Public Comment

Oh, how our political pundits love to waggle their fingers and lecture autocratic rulers on democracy that we have done so much to undermine. Like the US (Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, .) the Iranians have squandered their precious resources fighting proxy wars and impoverishing their people. 

Let’s begin to examine own dark history in Iranian affairs. In 1953-54 the CIA (and British intelligence) orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's (parliamentary elected) Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had sought to build a true democracy. His major offense against the West was the nationalization of Iran’s oil fields, thereby denying the British (Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.) their control of Iran's chief natural resource.  

The CIA ushered in the demonic Shah of Iran who, as an absolute monarch, bought billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the US, established a vicious secret police (SAVAK) that carried out torture and murder on a wide scale. In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini led the Shia Iranian Revolution hostage taking which further fanned hatred against the US. Teflon President Reagan then generated revenue to support the Contras by selling weapons to Iran. We then enriched our defense contractors by selling weapons to Iraq in its eight war with Iran. 

Not much has changed. It’s a pity Mr. Trump in his latest tweet failed to express similar outrage for the people living under oppressive regimes that we support - in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt to name just a few.