Islamic Revolution of Iran threatens US imperial interests

By Stephen Lendman

February 10 marks the 42nd anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

It ended a generation of US installed tyranny that deprived Iranians of their fundamental rights.

Iran regained control over its sovereign independence and natural resources, the US no longer able to plunder them.

For Iran and its people, there’s no turning back to control by a repressive foreign power and its installed puppet regime.

Iranian sovereign independence threatens US imperial interests by encouraging other nations under its yoke to break free.

The US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners threaten regional and other nations worldwide that won’t sacrifice their sovereign rights to a higher power in Washington.

In late 1947, Iran demanded more revenue from its own oil.Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) refused.

In 1951, one month before Mohammad Mosaddegh became prime minister, parliament nationalized the APOC.

Fair compensation was paid. Iran tried but couldn’t resolve its revenue sharing dispute.

Imperial USA and Britain then and now want unchallenged control over Iran, its resources and people.

Economic sanctions and an oil embargo followed back then.

British banks froze Iranian assets. Major Anglo-American oil interests supported London.

Today’s anti-Iranian repression by the US is much like what occurred then in new form.

In 1953, CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson and Franklin’s cousin, engineered the agency’s first ever coup.

Democratically elected Mossadeq was ousted.

At the time, the New York Times called him “the most popular politician in the country.”

Nonetheless, a military showdown followed against pro-Mossadegh officers with each side staking their careers on the outcome.

He was deposed. Reza Shah Pahlavi replaced him.

Sanctions were lifted, the US and Britain regaining an Iranian client state until February 1979 when the same Anglo-American interests turned on the shah and removed him.

As late as 1977, Jimmy Carter called Iran an “oasis of stability.” He ignored years of brutal regime repression.

In January 1979, things came to a head. Shah fled the country.

Imam Khomeini returned, and proclaimed the Islamic Republic with overwhelming public support.

American officials thought they could control him and Iranian oil, but miscalculated.

Free from Western dominance, Iran didn’t look back to this day.

Tensions built over time. They reached a boiling point during Trump’s tenure that included all-out US war on Iran by other means — short of things turning hot.

Since Iran regained its sovereign independence, it’s been targeted by the US and its imperial partners for regime change.

Iranians reject the notion of US and Western control regained over their country. 

Iran: Keeper of mankind’s anti-imperialist flame amid the ‘end of history’

At 42 years the Iranian Islamic Revolution has endured so long that it has seen the reactionary force which rose to counter it - Reaganism - partially defeated by a new faction: Trumpism.

Annually, Iranians commemorate the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Nothing like it ever occurred in the US. When people have nothing to celebrate, they don’t.

Years of protest were needed for meager social gains. Racism and class divisions defined the US from inception to today.

Constitutional law legitimized slavery. Blacks were commodities, not people.

Only adult white male property owners could vote. Women were considered childbearing, homemaking appendages of their husbands.

Except for the US ruling class, other adult white males couldn’t vote until property and tax requirements ended in 1850.

States elected senators until the 1913 17th amendment enfranchised citizens.

Native Americans had no rights until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.

It partially returned what no one had the right to take away in the first place.

Today native Americans are treated  like serfs, not citizens.

Women’s suffrage wasn’t achieved until the 1920 19th Amendment after nearly a century of struggle.

The 1865 13th Amendment freed Black slaves.

The 1870 15th Amendment gave them what wasn’t achieved until passage of the landmark mid-1960s Civil and Voting Rights Acts.

They abolished longstanding Jim Crow laws, now reemerged in new forms.

Today, virtually all hard won gains are lost. Blacks have no reason to celebrate.

Neither do Latinos and all working Americans exploited by corporate predators complicit with both right wings of the US one-party state. 

Early America was repressive and unfair. Today things are much worse.

Democracy is pure fantasy. It exists for the privileged few alone that benefit by exploiting ordinary people at home and abroad.

Freedoms are eroding en route to disappearing altogether.

On January 20, Biden/Harris replaced Trump.

Looking ahead, things are more likely to worsen than improve.

Diverging from the official narrative increasingly is considered a threat to national security.

Speech, media and academic freedoms are threatened — censorship the new abnormal.

Nations free from US control like Iran are targeted for regime change. Favored US tactics include war by hot and/or by other means.

Biden called on Congress to pass the repressive Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act.

If enacted into law, it’ll be another nail in the coffin of disappearing freedoms in the US — by targeting for elimination what free and open societies hold dear.

When dissent is redefined as terrorism, censorship becomes the new abnormal, along with totalitarian rule.

That’s where the US is heading.

As for relations with Iran and other nations from US control, normalizing them is considered a threat to national security.

Whatever the fate of the landmark JCPOA ahead, US relations with Iran and other nations free from its control will remain hostile.

No matter which wing of its war party runs things, the US can never be trusted because sooner or later it’ll breach whatever it agrees to.

I see nothing ahead that encourages me to believe positive change in how the US operates is possible.

The Islamic Revolution, so young, and yet so old

Iran

Stephen Lendman, born in 1934 in Boston, started writing on major world and national issues in the summer of 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.

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