same shah whom Washington was now trying to shun had been lifted to power in a 1953 coup engineered by the CIA and the British, displacing the elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had had the temerity to nationalise the Iranian oil industry. "
Your average American has never heard of Mossadegh.
Sure, but there's a difference for the US between "conservative elements taking over" in Iran and "conservative elements taking over buoyed on a wave of anti-US feeling directly resulting from the US imposition of an unpopular, brutal regime" in Iran.
http://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Story-Childhood-Marjane-Sat...
http://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-2-The-Story-Return/dp/03757...
He claims government policies bankrupted the country, and they may have contributed heavily, but he neglects to mention the oh-so-subtle truth that Israel and the US pressured Europe to rubber-stamp disconnecting the entire country from the international interbank financial transfer monopoly SWIFT through a slapdash front entity known as 'United Against a Nuclear Iran', billing itself as a "non-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization" whose members included the former director of Mossad, Council on Foreign Relations fellows and Bush's homeland security advisor. SWIFT had previously carefully cultivated a nominally apolitical image, and its director described the move as "unprecedented".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/83a85833-1769-...
You must not have read it very carefully. On page 3 it says:
"Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons."
http://eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/docs/iran_agreement/ir...
Plus the entire agreement talks extensively about scaling back their enrichment, areas of research, and international monitoring.
Here's a nice easy to consume summary:
http://www.bustle.com/articles/97038-what-does-the-iran-deal...
The OP is either being untruthful about having read the agreement, or has some type of agenda and is intending to mislead. Hard to argue that they're making claims in good faith giving out inconsistent their claims are with facts.
I personally have friends living in Iran who tell me that the people of that nation widely believe their government is developing nuclear weapons, and are terrified that this deal will allow them to continue, and I can't say I blame them one bit.
This deal is not going to stop the mullahs from making the bomb. Mark my words.
Not true. Centrifuges are used to make reactor fuel too.
> allowed to keep them
They are being phased out over the next ten years. Under close IAEA scrutiny.
> This deal is not going to stop the mullahs from making the bomb. Mark my words.
You know, it's not just Obama and Kerry who signed off on this, it's China, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany too. The only ones who don't like this deal are the Republicans, Benjamin Netanyahu, and you. And the Republicans reflexively oppose anything Barack Obama supports, so their opinion can pretty much be discounted.
Just out of curiosity, though, what exactly do you suggest we do?
Elsewhere in your response, ad hominem, appeal to authority, appeal to popularity. Come on.
"It basically green-lights Iran's continuing atomic weapons program. I have read the agreement, and there is nothing in there that actually will impede Iran's progress towards creating nuclear weapons."
And that is simply flat-out false. The document does not "green-light" Iran's atomic weapons program, and there is actually quite a lot in there that will impede their progress if they try to cheat.
Most non-proliferation activists, Obama included, have the stated goal of a "world without nuclear weapons", in which the US and Russia also bring their stockpiles down to zero. Superpowers are already wealthy enough to win wars by conventional means, and they have the most to lose from rogue nuclear strikes, so they have strong incentives to work in this direction.
That said the fact of the matter is that the US and Russia do have large nuclear stockpiles, and don't like each other very much, so coordinating simultaneous arms reductions is a tricky game-theoretic dance. Hopefully we'll get there, but it may take a long time. While that progresses, preventing new nuclear powers from springing up is an equally important part of the nonproliferation agenda.
> If you don't want them to have nuclear weapons provide them incentives.
That's exactly what the sanctions regime against Iran has been: a set of incentives engineered so that giving up nukes is in their best interest.
Also unilaterally decreasing the nuclear stockpile from about 5000 right now to say 4000 or 2000 is not really dangerous. If you ever come into a situation where you need more than 2000 nuclear weapons I can't imagine that it makes any real difference whether you have one more or 3000 more. And this would really send a strong message to the other nuclear powers. Russia one, USA one, Russia one, USA one, ... is pretty silly in the current situation. Maybe if there is only a handful left.
Sanctions is exactly what I did not mean. Yes, it provides incentives but absolutely in the wrong way. If you want something you offer something in return, you don't take the other party as a hostage.
Zero nuclear weapons is Obama's goal; it's unfortunately not the formal policy of the US government. Treaty ratifications require Senate approval, which will not be forthcoming anytime soon. Yes, that's a valid criticism of the US political system.
> If you want something you offer something in return, you don't take the other party as a hostage.
What Iran is being offered in return is access to international markets. We -- in the broad sense of all six parties including Russia and China -- are offering to sell them new technology and equipment, invest in their businesses, buy their oil and other products, etc. That kind of commercial relationship is not something that any nation is obligated to offer to another (barring free trade agreements). Iran could keep bumbling along by itself, trading with whatever states are willing. But the incentive of commerce with major, wealthy powers seems to be a strong one.
I'd argue a more apt comparison would be saying "I'll buy your car, but only if you stop waving that gun around".
In any case, the point of foreign policy isn't to be nice or fair; it's to create norms and incentives that lead to a stable and peaceful world. If the international community pays off Iran, above and beyond normalized participation in international commerce, to dismantle its nuclear program, then the incentive is clear for other nations to start such programs in hope of a payoff. Regardless of the fairness arguments (which cut both ways - it's not really "fair" to peaceful nations if Iran gets rewarded and they don't), that is a precedent you don't want to set.
You want something from them, waiver of nuclear weapons to which they have the same right as any existing nuclear power, why would you expect to get this for free? And nuclear programs are expensive, I don't think starting one only because of possible compensations when you stop it would be a worthwhile move.
But let me turn the thing around. Would you say it would be good foreign policy if the rest of the would put an embargo on the USA until the USA dismantles all its nuclear weapons and facilities? If the rest of the world would start sabotaging those weapons and facilities? Ignoring for the argument that the USA is as power
No one has a "right" to nuclear weapons. You can search the Magna Carta, the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the United Nations Charter, etc. No international agreement recognizes any such right. In fact the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran is a party to, does exactly the opposite.
> Would you say it would be good foreign policy if the rest of the would put an embargo on the USA until the USA dismantles all its nuclear weapons and facilities? If the rest of the world would start sabotaging those weapons and facilities?
Anything that forces the current nuclear powers to give up their weapons would be excellent. In the current balance of power, that's unlikely to occur outside of mutual disarmament agreements.
I will point out that it's not like the rest of the world is refraining from sanctioning the US out of some sense of higher morality. International relations is power politics for everyone. Aside from the pure power differential and the economic consequences of refusing US trade, many countries (not all, obviously) benefit from the security of the American military umbrella. Many countries (e.g. much of the EU) refrain from developing their own nuclear programs precisely because of American security guarantees. Those guarantees would still exist in a post-nuclear world, but only if everyone disarms at the same time, which is, again, hard to coordinate.
You have a bit of a point with non-proliferation treatise but they essentially mean that countries voluntarily refrain from spreading nuclear weapons.
And you sidestepped the question about embargoing the USA by discussing it powerful position. I am only arguing that it would be better foreign policy to, for example, offer a discount on oil for 20 years if the USA dismantles its nuclear weapons as opposed to enforcing an oil embargo until they do so.
And party you are saying what I mean, some countries refrain from having nuclear weapons because they got military protection in return which in turn also implies that in some sense possessing nuclear weapons is a good thing. Here the USA is essentially paying for other countries wavering a good thing.
Or compare Russia and Iran. The USA is giving something to Russia in return for the reduction of it's nuclear stockpile namely the reduction of its own nuclear stockpile. Iran on the other hand is not as powerful as the USA and company and so they can bully them to achieve similar goals. This looks like abuse of power to me.
Israel has been very clear that it thinks Iran will drop the bomb on them. Then you'll also find Sunni verses Shia. The region is a powder keg of history.
Israel's real concern is probably that its own nuclear arsenal stops being an absolute trump card that makes it undeterable as soon as any of its regional rivals also has nuclear weapons.
But, you know, that's obviously not the way any government is going to publicly frame their concerns, for obvious reasons.
Ernest Moniz, the US energy secretary who helped negotiate the deal, is a nuclear physicist. US national labs employ many of the world's top nuclear experts, who consulted on the deal. When they, and most of the rest of the world's experts on nuclear physics and nuclear policy, say this is a good deal (http://www.vox.com/2015/4/2/8337347/iran-deal-good), I'm inclined to think it has some merit. Could it be flawed? Sure. But you need a better argument than "OMG it lets them keep some centrifuges".
Glad to know that your knowledge is more than CIA even (sarcasm), as they already admitted that:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/cia-admits-role...