Carter blames Israel for Mideast conflict

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One of Reagan's most famous slogans "Trust but verify..." seems to fly straight in the face of Carter's very trusting core belief system. The diplomatic deal with Kim Jong-Il seems to be an outgrowth of the opposite philosophy, for which Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize. ....

george

I'm afraid I am without sufficient knowledge of the period (and as regards some related issues) to competently argue with you re the points you've made. Of course, as blue notes, sympathy for the Shah is rather hard to dredge up. On the other hand, and really quite like one can observe and appreciate the marketing campaign for Apple computers, one can see how effective the Reagan myth-machine was/is and a necessary element of that is (must be) the corollary derogation of Carter. I think there's no question that the present President will have overseen a watch far more damaging and incompetent and it strikes me that perhaps you guys ought to cease putting evangelists in office.

By the way, for the last week, I've been saying nice things about your Pope. It's a rare behavior on my part.

And...have you read Fiasco yet? It's very good. He reflects some complimentary things you've said about Paul Wolfowitz re intelligence and intentions. Mind, he doesn't stop at the complimentary bit...

The conservative wing of the repubican party didn't really favor the Shah. The beginning of the Shah's 26 year rule over Iran began in Eisenhower's administration. Eisenhower was a republican and against communism, but he also write a book warning future America about the dangers of a military-industrial complex.

The history of Iran is interesting. Iran was actually part of the Axis in WWII, our arch enemies. According to BBC NEWS http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/country_profiles/806268.stm.

I haven't studied a great deal of history to understand why England and the U.S. engineered the coup that reinstalled the Shah of Iran in 1953, but it almost certainly had to do with the Iranian Parliament's decision under Mohammad Mossadeq to nationalize the oil industry. It probably really was about the oil then.

When a country nationalizes an industry, they seize control, no matter who the private owners of the property are. In effect, after the equivalent of billions had been invested in refineries, etc., Iran ripped off the Brits and Americans. There was no "eminent domain" or "payment of the fair market price" for the foreign investment, just a straight takeover. Iran mus really have been naive to believe that they could simply cut off the world's second largest supply of oil, and stiff the world's two most powerful countries out of all of their invested assets, without consequence. Oil dependent countries do tend to be somewhat sensitive about that sort of thing.

American/Iran relations, under the Shah's leadership sort of became business as usual. Johnson made no attempts to oust the Shah, nor did Carter. Only when our hostages were kidnapped did Iran become a big deal.

I do wonder that why believing what he does, he didn't do something about it when he could. Ezer Weitsman expressed views sympathetic to this even in 1979 and was then an important figure in the Likud party. It is unfortunate that Carter did not act on this idea after the peace with Egypt when the moment was ripe.

Monte Cargo wrote:

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One of Reagan's most famous slogans "Trust but verify..." seems to fly straight in the face of Carter's very trusting core belief system. The diplomatic deal with Kim Jong-Il seems to be an outgrowth of the opposite philosophy, for which Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize. ....

And Carter still has not gotten over his extreme naivity, ignorance, or stupidity, however you wish to describe it. Such is very dangerous of course if it resides in a president. One of Reagan's strongest points was he understood the realities of the world, including human nature, including that of the leaders of other countries, and therefore did not buy into some pipe dream or false trust of the political hucksters around the world. Reagan's realism is another reason why Reagan did not believe in socialism and communism, which of course is just another form of naivity. It sounds good on paper, but doesn't work in the real world nearly as well as capitalism.

I feel sorry for Carter if he is bitter, but if he's wrong, then how do you fix it? I wish he would stay in Georgia and quit causing trouble for us while trying to vindicate himself to no avail.

"There are constant and vehement political and media debates in Israel concerning its policies in the West Bank but because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the U.S., Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate our media, and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories."

The coup against Mossadeq's government was a joint Anglo-American conspiracy. The Brit's motivation was oil, and control over the means of production thereof in which British companies had invested. It wasn't necessarily the case that the Iranian government didn't offer to compensate for the fair market price, but rather, one in which the Iranian offer of compensation--which included some kind of royalty deal--didn't suit the British petroleum companies.

The American motivation was of course paranoia about communism, and the fear that Iran would turn to the USSR for tutelage and support. The fact of the matter was that Mossadeq's government wasn't really interested in such an alliance. But like the myopic militarist right wing has done in Iraq, it's better to allay the slightest of doubts and the most psychotic paranoia and replace an entire government just to be on the safe side, prudent projections be damned.

Here's a passage from the book:

Quote:

"There are constant and vehement political and media debates in Israel concerning its policies in the West Bank but because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the U.S., Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate our media, and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories."

Let me ask you something: Does that seem to be the case? What I see is the opposite trend. The media, save for conservative papers, pretty much seem to side with the Arabs, the Palestinians, and by contrast, show a stark disfavorable bias toward Israel.

Mossadeq was extremely well educated, had good negotiating skills, was contagiously charasmatic, and was ruthless and murderous, every prerequisite for a good middle eastern leader. He recognized and expanded upon the government's displeasure at seeing the British Crown making more off the oil reserves than Iran was making in royalties. The Majlis in Iran was happy to attain a 50-50 split with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company but Mossadeq wanted more. When the prime minister objected to nationalizing the oil industry, he was promptly assassinated. Mossadeq soon became prime minister after public demonstrations and he insisted on chairing the war department. After Mossadeq replaced all the top army officers with his own people, the displaced were helpful to the British in engineering the coup d'etat that deposed Mossadeq and installed the Shah.

As WWII was ending, Mossadeq was elected to the Majlis and he led the opposition to give the USSR any concessions on oil exploration and development.

I have not seen any content that directly supports the notion that U.S. fear of communism was the basis for engineering the coup d'etat, but instead, reclamation of England's ability to explore and develop their oil. Mossadeq had already demonstrated his opposition to any entry of Soviet interests.

The late Shah was ran an oligarchic government in Iran, but no more so than the zealots who have replaced him. He tried hard to rrestablish some sense of the pre-Islamic Persian culture and identity in the country, and to align it with modern standards for economic development, the role of women and many other issues. Sadly the forces that overthrew him are moving in the other direction.

Bush's failures as a leader are quite evident. Mostly (in my view) they proceed from his truly remarkable inability to express an understanding of the complexity of issues and the many ironic elements that are necessarily present in any real solution to real problems.

Refreshing to see you argue the advantages of the secular.

Of course, putting the Shah in a positive light by comparing his regime to what followed is not entirely without merit, but one could do the same with Czarist Russia, the French aristocratic regime, apartheid and Sadaam. And it avoids overt acknowledgement of how repressive, cruel and injust regimes often lead to understandable revolutions (even if what follows can be in some ways worse for some period of time).

Re Bush...to argue that the problem is merely an inability to self-express seems as unrealistic and saintly of you as your complaints re Carter. The fellow doesn't have to be "stupid" to be profoundly unfit for that post.

"Fiasco" was written by Thomas Ricks who has covered the Pentagon for several years with the Washington Post and had the same beat for the previous 17 years while working at the Wall Street Journal. It's a very good book, george. I'd mail you my copy but I already gave it to Thomas.

I do believe Bush's policies were too simplistyic, reducing what I see as a major historical challenge from Islam to the relatively trivial notion of a "War on Terror" (as though one could wage a war against a technique). Leaving Israel out of the field of discussion was also (in my view) an error. (Although the early Bush advocacy of a two state solution did give me some hope.) However this one carries enormous domestic political implications, and there is no reason at all to believe the Democrats will do any better. In a broader sense I believe the political alternatives to Bush are mere critics, without anything interesting to affirm or offer. - In that respect a dangerous situation.

Bush may well prove to have been "unfit" as you say. A bit early now to say. There does seem to be a bit of piling on going on at the moment. A good friend (a retired former CENTCOM - not Zinni) has been bitterly critical (in private) about both Bush and Rumsfield for the past several years.