Response to Showdown with Iran video

Iran

The United States has interfered in Iranian affairs since the 1950s, and the resutls have been nothing less than catastrophic. Although the PBS Frontline video "Showdown in Iran" does not delve too much into the history of U.S.-Iranian relations in the 20th century, the producers do illustrate clearer than any mainstream media report that Iran was one of the key objectives and motivators for the post 9/11 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent political and military campaigns. The United States demonstrates an increasing ignorance about the region over the course of decades of interactions. Rather than became more knowledgeable about the differences between Sunni and Shi'a Islam, the United States has appeared embarrassingly ignorant to the point of botching foreign policy and military strategy completely. Moreover, American advisors interwiewed for the Frontline production point out how their advice fell on deaf ears. The American position comes out looking fully ridiculous. The American public intention to "install democracy" in Iraq and worse yet, in Iran, have appeared crazy to all but those who sympathize with the Bush administration. How the United States could be so blatantly ignorant about the cultural nuances in Mesopotamia and the entire region comes across as being more outrageous than the conspiracy theories the Iranians have spread over the course of the last thirty years.

1) Do you agree that the U.S. efforts to install democracy in Iran have served the Iranian interests? If yes why? And if Not why?

The Frontline video shows how the American position was built almost entirely on propaganda. The United States took full advantage of their position as victim after September 11, 2001. Even Iran, as Frontline shows, became sympathetic to the American cause. The Iranian hard lined government, led by religious conservatives and theocrats that unite under the Ayatollah Khomenie, had preached "death to America" every Friday at Muslim prayer every week since the Iranian Revolution. Yet immediately after September 11, the Iranian position shifted to one that may have seemed surprisingly conciliatory.

Because the Iranian government and the Iranian people had much to fear from the Taliban themselves, the Iranians offered their full support to the United States in the effort to defeat the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. As far as Iran was concerned, the "enemy of my enemy can be my friend."

The Iranian government therefore took a surprisingly pro-American stance immediately after September 11. It may have been the first time the Iranians acted or at least seemed to act on behalf of the Americans since the Shah. The Iranian government actually gave access to the American military with their border with Afghanistan. The Iranians also offered intelligence that aided the American effort to root out Taliban leaders. However, this was not enough for the Americans. As the Deputy Secretary of State claims, the Iranians seemed to be hiding something -- particularly about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

Without telling Frontline exactly what intelligence the American government had that would have led them to believe that the Iranians were pulling the pool over the eys of the Americans, the official position was that the Iranians were lying even though they had just aided the Americans. So, President bush delivered his outrageous and inflammatory speech about the "Axis of Evil," a speech which not only flew in the face of the true fact that the Iranians had just helped the United States in their fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. President Bush's speech also glavanized the Iranian public to hate the United States even more than it did before. The United States had once tried to impose its worldview on the Iranians via the installation of puppet regimes there -- just as it had done in Central and South America. Only now, the United States was trying to weasel its way into the region under the spurious guise of trying to help the Iraqi people oust Saddam Hussein.

The United States attempted to impose democracy as a Western ideology with Western values and Western methodologies on a people, a nation, a religion, and a region, that was deeply suspicious if not outright hostile towards the West. Moreover, the hostility was not completely unfounded. The people of the Middle East had been colonized by Ottoman and then Western powers for centuries. The idea that the United States knew what was best for the people of either Iran or Iraq seems incredibly arrogant to any outsider.

Official and propaganda-basesd American stances claimed that the imposition of democracy would have a "positive influence" on other states in the Middle East. The idea was -- on paper -- to "empower" Tehran to push for a different political order. What the United States failed to understand was that the Middle East was far from being homogeneous.

As one individual interviewed in the Frontline video states, it was a "nice idea" but one that was "completely out of touch with the way Iranian politics works," and was also therefore "completely out of touch with the region." The Americans viewed the issue as an old scholl nation-state problem when in fact Sunni and Shi'a divisions went far deeper than the political boundaries that were artificially imposed by the European colonial powers post-World War II. The President Bush propaganda proclaimed a means of presenting a "dramatic and inspiring example for freedom for other nations in the region" if Iraq would embrace American-style democracy and be forever subservient to the Western power.

2) With respect to the current war in Iraq what roles does Iran play in this conflict?

Iran plays a major role in the current conflict, vis-a-vis the United States and in fact, directly enabled by the United States. Iran was supporting the insurgency, due to long-standing Sunni and Shi- conflicts that left the Shi'a Muslim minorities marginalized in southern Iraq. What the United States failed to understand ws the Iranians were poised to aid the downfall of Saddam Hussein because it was in their best interests as well as that of the United States.

Iran never pretended to be anything but that which it already was; a conservative pro-Islam, "modern theocracy." The people of Iran never claimed to want a Wester-style democracy. It would not be the will of the people, ironically. The United States needs to understand that the will of the people --a democratically elected government -- would be one that was in fact theocratic.

Saddam Hussein had been suppressing, oppressing, and persecuting Shi'ia Muslims for decades, which is why the Iranians supported the American invasion in the first place. After the Americans managed to topple Saddam Hussein, the government should have left rather than create a crazy and unnecessary occupation. When it became clear that the Americans were simply using the Iranians, and had no intentions of forging long-lasting diplomatic relations with the country, Iran took matters into their own hands. After years of being shafted by the Americans -- believing their lies and falling pray to their propaganda -- the Iranians decided to back the people they knew were truly loyal. Those people happened to be the Shi-ia Muslims in Southern Iraq. The Shi -- a Muslims in Southern Iraq started to flee in droves to Iran after the downfall of Saddam Hussein because in Iran they had safe haven.

Saddam hussein was the "lid" under which ethnic tensions were boiling in Iraq. At first Iran was fearful to an American retaliation. Then, a rigid theocratic and anti-American sentiment ousted the centrist reformist Iranian government that was poised to make peace with the United States. Under the new President Achmedinijad, who was readily blessed by the Ayatollah Khomenieh, the Iraqi insurgency received liberal funding.

The Iranians were unabashedly supporting the Shi'ia insurgency in Iraq, given the Americans plenty of grief. Therefore, the Iranians lived up to their reputation -- it was a self-fulfilling prophesy on the part of the Americans who had set out to paint Iran as the bad guys. Now Iran lived up to their reputation.

3) Tracking the tension between United States and Iran: What are best/worst case scenarios facing the two countries against each other.