My first suspicion was that all this talk of colour was just another pseudo-revolution. We had the rose revolution in Georgia, the orange in Ukraine and the pink in Kyrgyzstan: in each case the people wanted an end to Russian hegemony; they wanted liberty, democracy and rock’n’roll, etc (with the CIA carefully pulling the strings in the background).
And now we had talk of the ‘green’ revolution in Iran. Was this another CIA-sponsored, media-friendly post-modern revolt? Not necessarily – consensus seems to be that the colour choice is mere coincidence; when Ahmadinejad chose a red ball when casting his vote, Mousavi picked a green one. In the past week, green has become the colour of change, of reistance to the old regime. But what of red?
We know that Ahmadinejad was promising to go the Chavez route by taking control of Iran’s oil and redistributing wealth among the poor, where his support soared. But Ahmadinejad is no Chavez. Indeed, if he has any socialist tendencies, they are of the nefarious ‘national socialist’ kind.
Meanwhile, Iran’s jeuness dorée, the educated bourgeoisie of the big cities, took to the streets to express their desire for an end to Islamism, while the red proletariat chanted for Mahmoud and oil revenue. We know that in the past Iran was never particularly Islamic; in fact, one could say that Islamic fundamentalism was thrust upon them in 1979, and is merely a single moment in the complex and profound history of Persian civilisation.
But to come back to all this talk about green versus red – what should we make of this? First of all, I should point out that Iran’s trouble is pretty much Britain’s fault. They were the ones who planned the 1953 coup by convincing the CIA to destroy their democracy.
The CIA duly obliged, and Operation Ajax was a success. The Shah was put back in power; the Savak, Iran’s secret police, were taught all the newest techniques in covert murder and torture by the CIA; and order was restored.
But even the Shah, realising that it was better to be an enlightened and popular despot than a hated one, attempted to build up the country to a certain extent. It was, however, a disaster. His importation of American arms and aristocratic opulence had bankrupted the country. Then he made a big career mistake. In order to save the economy, he tried to raise the price of oil. But Washington would have none of it, and put a contingency plan into action.
Islamic extremists with little economic expertise were always a useful tool for western imperialists to de-stabilise resource-nationalizing governments so that Big Oil could continue to plunder the Middle East. When the focus of Islamic rebels like Khomeini was on religion and culture, they were supported; when their focus was on economics, as in the FLN of Algeria, they were opposed.
Zbigniew Brezinzski and Henry Kissinger, the top foreign policy makers of Carter’s 1979 administration, knew that Khomeini would rebel and foment a form of Islamic nationalism, but the western powers already had an answer for that: send in Saddam! That was a hugely profitable war for the US, who backed both sides (remember the Iran-Contra scandal?).
French journalist Thierry Meysan has pointed the finger at the CIA for the confusion surrounding the Iranian election results, claiming that they manipulated Iranian communications via Twitter and SMS to spread the idea that Mousavi had won. The New York Times and Reuters reported this, but with the usual element of spin. No one knows the truth.
So now we have complex phenomenon of class and cultural conflict in the midst of an information war. It will probably be enough to stoke Persia’s internal fire for the next few months, while Washington has a chance to think about the next act in their global tragedy.
metrogael.blogspot.com / gaelmetro@yahoo.ie
