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The Shah of Iran was a dictator who only came to power because of an American/British orchestrated coup. He was overthrown against American wishes, and the gove
by afshin 16y ago
The Shah of Iran was a dictator who only came to power because of an American/British orchestrated coup. He was overthrown against American wishes, and the government that came to exist in Iran is reactionary and hostile to the West as a direct result.
This is a case of a homegrown movement to overthrow a dictator. The resultant government is not necessarily what the West would prefer, but that is a consequence of being (rightly) seen as the funders and supporters of both the previous dictator and the instigators of the war waged by the next-door neighbor (Saddam Hussein's Iraq, whose military was entirely funded by Western powers and was once among the most powerful in the world).
- zalew 16y agoI know the story, I'm quite interested in Iran, so I'm surprised myself I didn't mention it as an exception, but here the only reason is US was the opposite (overthrown) side this time. Good point.
- _djo_ 16y agoDo you have a citation for the claim that Saddam's military was 'entirely funded by Western powers'? To my knowledge there was never any direct funding of Iraq's military by any Western state during the Saddam era. The West was certainly not averse to selling weapons to the country, though neither was the Soviet bloc. During the 1980s the Iraqi air force was equipped mostly with French aircraft, and the army mostly with Soviet tanks, vehicles and weapons in addition to a smattering of weapons from other sources such as 100 G5 155mm howitzers from South Africa. But it need not be said that selling weapons to a country is very different to funding its military.
- razzmataz 16y agoSomeone could make the case that by purchasing Iraqi oil, we were funding his military.
- _djo_ 16y agoIt would be a weak case, as then by definition any trade with a country could be regarded as directly funding its military (and the rest of its state functions).
- afshin 16y agoHere's somebody else's research on the subject: http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php It seems pretty well cited. That citation itself came from this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War#U.S._support_for_Iraq http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War#U.S._support_for_...
- _djo_ 16y agoNeither of those sources contains a claim that Western states directly funded Iraq's military, so they don't represent a citation for the claim that you made. As I mentioned before, the fact that Western countries and the Soviet bloc happily sold Iraq weapons and dual-use items during the 1980s is not in question. We know that happened, it has been public knowledge for quite some time. Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but I feel that accuracy matters. There is a vast and important difference between directly funding a country's military and merely selling it weaponry. Besides, if we're referring solely to the issue of arming Iraq, then the statement that Western countries were solely responsible for that is incorrect too. As I said before, most of the Iraqi army's equipment was purchased from the Soviets.
- afshin 16y agoAmerican and Soviet policies supported the Iraqi prosecution of the war while funds to Iran were frozen and embargoes were placed. I believe you're being overly specific in your definition of what constitutes something more than mere partisanship. I think it's a reasonably safe statement that the war would likely not have happened without American blessings. It is, of course, more complex because of the involvement of the Soviets, but I think in this case both the Soviets and the West wanted to contain Iran and both politically and materially encouraged Iraq to wage war.
- _djo_ 16y agoI think you're missing the point. The only thing I have questioned is a very specific claim that you made in your original post, which was: Saddam Hussein's Iraq, whose military was entirely funded by Western powers All I've asked for is a citation for that claim. There really isn't much more to this than that.