Nations do not much care about history except as it feeds their heroic myths about themselves and about the perfidy of their enemies. As nations go, so do peoples who seem to collectively shout, “Just tell us who our enemies are today and then let us go back to our lives.” The current crisis between Iran and the US certainly seems to fit the pattern.
Our great leaders shout that Soleimani plotted the deaths of American soldiers. Therefore he had to die.
They will not speak of the history of American involvement with Iran over the last 66 years.
That in 1953 the Brits and the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Iranian leader, Mohammad Mossaddegh because he threatened our control of Iranian oil production. In his place they installed the Shah who ruled through terror, his principle tool, a secret police, the SAVAK, who disappeared his enemies and practiced wholesale torture as a weapon of intimidation.
Or that we supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with intelligence and weapons in its invasion of Iran in 1980 and over the next 8 years of a brutal war that killed 1 million Iranians.
Or that one of our destroyers shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 thus murdering 290 human beings including 66 children and then gave a medal to the captain of the destroyer who ordered that attack.
Or that our sanctions have crippled the Iranian economy and driven millions of its citizens into poverty.
Or that Trump withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal that had shut down their nuclear weapons program.
Iran’s great leaders shout that Soleimani is a martyr, a great man, a person who lived above politics and put his nation ahead of all else, but they will not speak of Soleimani’s support of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, one of the great butcher’s of this century, with men, weapons and intelligence. Assad could not have survived without this support. Thousands of Syrian men, women and children are dead because of Soleimani.
They will not speak of their own great power dreams of an arc of Iranian influence and control in Syria and in Lebanon, where they have absolute control of Hezbollah, a proxy in their shadow war against Israel.
They will not speak of their involvement in the terrorist attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association Building in Buenos Aires in July, 1994 that murdered 85 people and injured hundreds.
They will not speak of their repression of their own people, of the thousands arrested and almost 200 dead in recent demonstrations against higher gasoline prices.
They will not speak of the corruption of their mullahs or the constraints upon personal liberty of their theocracy.
They will not speak of Soleimani’s leadership of the Shite militias in Iraq who fought American forces there and perfected a particularly ugly weapon, IED shaped plate charges, which had the capacity to smash through heavy armor and kill and maim. The most accurate reports indicate that hundreds of Americans were killed or wounded in these attacks.
The awful preliminaries to all out war are all in place on both sides — festering resentments, desires for vengeance, great power delusions that have to do with saving face.
Both sides have given forth full throated howls proclaiming their status as the real victims here, and both sides are threatening terrible retribution.
If you believe one word that comes from Trump or Pompeo’s mouth about this, then you are simply a great dope. The same goes for attaching veracity to Iranian statements.
If it comes to bloodletting, young Iranians and Americans, men and women both, who serve in their respective armed forces, will shed it, not the cynical old men who command. Fox News and Iranian controlled media will cheerlead the war, innocents will die, more dreams of vengeance will be given life. I am sick to death of nationalism and of the sick stupidity and blood lust of old men. I hope you are as well.
