Friday Book Review: "Lipstick Jihad"

Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran

By Azadeh Moaveni

This week's book review takes us away from Robert Baer's realpolitik in The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower and into more personable territory. Lipstick Jihad is an autobiographical piece about a woman whose family fled Iran after the 1979 revolution and found itself among other members of the Iranian diaspora in Palo Alto, California. Ms. Moaveni discusses the difficulty of growing up in two seemingly irreconcilable cultures, which provides an interesting perspective on how the actions of a person's home country can affect how they are treated internationally (she discusses blatant racism toward Iranians after the 1979 Hostage Crisis and again after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001).

The most interesting part of the book, however, occurs after the author graduates college with a degree in journalism and moves to Tehran as a foreign correspondent. She confronts the reality of modern-day Iran and realizes that it is not the idyllic nation that her parents spoke lovingly of. In gripping narrative, she describes her struggles with the local morality police, widespread sexism, and political stagnation. She once again finds herself between cultures and suffers the inevitable identity crisis.

Lipstick Jihad is an easy book to read and is not academic in the traditional sense. If you are looking for a history of the Islamic regime, this is not the book to read. If you want a glimpse into daily Iranian life from an American who spent extensive time in the country, this is the perfect book. Again, it looks at life from a limited perspective--an American from California will inherently have a different mindset than someone who grew up in the heart of Tehran or Isfahan.

The biggest downside to this memoir is its age. Ms. Moaveni lived in Tehran from 2000-2001, which makes her analysis of Iranian culture interesting, but somewhat obsolete. Fortunately for fans of the author, she published a second book this year about her return to Tehran in 2005: Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran. I haven't read it yet, unfortunately, but it's on my ever-growing reading list.

Why the World Hates America (Part 5)

See the other articles in this series:

1. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2. Operation Ajax: The 1953 Iranian Coup d'état
3. Support for rebellions throughout the Cold War
4. Shifting alliances in the Middle East
5. Unflinching support of Israel
6. The War in Iraq
7. American Exceptionalism and its two-faced foreign policy

The Story of U.S.-Israeli Relations

Without a doubt, Israel is one of the largest causes of social and political conflict in the modern era. Since its creation in 1948, Israel has been in a constant state of war. Neighboring countries did not recognize its legitimacy as a country, causes several bloody wars throughout the initial decades (Israel is well known for being literally surrounded by enemies). The Arab-Israel Conflict has become so entrenched in Middle East culture that the two sides disagree on how it began. An Arab will tell you that the conflict started with the influx of Jews into Palestine in the early 20th century and the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which established Britain's pro-Zionist policy -- the declaration was met negatively by Palestinians and other opponents of a Zionist state. The Muslim-Christian Association was particularly vocal in their opposition.

Israelis, on the other hand, claim that tensions began to flare after the Hebron massacre on the 23rd and 24th of August, 1929, in which 67 Jews were murdered by the local Arab population. The Arab assailents, operating under false rumors that fellow Arabs were being killed by Jewish forces, forced the surviving Jews out of Hebron. The city (one of the holiest in Judaism) remained under Arab control until 1967.

U.S. Support for Israeli State

United States support for Israel has been a proverbial snowball of foreign policy, progressing from a distant alliance to its present condition today of unconditional support. President Truman recognized the Israeli government within eleven minutes of its Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948. This was heavily disputed within the United States, however, particularly by Secretary of State John Marshall, who was concerned about U.S. interests and alliances in the Arab world. Marshall argued that the establishment of an Israeli state would destabilize the Middle East -- he even threatened to vote against Truman in the next election if the United States recognized Israeli legitimacy.

At first, the United States maintained a lukewarm relationship with Israel. It provided the small nation with monetary loans but little else. During the Suez Crisis of 1956 (in which Israel, Britain, and France attacked Egypt), the United States used its political capital to force a withdrawal from the invading nations. Eisenhower even threatened to bankrupt Britain and devalue the British pound. This was the last instance of the United States putting serious public pressure on Israel.

Distance to Friendship: Johnson, the USS Liberty, and the Six-Day War

When President Johnson took over the White House, the United States maintained a distant relationship with Israel. It wanted to avoid looking overtly friendly with the Jewish state while trying to maintain friendly ties to Arab states who were actively being courted by the Soviet Union. This policy shifted during the Six-Day War -- the victory of the tiny democracy over its surrounding enemies inspired the United States to revamp its perspective on Middle East nations. The Johnson administration decided that the Arab nations had entered the Soviet Union's camp and began the thus far unbroken policy of selling advanced weapons to Israel to give it an advantage over other nations in the area.

It is notable that this shift in support to Israel occurred so soon after the disastrous Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, stationed off of Egypt. Israeli officials claimed that the American vessel was mistakenly identified as an enemy craft and that the United States failed to dislose its location beforehand. Several high level U.S. bureaucrats said that it would have been impossible for Israel to mistake the ship's identity and that the attack was not accidental.

The USS Liberty after the Israeli attack.

Continued U.S. Support

In 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in what would become the twenty-day Yom Kippur War. Six days into the conflict, the United States launched Operation Nickel Grass, a strategic airlift operation that delivered over 20,000 tons of military equipment to Israel. This equipment was instrumental in Israel's victory but devastating to the United States' relationships with Arab nations. When the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries found out about Operation Nickel Grass, the organization instituted an oil embargo and raised the posted price of oil by 70%. This led to the 1973 oil crisis and its notorious price controls and rationing.

During Jimmy Carter's term as President, he strongly pushed Israel to give rights and land to Palestinians and successfully helped negotiate the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. The pressure that he put on Israel, however, soon gave way to outright support during the Reagan years. The Israel supporters in the United States were initially hesitant about Ronald Reagan after some of his appointees had personal ties with Arab nations, but Reagan proved to be a powerful ally for Israel.

In 1987, Reagan promoted Israel to a "major non-NATO ally," which gave them further access to U.S. weapons systems. Reagan also initiated a free trade agreement with Israel and is widely considered one of the most pro-Israel Presidents in modern history. During President Bush's term, U.S.-Israel relations were soured when the administration told Israel to halt its expantionist activities, but soon rebounded after the Gulf War. Israel was one of the countries under threat from Saddam Hussein and the United States' destruction of the Iraqi army strengthened the political bonds between the two nations.

President Clinton focused a large amount of energy on Middle East relations, presiding over the Oslo Accords, the Jordan-Israeli Peace Treaty, and the Interim Agreement between Israel and Palestinians. While there was subdued animosity between Clinton and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the United States never backed down from whole-hearted support for its ally.

The Oslo Accords, 1993

President Bush had a solid relationship with Israel, hinting that he was not opposed to Israel's settlement activities and providing military equipment during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict. Barack Obama, despite reiterating the United States' support for Israel, has thus far been accused of being anti-Israel -- according to Voice of America News, a poll on June 19th, 2009, found that only 6 percent of Israeli citizens think that Obama is pro-Israel. Demonstrating the dychotimous nature of Middle East politics, 50 percent of Israelies see Obama as pro-Palestinian.

Why is support for Israel such a huge deal?

Israel is one of the most contested political issues in the world -- most Arab nations don't even recognize its right to exist. Border guards in twelve Arab countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) check for Israeli visas and will refuse access to anyone who they suspect has visited Israel at any time. By America so unconditionally supporting a country whose existence they consider illegal, these countries see the United States as inherently anti-Arab. To some extent, this has been true: in any conflict between Israel and the Arab world, the United States will invariably and automatically side with Israel. The "Israel issue" is constantly brought up by Arab governments, terrorist spokesmen, and Arab columnists and religious leaders (not that the three fall within the same genre of people at all).

Why does the United States support Israel?

There are obvious reasons for U.S. support for Israel: it is the most stable democracy in the Middle East and a long-term ally of the West. The unconditional, absolute support of Israel comes not from rationality, however, but from the strong pro-Israel lobby in the United States. This "lobby" has two unofficial parts -- constituent support and actual lobbying groups. The strength of the former (the American voters' strong support for Israel) was evidenced in the 2008 Presidential election, when rumors of Obama anti-Israel beliefs threatened to hurt his campaign and his constituent support. The official lobby is primarily composed of to groups: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Because of the intense Jewish lobby, it is extremely difficult for American politicians to criticize Israel in any way. Barack Obama noted this landmine of an issue when he said that "there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says, 'unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel,' and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel."

For more information

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,by John J. Mearsheimer

The Case for Israel,by Alan Dershowitz
A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time,by Howard M. Sachar

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Why the World Hates America (Part 4)

See the other articles in this series:

1. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2. Operation Ajax: The 1953 Iranian Coup d'état
3. Support for rebellions throughout the Cold War
4. Shifting alliances in the Middle East
5. Unflinching support of Israel
6. The War in Iraq
7. American Exceptionalism and its two-faced foreign policy

Shifting Alliances in the Middle East

All students of political science inevitably find themselves in the quagmire of American foreign policy toward the Middle East. Since the 1940s and early 1950s (with FDR’s oil deal with Saudi Arabia, the establishment of Israel, and the overthrow of Iran), the United States has had a vested interest in the affairs of this region.

Unfortunately, the Middle East is a confusing place. As the birthplace of civilization and the three major monotheistic religions, the region has an incredible history and its people are rooted in ancient grievances and centuries-old traditions. The United States, as a strappingly young nation of 200 years, has been unable to fully comprehend the culture of the Middle East and has repeatedly found itself in an undesirable position as a colonialist, a meddler, and “the Great Satan.”

So how has the United States found itself in this position? The biggest contention in the Middle East is the status of Israel and the Palestinian people. I will devote an entire post on this issue tomorrow -- today, we are specifically looking at America's alliances in the Middle East and how our support has shifted throughout various regimes and revolutions in a bizarre sequence of arms deals and army training. Rather than give you a comprehensive history of American foreign policy in the region, we will focus on one relationship as an example of America's vacillating policies in the Middle East: Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

Saddam Hussein: U.S. Operative to Regional Tyrant

A few years after its 1953 intervention in Iran, the United States shifted its focus to Iraq. In 1959, the CIA began a series of operations to remove Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassim from power. The newly empowered Qassim had just withdrawn Iraq from the Baghdad Pact, which obligated his country to defend the Middle East from the Soviet Union. The U.S. was obviously concerned with the sudden decision and the CIA partnered with Egyptian intelligence to overthrow the new Republic of Iraq. After a failed assassination attempt in October 1959 (in which a young Saddam Hussein was a member of the six-man team), the CIA began to support the Baath Party’s efforts to take over the country.

They succeeded in February 1963, when the Baath Party staged a coup d’état that killed Qassim and established a new regime in Iraq. In 1968, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr led a bloodless coup and was named as the new president—he named Saddam as his deputy. The United States provided weapons and intelligence support to the new government in exchange for technical information on Soviet aircraft and tanks. By 1979 the ambitious Saddam Hussein had grappled power away from President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and took over as the fifth (and last) president of Iraq.

For the next twelve years, Saddam was a loyal ally of the United States—this was notably demonstrated when he requested and received permission before invading neighboring Iran in 1980. By 1982, Iraq was in dire straits in the war and the White House was concerned about losing an important anti-Soviet ally. To bolster the Iraqi war effort, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Saddam and the United States doubled its financial aid to Iraq. This continued until the war’s anticlimactic end in 1988.

Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein

This chummy relationship took a turn for the worse in 1990. Tensions were rising between Iraq and Kuwait, its tiny neighbor to the southeast. Saddam claimed that Kuwait was stealing oil from Iraqi oil fields through a process known as slant drilling, in addition to hurting Iraq’s economy by increasing its own oil production (saturating the market and lowering global prices, which cost Iraq billions of dollars).

On July 25^th, Saddam met with the April Glaspie, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq—in a notorious statement, Glaspie told Saddam that the United States has “no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” This has widely been seen as tacit American approval of invasion. Sure enough, Saddam invaded Kuwait a week later, infuriating the global community and forcing the United States to change its policy toward Iraq.

The United States (with the 34-member Coalition of the Gulf War) responded with economic sanctions and, ultimately, one of the most dominating military assaults in the history of modern warfare. They easily drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait and Saddam quickly became one of the most notorious dictators in the world.

So what were the consequences?

• After the Gulf War, United States troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia to help deter any future attacks. While the U.S. has been responsible to protect Saudi Arabia since FDR’s presidency, this was the first time its military had a permanent presence on Saudi Arabian soil. This proved disastrous as the blossoming al-Qaeda listed infidel soldiers in the holy land as one of its primary grievances against the United States

• The United States’ support of Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War has been widely reported, which has had consequences with U.S. allies and enemies. From the perspective of its allies, the United States proved its willingness to work with dictators if it might help U.S. strategic goals (particularly after Saddam used chemical weapons on his own citizens, killing 5,000 people in Halabja). Unfortunately, Iraq is currently a faux government while neighboring Iran is stronger then ever (with the exception of the current election protests). The support for Iraq was not lost on the Iranian regime, who see it as one more example of the United States’ animosity toward Iran.

For more information

Explaining Foreign Policy: U.S. Decision-Making and the Persian Gulf War,by Steve Yetiv
Saddam: His Rise and Fall,by Con Coughlin
I Was Saddam's Son,by Latif Yahia

*The Saddam Saga continues with the War in Iraq! Stay tuned for Article #6!

Why the World Hates America (Part 3)

See the other articles in this series:

1. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2. Operation Ajax: The 1953 Iranian Coup d'état
3. Support for rebellions throughout the Cold War
4. Shifting alliances in the Middle East
5. Unflinching support of Israel
6. The War in Iraq
7. American Exceptionalism and its two-faced foreign policy

Intervention in Latin America

The Cold War was a troubling time for the United States. Foreign policy was dictated by the philosophy of containment. First proposed by American diploment George Kennan, containment centered around the idea that if the Soviet Union inspired one nation to go Communist, then more would follow (similar to the American idea that a democracy in the Middle East will create more democracy). Kennan originally proposed a more passive policy of containment in his 1946 "Long Telegram," but National Security Council Report (NSC-68) escalated the strategy into one of "calculated and gradual coercion" to defend the Western hemisphere against the threat of Communism.

While containment seems like a solid strategy at first, it came with terrible consequences. In order to prevent any Communist influence in the Western hemisphere, the United States had to eliminate any uprising of Marxist thought regardless of the consequences. In several instances, this involved the overthrow (or attempted overthrow) of democratically-elected governments or populist rulers. In this article, we're going to look at Guatemala in 1954 and Cuba in 1961. Future posts which require deeper analysis and stand-alone articles are Chile in 1973 and Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Guatemala: Overthrowing Arbenz

In 1951, Guatemala went through its first ever peaceful transfer of power with the election of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. A year into his presidency, Arbenz enacted an agrian reform policy that seized unused farmland from large plantations and gave ownership to private individuals in an attempt to build an agricultural economy (Arbenz himself gave up almost 2,000 acres of farmland to the project). While this was popular among the rural peasants, the upper class landowners reacted negatively and accused Arbenz of enacting a Communist policy.

The first record of United States interference in the issue came when the government seized hundreds of thousands of uncultivated land from the United Fruit Company, an American based company that had a strong political lobby in Washington. Arbenz offered the UFC roughly $600,000 for the land, but the company valued it at almost $16 million. In 1953, the United States demanded that the Guatemalan government pay the full value, but the demand went unanswered. In retribution, the U.S. decreased trade with and foreign aid to Guatemala, which was economically disastrous to the Latin nation.

The agrarian reclamations were causing unrest in the Guatemalan populace, which the CIA decided to capitalize on. A year earlier, thanks to the guidance of Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Garcia during a state visit to President Truman, the CIA had located Carlos Castillo Armas, a Guatemalan exile who had a group of rebels who could potentially overthrow Arbenz. Operation PBFORTUNE was a CIA operation designed to supply arms and money to Armas, with collaboration from Nicaragua and Honduras, in order for the rebels to topple the current government. The operation was uncovered in October 1952, however, and had to be cancelled.

With the new issue with UFC's land and the recent success of the U.S.-backed coup d'etat in Iran, the Eisenhower was willing to take another shot at regime change, called Operation PBSUCCESS. In December 1953, the CIA began training pilots and rebels and established a propaganda radio station. On June 18th, the Armas-led army of rebels crossed the border into Guatemala.

The story of how the rebels successfully took over the nation is almost too bizarre to believe. The rebels started out strong, but were soon in a losing position. Arbenz ordered his army to allow Armas's army to advance further into Guatemalan territory. He was afraid that a complete annihilation of the rebel army would cause the United States to respond militarily. Because of this fear, which was greatly aided by CIA propaganda claiming that U.S. troops were about to enter the country, the Guatemalan army began surrendering to the rebel forces, and Arbenz resigned the presidency on June 27.

After eleven days of chaos, Armas took over the presidency. He would later demonstrate a severe incompetence and corruption and was eventually assassinated in 1957 after suspending elections and establishing a new constitution.

Cuba: The Bay of Pigs

The story of John F. Kennedy's failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro's regime is well-known as one of the most embarrassing moments in foreign policy history. The details of the plan were similar to those of Guatemala -- the CIA spent a signifcant amount of time prior to the invasion training exiled rebels who would serve as proxy soldiers for the United States. The goal of the mission was to topple the newly-established Communist regime and to replace it with a pro-U.S. government.

On midnight on 17 April, 1961, 1300 Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba, led by CIA officers. From the first moments of battle, the operation was a fiasco for the Untied States forces. Landing ships suffered mechanical failures and the expected domestic support (from anti-Communist locals) was nonexistant. Over the next three days, the Cuban army pummeled the rebels and forced a retreat to the beach. An estimated 2,000 Cubans died during the fighting, as well as 104 rebels. The 1200 rebels who survived were captured by the Cuban government. They were tried and condemned to thirty years in prison -- several were executed.

Over the next twenty months, the U.S. government struggled to secure their release. In December of 1962, the United States paid for their release with $53 million in medical and food supplies. A few months after the failed invasion, the famous Communist revolutionary Che Guevara allegedly sent a thank-you note to President Kennedy, saying that the Bay of Pigs fiasco made the Communist revolution "stronger than ever."

For more information

Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs,by Grayston L. Lynch

Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba (National Security Archive Documents Reader),by Peter Kornbluh
Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954,by Nick Cullather

Why the World Hates America (Part 2)

See the other articles in this series:

1. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2. Operation Ajax: The 1953 Iranian Coup d'état
3. Support for rebellions throughout the Cold War
4. Shifting alliances in the Middle East
5. Unflinching support of Israel
6. The War in Iraq
7. American Exceptionalism and its two-faced foreign policy

Iran vs. the West

Many Americans remember the 444-day Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, in which a group of revolutionary students swarmed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held the State Department employees hostage. This event caused the current 30-year silence between the two governments—neither country has an official diplomatic relationship with the other nation. While the crisis prompted a backlash of American anger toward Iran, few Americans remember (or even know) the reason why the students despised the United States: the Shah.

In the early 1950s, Iran was an important colony under the control of the United Kingdom. The UK had a huge revenue stream from the Iranian oil industry. The oil profits, however, did not benefit Iran itself. Since 1941, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had ruled Iran as the pro-Western shah who was seen by many as a puppet of the British government.

In 1951, the relationship between the United Kingdom and Iran was turned upside down by the election of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. He was an anti-Western populist who wanted the oil revenue to benefit the Iranian people. In a speech supporting his recent nationalization of the oil industry, Mosaddeq stated, “With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people.” He went on to promote Iranian political and economic independence from outside powers.

Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go over well with the United Kingdom. After the independence of India in 1950, Winston Churchill (who had just begun his second stint as Prime Minister) was determined not to lose another central colony. The United Kingdom tried to enlist the help of the United States, but the Truman administration did not support intervention in Iranian politics. In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower took over the White House and, afraid of Communist influence in Iran, ordered the CIA to overthrow Mossadeq.

Operation Ajax

The plan to depose Mossadeq’s government was led by CIA officers Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt) and Donald Wilber. It was a multifaceted operation that involved anti-Mossadeq propaganda, financially supporting anti-Mossadeq groups, and staging numerous protests and attacks. It culminated in the Shah’s return to Iran (he had fled at the outset of the coup) to condemn Mossadeq and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi. Zahedi, backed by the United States and the United Kingdom, was the leader of the coup d'état and built a large network of military and public support.

The Shah returned triumphantly to Iran to reclaim kingship of the country. He reigned until the Iranian revolution in 1979—he is primarily remembered as a repressive and extravagant ruler. His secret service SAVAK was notorious for its use of torture, and his servitude toward the United States (a non-Muslim foreign power) angered the religious establishment.

The Significance of Operation Ajax

For the first time in history, the United States supported (and orchestrated) the overthrow of a democratically elected government. Even though Eisenhower had true concerns about the possibility of Soviet intervention in the nation, this represented a turning point in American foreign policy. As we’ll see in the third installment of this series, the United States continued its regime change operations throughout the rest of the Cold War. This was also one of the first interventions of the United States in Middle East politics—while the issue is still debated, some scholars trace the current atmosphere of terrorism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East to the 1953 coup d'état.

As we continue the series, though, we’ll discover more than one cause of anti-Americanism in the world.

For more information

All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, by Stephen Kinzer
Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East), by Mark J. Gasiorowski

Why the World Hates America (Part 1)

Whether or not Americans choose to admit it, anti-Americanism is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. Terrorism, diplomatic debacles, and international conflict frequently stem from a distaste for America and its actions. I stress this last point because too many Americans believe that the Muslim world and other anti-American regions hate us “because of our freedom” (this was especially prevalent during the intense jingoism that the nation experienced after September 11^th).

Instead, this seven-part series will show you that the world has several legitimate reasons to dislike the United States. I will start at the end of World War II and progress chronologically to the present day, detailing the most anger-inspiring events in American foreign policy. After this series, I’ll flip my thesis on its head and list the reasons why the world should love America—in the end, proving that both sides (blind patriotism and virulent hatred) are wrong. We have to accept that the United States has made incredible foreign policy mistakes, but it has a strong résumé of international aid and altruism.

The main issues I will look at are:

1. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2. Operation Ajax: The 1953 Iranian Coup d'état
3. Support for rebellions throughout the Cold War
4. Shifting alliances in the Middle East
5. Unflinching support of Israel
6. The War in Iraq
7. American Exceptionalism and its two-faced foreign policy

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Every student of American history experiences a similar feeling. At some point, one will come across an event that makes you stop and ask, “America did this?” For some, it is slavery; others cannot comprehend the treatment of Native Americans; for me, it was the use of the atomic bomb on Japan. A simple perusal of the statistics* is enough to sober the minds of anyone:

The Hiroshima bombing:

• 70,000 people died in the initial blast
• The five-year death toll was 200,000, due to cancer and other effects

The Nagasaki bombing:

· 40,000 people died in the initial blast
· The five-year death toll was close to 140,000

These attacks led Japan to be one of the staunchest anti-proliferation nations in the world. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been argued ceaselessly over the past sixty year—did President Truman make the right decision? Was it American terrorism? Doesn’t this make the United States hypocritical when it argues about other nations’ war crimes?

Why did Truman drop the bombs?

By the summer of 1945, the United States and Japan were in the climactic ending of the Pacific War. It was widely thought that America’s victory was inevitable, but the Japanese refused to surrender. The United States was dedicatedly firebombing Japanese cities, but it did little to weaken the resolve of Emperor Hirohito. Anxious to end the war, Truman and his Interim Committee had to choose between two options: dropping the bombs or ordering a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland (named Operation Downfall).

Operation Downfall was an immense military operation to rival Operation Overlord (the Normandy landings on D-Day a year earlier). It was widely accepted that the invasion would ultimately be successful, but not without hundreds of thousands of U.S. casualties, as well as millions of Japanese killed. It would have been a strategic and political nightmare for the military and the Truman administration.

The nuclear option, on the other hand, involved no U.S. casualties and would be quicker to achieve and easier to implement than an invasion. Truman believed that the atomic bombs, however horrific, would ultimately save lives and end the war quickly.

Was this part of modern warfare or state terrorism?

The word terrorism was not part of the national vernacular in 1945, but the principal of keeping war between combatant armies and not civilians has been part of warfare for centuries. While some civilian casualties are inevitable in war (particularly in World War II and the extensive air raids on all sides), this was a direct attack on a civilian populace used to intimidate the Japanese government into surrendering. The United Nations Security Council defines terrorism as:

“…criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act…” (Security Council Resolution 1566)

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seems to meet these criteria. However pure Truman’s intentions (to save lives, etc.), one cannot deny the horror of these attacks. Much like most of the events in this series, the United States seems to act with good intentions, but its application of foreign policy often leaves one sobered about America's image abroad.

For more information

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,by Gar Alperovitz
Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan,by J. Samuel Walker
Hiroshima,by John Hersey

*Provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of History and Heritage Resources.

Friday Book Review: "The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower"

The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower

By Robert Baer

Given the current election madness in Iran, the next few book reviews will feature books about Iranian culture and politics. In addition to The Devil We Know, I will discuss:

• Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran,by Azadeh Moaveni
• Iran: A People Interrupted,by Hamid Dabashi

_______________________________________

Robert Baer is a retired CIA case officer who has become an author on foreign affairs in the Middle East. His other books include See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism and Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Sould for Saudi Crude. He is a explicitely critical of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and uses The Devil We Know to educate Americans on the Iranian political mindset, Iranian goals in the Middle East and in the world, and how the United States can recover from its previous mistakes in the region.

Mr. Baer presents two central theses: first, he states that "...the bottom of Iran's soul is a newfound taste for empire." Second, "nearly everything the average American has been told about Iran is wrong." For 262 pages, he provides evidence to support these two assertions, concluding with an analysis of Iran's national interests and the responses available to United States policymakers.

Empire-Bound

The main premise of the book is that Iran is seeking to dominate the Middle East and establish itself as a world power. Before people start to argue about his hypothesis, let Mr. Baer clarify the term empire. He is not claming that Iran wants to invade other Muslim nations and establish the Supreme Leader as the head of the Middle East—rather, he sees an Iranian empire as an established network of influence and allies that take subtle (and occasionally explicit) guidance from Tehran. He uses Iranian influence in Lebanon as the “model” for this shadow empire. The current focus in the expansion of Iranian power: Iraq.

American False Impressions

Mr. Baer constantly returns to the fact that Americans are woefully unfamiliar with Iran. Those Americans who can find Iran on a map usually know about the 1979 Hostage Crisis and little else. Unfortunately for us, “Iran is a country of nuances. Unfortunately, at just the time it most needs to, the United States doesn’t see those nuances, or understand Iran for what it is.” He stresses that “Iran’s lines of power and authority are almost impossible to follow,” even for native Iranians. Next week’s book, Lipstick Jihad, will confirm this. Mr. Baer tries to assure readers that Iran “is not fighting a crusade. It does not want to convert us to Islam.”

He frames Iran’s strategic goals as rational actions of a modern nation. A large part of Iran’s hostility toward the West is because the global community has not treated it with the respect that it deserves as “the most powerful and stable country in the Middle East.” Instead of the Marg bar amerika (“Death to America”) campaign that Americans imagine coming from Tehran, Mr. Baer outlines the six core issues that affect Iranian foreign policy:

• Internal security – Iran is not without its dissenters, and its history with externally-initiated revolutions makes it nervous about the United States trying to encourage or support these groups.
• Iraq – As the only Shiite nation in the world, Iran sees it as a responsibility to protect and watch over the Shia-majority population in Iraq.
• Energy – Oil is a massive aspect of Iran’s economy, especially when one considers its control over the Straight of Hormuz.
• An Iranian Empire
• Control of Mecca – As the leader of Shia Islam, Iran desires at least partial control of Islam’s holiest city. Mr. Baer hypothesizes about a co-administered Mecca and Medina, jointly controlled by Iran and Saudi Arabia.
• Recognition/Equality – “At the bottom of it all,” Mr. Baer says, “the Iranian want to be treated fairly.”

Final Judgment

The Devil We Know is an interesting read that presents some compelling arguments about the way we view the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mr. Baer makes many claims, however, that are only backed up by his personal experience from his CIA years or statistics without sources. It is a good book to hear one side of the Iran debate, but I would not use it as the ultimate authority on Iran. The author does demonstrate the difficulty of discussing Iran in an unbiased manner—he succumbs to the trap of most Iran experts and automatically rejects any opinions that differ from his own. This is why it is vitally important to examine multiple perspectives and opposing opinions, which we will find in the upcoming books for review.

For more information, check out these resources:

The CIA World Factbook
The Official Website of the President of Iran
The Official Website of Iran
"What You Know About Iran is Wrong," an article by Fareed Zakaria