A History of Violence? With apologies to recent Hollywood fare ...

[corp-focus] Overthrow

By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

The premise of this article is at the same time fascinating and not 'news' at all. I've talked about the history of Iran before, and the quote at the end of this bit is telling on this ...

President Bush says he's trying to bring democracy to Iran.
In fact, Iranians had democracy once. And we crushed it.

Thats the plain truth of the matter, and the revolution of 1979, and the current aftermath of that revolution, is a direct result of the Mossadegh overthrow. There are decades between them, but the bead of causality it straight and true, apparent for all to see.

What I find most compelling about Kinzer though is that he seems to take on the 'domino' arguments head on. Dominoes only fall when they are properly arranged, and Kinzer points out that Mossadegh was virulently anti-communist, and Allende was kept at arms length. As for the spread of Islamic fanaticism, through the overthrow of Mossadegh, through the support of the Mujeheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980's, to the continual propping up of the House of Saud and the 'status quo' in the Middle East, the US has fuelled that rise as much as they have opposed it.