I consider this a follow-up to a recent post about “American exceptionalism,” a mindset that helps Americans blind themselves to the reasons that much of the world views U.S. foreign policy as hypocritical, bullying and imperialist.
I take my text from President Obama’s big Cairo speech of last week, from radio host Michael Medved’s reaction to the speech in a TV appearance I happened to catch, and from “All the Shah’s Men,” by the estimable Stephen Kinzer. But before I walk you through, I’ll cut to the chase:
Iranians who hate America have at least some valid cause for their anger. The United States committed a historical crime against Iran much larger than anything Iran has done to us. Because of the powerful force in human psychology that I call “confirmation bias,” many Americans are not interested in U.S. offenses against Iranians, but are outraged by Iranian offenses against us, like the famous hostage-taking of 1979. Through the magic of what I call “selective perception” most Americans find it easy not to know the inconvenient facts about arrogant acts of international outlawry when committed by ourselves. If you believe in American exceptionalism, which Andrew Bacevich describes as a belief that destiny has chosen America to bring freedom, democracy and prosperity to the world, then stories in which America behaves like a typical self-interested power tend to bounce off our brains.
Now then, during his Cairo speech, Obama waded into dangerous territory, by suggesting that the U.S. and Iranian nations each have some legitimate grudges the other. It went like this:
“For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is, in fact, a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.”
The violent Iranian attack on the U.S. embassy in 1979 and the holding of 52 American hostages — members of the embassy staff — for more than a year is well known to most of us. Note that the attack on the embassy was part of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran and established the theocratic Islamic Republic that has governed Iran ever since.
I suspect that most Americans who heard Obama’s next sentence, about the U.S. overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government, don’t know so much about that incident. The United States did more than “play a role.” The CIA organized the coup. Under orders from President Eisenhower, undercover U.S. agent Kermit (grandson of President Theodore) Roosevelt slipped into Iran, lined up Iranian military traitors, bribed Iranians to riot, bribed newspapers to print lies, prepared the young, frightened Shah to dismiss the elected government led by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, and pulled it off. Mossadegh, who had been Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1951, spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
The U.S. role was little known in America but much better known in Iran at the time and for decades afterward, during which it was officially denied by Washington. Kinzer documented it clearly and indisputably in his riveting book, although by the time the book was published, it was no longer deniable. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright officially acknowledged the truth in 2000. Said Albright:
“In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons, but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”
Mossadegh was not just “popular.” His government represented the all-time high for democracy in Iranian history. The United States, believed by itself to be an unrelenting force for the spread of democracy, ousted Mossadegh– an eccentric western-educted liberal who had believed Washington was his natural ally — at the behest of Great Britain because Mossadegh had nationalized the Iraqi oil company that Britain had owned and operated for decades in about as high-handed and exploitative a manner as you can imagine.
I was impressed, in reading Obama’s speech, that he brought up the incident (the first president to do so, I believe) but I didn’t write about it at the time. My bad. On Friday, I happened to catch “The Ed Show” on MSNBC, starring liberal host Ed (until recently, Fargo-based) Schultz. Schultz asked Michel Medved, a conservative radio host, for reaction to Obama’s speech. (Transcript here of the entire show.)
Said Medved:
“I think a lot of what the president said was important and was persuasive and was admirable. But there were a lot of problems with the speech as well. One of the problems was a moral equivalency problem, the idea that he suggested that there were misunderstandings, for instance, in our history with Iran, without comparing America’s participation in a coup in 1953 with Iran’s 30 year history of supporting terrorism. That is not fair.”
Medved is a smart guy and I think he tries to be thoughtful and intellectually honest. But that reference set off this post. The United States, as I said above, did not “participate” in the coup. It was a U.S. operation. The U.S. installed the Shah as the unelected ruler of Iran and sustained him, for 26 years, with aid and weapons and diplomatic support, in exchange for which the Shah ran his country as U.S. asset in the region. It is not too big a stretch to suggest that the United States bore some significant measure of responsibility for everything done under the Shah’s power for those 26 years.I’m sure there are good and bad things that could be said about the decades of the Shah’s rule, but he was a dictator and his regime was known for extensive use of secret police torture of the regime’s opponents.
Iranians know this story. When Iranian mobs overthrew the Shah, they also took to describing the United States as “the Great Satan” and Iranian mobs and Iranian leaders have often employed similar verbiage over the years since, which makes them seem insane to us mostly because, thanks to selective perception, we couldn’t imagine the depth of their grudge.
I give Obama substantial credit for acknowledging this chapter in U.S.-Iranian relations. But he minimized the degree of the offense against Iranian democracy and self-determination, as if it was limited to a role in the original 1953 coup.
Then Medved indicts him for overstatingt it. Medved employs the fashionable “false equivalency” argument to suggest that what the U.S. did to Iran is insignificant compared to the crimes of Iran. The false equivalency, often called “moral equivalency,” is used to knock down a historical comparison that one doesn’t like. Obama implies that Iranians may have a valid basis for some of thei anti-American feelings, but Americans may have some basis for their feelings about Iran. Medved suggests that Obama has stacked the deck against us by taking one small mistake in 1953 and understating decades of Iranian perfidy.
I do not condone the crime of the 1979 hostage takers. I condemn Iran’s subsequent and ongoing support for terrorist organizations.
But the case is precisely the opposite of the way Medved presents it. In the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, Iran is much more sinned against than sinning. Iran has not overthrown a government of the United States. Iran has not imposed a dictator on us for 26 years. (And, by the way, the Reagan administration provided military aid and diplomatic cover to Saddam Hussein during substantial portions of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.)
One of the ways that American exceptionalism works is to assume good motives for all U.S. actions, avert our eyes from contrary evidence and to never judge our own aggressive actions by the standards we would apply to others who took similar actions. In a fair and just world, a world governed by America’s stated principles, which nations would be empowered to overthrow the governments of other nations, by what means and for what purposes?
What good soes it do to have workable resolve with North Korea and Iran if the price of gas goes up to $5 a gallon? $5 a gallon gasoline, imposes $300 to $500 a month on us to get to and from. My day to day job requires me to consume 3 tanks of gas a week. My hourly pay has gone down slghtly, with out a choice, I would have to let other fixed obligations go, to pay this petroleum industry imposition. If the price of gas stays at $5 a gallon for several months, I would be forced into bankruptcy and lose my home. I live bugeted to a moderate fix-income like millions of others. If my living costs jump $400 dollars a month and my pay check stays the same…I just can’t make it! Our legislator’s should be introducing proposals that stabalize the volatile price of gas and keep it affordable. The imposition of federal regulation would make oil futures an unwaise investment and drive the price back down to a reasonable level. Inkpahduhtah
Hi Eric, Thanks for the well researched article on Iran. Maybe someday this “Christian nation” will recall the Biblical quote from Matthew 7:3: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?…Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
Sincerely, David Harris, Red Wing
Perhaps the exceptionalism theory lies at the root of our failure to admit this kind of foreign policy “error.” Our abduction of President Aristide of Haiti and our whisking him off the France comes to mind. Result? Haiti, which had democratically elected a left-leaning leader who would make changes leading to greater economic and social equality, was judged by the U.S. to be, I suppose, some kind of trouble-maker, and therefore had to be removed for the sake of “democracy.” Or perhaps corporatism.
And also at the root of our tendency toward the equivalency of grossly unequal actions. Two captured Israeli soldiers led to the “self defense” destruction of Beirut and the deaths of 1,600 Lebanese while Condi Rice crowed about seeing “the birth of the New Middle East.” Not to mention the destruction of Gaza City and 1,300 Gazan deaths last year.
Thank you, Mr. Black.
Very good article. I have no idea what the prior 2 comments mean, they both seem like decent guys but you gotta put things in context. It seems part of our oil problem is structural in how our economic, residential and transportation lives have been haphazardly laid out in the past.
Also if a writer is going to quote from the gospel of Matthew they need to read the Didache (available online) and study first century christian communities. All three of youse guys keep writin readin and commenting.
Excellent commentary, Eric. I would, however, take issue with this comment:
“Medved is a smart guy and I think he tries to be thoughtful and intellectually honest.”
Your article, by itself, demonstrates why that isn’t true. I expect you know that, though.
Hi Eric:
A very well written description of American Exceptionalism and the inconsistency between how many Americans view US actions (un critically–only good) and the actions of other countries (critcally). It is that inconsistentcy that, as you say so well, often diminishes the US’s credibility with intellegent citizens of other countries.
I think the President is right to acknowledge when the US has not lived up to its own ideals. Especially since he then challanges ALL to reach for those ideals.
Thanks !
Just when it becomes even easier to throw the 4th estate to the profit makers a piece like this comes along.
Thanks Eric.
Michael Medved is one of those phony moralists who occupy the public square. He justifies any policy or actions that supports Israel. I have heard him many times on the radio. He totally parses facts to his advantage and sounds as if he is so right.
Why does he get away with it. Because he controls the microphone and shuts it off when the argument gets inconvenient.
This kind of long-form, thoughtful journalism is the reason I read MinnPost everyday. That you can even follow up on an earlier piece and give it an even more timely context is what is missing from print news today. Far too often it’s just “hit-and-run”, no background helping those who know nothing about the specific topic understand it’s history, how that relates to its current context, and rarely enough words to even make the topic understandable to the general public. Keep up the good work!
Two comments:
>Contrary to the assertions above, it seems to me that many Americans have long known all about our interventions in Iran, our support of the Shah, and our support of Iraq in their war with Iran. We have also understood the realpolitik reasons for these actions. To treat these as “secrets” seems a bit naive.
>On “Exceptionalism” theme, it appears to me that these actions in fact only illustrate my earlier comments — that the actual motivations behind our government actions have to do with our national economic interests or our security concerns, regardless of how those actions are “sold” to the public.
In this case, however, in my recollections from the time it appears there was not much effort to gloss over our actions in the name of some idealistic liberty to all song, unless one counts the very real cold war as an exercise in “exceptionalism.”
I continue to have problems with apologizing for such behavior to those who taught us how to do it, and continue to this very day. I suggest feigned outrage on their part should be met with a knowing smile, not groveling.
I remember watching a South American documentary many years ago on the overthrow of Allende. The moving image of a large U.S. military vessel offshore while Allende was defending what remained of his office with a pistol is something I will never forget.
Great article; especially the allusions to the Iran/Contra affair. If you haven’t see Robert Newman’s “History of Oil” yet, it’s a fast but in depth look at the West’s sordid dealings in the M.E., including the Iranian overthrow and those involved (and, despite being a comedian, refuses to make a “Kermit/puppet regime” joke.)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4779697496133297566
(The quality on that link isn’t that great, but it’s available in many places at better resolutions.)
Perhaps two summers ago, my brother told me a good book to read about Iran and U.S. relations., the book was ‘All the Shah’s Men’- I must have finished reading the book in record time, I simply could not put in down, not only was the book well written, and while I wasn’t surprised with what Britian and the U.S. were conspiring to do, I was amazed at what lengths the U.S. went to, and when I hear comments, like they hate us for our freedoms I cringe, if Americans read one book — they should read All the Shah’s Men.