Letters to the Editor

• Strange Article by Salon Standards

  [Read the article: The Iran hawks' latest surge]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I have to say I found the structure and tone of this article unusual in comparison to others of it's ilk on salon. I say this because it presented a lot of information which was ultimately damning to the Israeli and American view of Iran's supposed threat without actually editorializing the fact that this information was damning within the article.

  In contrast, most articles on salon display their writer's point of view quite nakedly, and to such a degree that they often lapse into unwarranted polemicism, however this particular piece may give the readership too much credit. For my own part, when I read something like this I read it in the context of knowing that Iran has not in fact ever launched an aggressive war against any nation on the globe at any point in its rather long history (Iran is the oldest nation on earth, older even than Egypt).

  I also read the article knowing that the US fomented a coup in Iran in 1953, a coup which resulted in the overthrow of the democratically elected (and progressive) government and resulted in the installation of a murderous dictator who terrorized the civillian population (with military, financial and propoganda aid from the US) over the course of the following quarter century. So draconian were the Shah's methods that the only people who had the nerve to stand up to him ultimately were a bunch of religious fanatics for whom even death was not a concern.

  Not to belabor the point but my ex-girlfriend's family moved to the US after the Shah fell and she has got some truly chilling stories about family members being flogged in public square's by the Shah's secret police in Tehran for such seditious practices as holding student demonstrations against the government. Several of those same family members were later consigned to fight and die in a war between Iraq and Iran (a truly meaningless war which the US funded, armed and supported on both sides and which resulted in the death of over one million people).

  In short, while Iranian foreign policy has been abhoerent many times in the past, this foreign policy should be taken in the context of a largely peaceable country which has never attacked its neighbors and which has received an incredible amount of completely undeserved ill-treatment from the US.

  Mr. Levey's article starts off by quoting an Israeli intelligence agent's take on the NIE report about Iran. Given all of the above, and given the fact that Israel has a belligerent and largely dishonorable history I can only hope that salon readers will take this man's opinions with a considerable grain of dead sea salt.

  Permalink Friday, March 7, 2008 12:00 AM