Did the West cause the rise of Islam?

MOHAMMAD MOSADDEQ AND THE 1953 COUP IN IRAN
Ed. by Mark Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne
New York, Syracuse University Press, 2004. 360 pages. £35.50 (Amazon)

NASSER: THE LAST ARAB
By Said Aburish
London, Duckworth, 2004. 432 pages. £14.00 (Amazon)

President Bush’s implicit threats against Iran and his declaration that America supports the desire of the people of the Middle East for liberty is likely to be met with scepticism by those Iranians and Arabs old enough to remember the themes of these books — the 1953 US-UK overthrow of Iran’s reforming, democratic Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and the story of Egyptian hero Gamal Abdel Nasser.

These books also demonstrate how selfish, short-sighted and frankly racist US and British policies fought against secular nationalism and democracy even to the point of sponsoring what would now be called Islamic fundamentalism. What the West now faces in Al-Qaida is thus its own Frankenstein monster.

Wrong turn in Iran

Mosaddeq was an Iranian secular nationalist, who wanted to turn his country into a British-style constitutional monarchy with a democratic parliament. Had he succeeded, the position of Iran’s religious minorities — including its Christians — would have been more secure than in later times. From a Christian perspective, this is what was so disastrous about the UK-US coup against him. The book about Mosaddeq can only be described as an indispensable and first-class work of scholarship. While there is inevitably some overlapping in the chapters, this is never burdensome, and each chapter investigates the coup from a different perspective.

There is an investigation into the nature of Mosaddeq’s democratic experiment, the domestic forces that sought his overthrow, the position of the Communist Tudeh party, Britain’s crucial role in the coup, the international boycott of Iranian oil, and the mechanics of the actual CIA coup itself. It all makes for fascinating reading, and the editors can be proud to have compiled such an informative and lucid volume, well worth purchasing by anyone wanting to know why US-Iranian relations became so antagonistic. Its other great strength is that it is based on recent declassified US, Soviet and UK government documents that reveal the whole sordid tale.

Criminal coup

Katouzian’s chapter shows that under Mosaddeq, there was democracy, political pluralism, a free press, and independent judiciary and genuine elections (pp.4-5). When we consider the emphasis, both domestic and now American, on the need for regional democracy, this is what makes the 1953 CIA/MI6 coup so criminal. Of course, both the Ultra-Royalists and the Communists were unhappy about this state of affairs. So were the British, because Mossaddeq sought genuine independence from Britain (which had dominated the country since the early 19th century) and Iranian control of oil resources. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) virtually controlled Iran’s oil and thus its economy. When Mosaddeq nationalised the oil, Britain established a military blockade — gunboat diplomacy — and an international boycott of Iranian oil (p.7). When even that failed, it turned to America for help in unseating Mosaddeq.

Soviet threat?

What was decisive was US policy. This was the height of the Cold War, and the Korean War was raging during the period Britain was battling Mosaddeq. Truman was paranoid of Soviet intentions, and feared Soviet penetration into Iran. It should be remembered that Russia and Britain had occupied Iran during the Second World War, and that Moscow had sponsored Marxist break-away republics in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan before their suppression in 1946 (p.204f). There was also the Tudeh party to consider, though, as Behrooz’s chapter illustrates, the Tudeh was hopelessly divided and inept. Nonetheless, the fear of either a 1948 Czech-style Red coup or a Russian invasion led to US involvement. The British successfully approached Kermit Roosevelt, head of the CIA covert operations in the Middle East (p.228). The coalition of Anglophiles, royalists, anti-Communists and a masterful coup plan which combined demonstrations with a military plot overthrew the only genuinely democratic government in the region.

Ironically, another coalition, 26 years later, was to engage in a genuine popular revolution that established the total independence of Iran — but this time, on an Islamic basis. The effect of the 1953 coup was to produce long-lasting hatred for America (p.23f). This ensured that the 1979 Revolution removing the Shah would not be directed against arbitrary rule alone, but also against imperialist domination, Alas, too few Americans are aware of this.

Egypt and pan-Arabism

Aburish’s book is equally masterful, as well as being eminently readable. It is clear that Nasser is his hero, but this is no hagiography — Nasser’s misjudgements, failings and unethical actions are not excused or ignored. Aburish does not conceal the tortures carried out during Nasser’s rule, although he places the blame for these mainly on his subordinates. He also does not disguise the descent into dictatorship that conflicted with Nasser’s earlier democratic vision (p.274).

Nasser emerges as a decent, modest man with simple tastes (p.11) and, unlike Sadat and other regional despots, he did not plunder the treasury to enrich himself (p.35). Sadat, lionised by Western leaders and media, emerges by contrast as a cruel, dictatorial and corrupt character — Aburish observes that Western media never reported his ‘alcoholism and hashish smoking, his corruption and unattractive subservience’ (p.296). Nasser was a true Arab patriot who wanted to fulfil the long-standing dream of a pan-Arab state from the Atlantic to the Gulf. This was also the desire of most Arabs, but Aburish shows that Nasser was frustrated in this goal by a mixture of incompetence, lack of education among Arabs, the opposition of regional leaders, especially the Saudis, and the schemes of the British, French, Israelis and Americans. Aburish notes the ineptitude and scheming of Amer, Nasser’s military chief (p.266), the man responsible for the 1967 disaster. Nasser did not deal with him until it was too late.

Peace with Israel

Contrary to the image of Nasser as a diehard rejectionist, Nasser approached the Israelis many times about peace, and during the rule of moderate Israeli Premier Sharret in 1953 (p.63ff), there was a real chance for peace, but this was scuppered by the expansionist aggression of Ben-Gurion and Lavon, who activated an intelligence cell in Egypt which launched terrorist bombing of cinemas, American libraries, and post offices’ (p.67f).

The British hated Nasser for his determination to free Egypt and other Arab lands of their colonial dominance, as the French hated him for supporting the Algerian freedom struggle. This led to an alliance with Ben-Gurion who coveted Gaza and Sinai and thus the infamous Suez crisis, which was a military success for the aggressor triad but a diplomatic disaster (p.118ff). The crisis made Nasser the idol of all Arabs.

All that is except the Saudi rulers, who feared his pan-Arabism would unseat them. They reacted by trying to assassinate him (p.156), and by funding and arming the Muslim Brotherhood, who opposed Nasser’s secular nationalism as apostasy. What is more startling is that the Americans followed suit: ‘U.S. financial help to the Brotherhood reached unprecedented levels, with tens of millions of dollars transferred into the Swiss bank account of Said Ramadan, the Brotherhood’s supreme guide’ (p.303). This was despite the strident ‘anti-American Islam’ advocated in the writing of the Brotherhood’s ideologue, Sayyid Qutb (p.257). Qutb’s writings were one of the influences upon Usama bin Laden, so America set in motion the forces that would come to haunt it on 9/11.

President Johnson emerges as the main villain in this regard, being ‘pro-Zionist’ and ‘dismissive of the Arabs’ (p.218). His support for Tel Aviv in the 1967 War was crucial, and the Arab defeat was the major cause that ‘accelerated the growth of pan-Islamism’ (p.287). Aburish concludes by noting that Nasser’s dreams ‘have been hijacked by the Islamic movements the West created to defeat him’ (p.319).

Western policy

The connection between these books is that the overthrow of Mosaddeq led eventually to the mass popular revolution that overthrew the Shah and US power in Iran, just as the defeat of Nasser in 1967 set in motion the rise of Sunni Islamism. There is a warning in this for America: the 1953 coup was brilliantly executed, but it spawned an avalanche of hate in its wake that led to the US Embassy hostages crisis in 1979-80. However ‘brilliantly executed’ US plans may seem at present, they may find that in the more distant future, they will rebound on them. Equally, when we seek the causes of the rise of modern Islamism, it is clear that the primary agent is not disquiet about Western cultural penetration, but rather Western domination. Islamism gets its strength from the same pool that gave life to Mossadeq and Nasser’s secular nationalism — anti-colonialism. Had Britain and America not fought these two men, secular nationalism might now be the unchallenged popular ideology from Morocco to Iran, and the position of Christian minorities more secure. Instead, Western policy laid the foundations for Khomeini and Al-Qaida.