@Halduell. Thanks for the timely reminder that the 1953 coup in Iran was engineered by CIA and MI6. Lego seems under the bizarre impression that the coup was to prevent Hitler using Iranian oilfields! Rather, it was on behalf of the Anglo-Persian oil company (now BP) that didn't like the nationalisation of the oilfields by Mossadegh. Lego's grasp of history is as reliable on that as on all other points. Any reliance on the memoirs of old soldiers is at best dubious.

@Loudmoth. Joe, I don't think Sykes-Picot is the wellspring of all evil. It is rather a good illustration of what happens when countries are created for the benefit of western imperialism with a complete disregard for the culture, religion or history of the affected citizens of those territories.

There is a relentless disregard by most of the commenters here to ignore the fact that western policies have exacerbated (and in many cases created) the problems. To detail them would exhaust OLO's word limit, but reading Seymour Hersh's 2007 article (The Redirection; New Yorker magazine) would be rewarding for those actually interested in what has happened and is happening now rather than those who use articles in OLO to give vent to their ill-informed prejudices.

We can see the policies described by Hersh being played out today in the Middle East. Patrick Cockburn and Robert Fisk (neither of left wing persuasion) are two contemporary commentators who have a relatively clear eyed view of the realities, certainly more so than any of the BS in the Oz media.

Continued

Hi James,

I think you are confusing two events, the removal of the old pro-Nazi Shah:

[from Wikipedia:] 'Reza Shah ruled for almost 16 years until September 16, 1941, when he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. He established an authoritarian government that valued nationalism, militarism, secularism and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda.'

[and of course the German armies were fighting their way across North Africa, in order to move into the Middle East and seize the oilfields.]

and the anti-democratic overthrow of Mossadegh (and, I think, his later murder by the CIA).

But that was then, this is now. Shah, Anglo-American, Hashemites, Ibn Saud, etc., etc., are all history which has nothing much to do with the rise of salafism.

In fact, one could surmise that the rapid rise of the most reactionary forms of Islamism has been a response to the threats - and opportunities - thrown up by the Arab Spring, by the most backward elements in Arab and Islamic society.

If this is so, perhaps what we are witnessing is the sort of ideological ferment - and reaction - that Europe experienced 400-500 years ago. Perhaps, the leap to more modern values won't take the Islamic countries quite so long.

Joe

JO'N: That more than a million Iraqis were killed between 1991 and 2012.

Are you saying the Allies shot & killed ALL of these Iraqi people? I think you are. Or, was it the Iraqi people themselves that created most of the civilian deaths by fighting amongst themselves & they still are. Has that escaped your attention or have you chosen to ignore those facts.

JO'N: Have you given any thought to the fact that the US is arming and financing jihadi terrorists in Syria, Did they or was their just talk about support. All talk, I think. A bit of private support from Terrorist supporters in the US but that's all.

JO'N: the State of Israel that sees the progressive destruction of all societies in its neighbourhood that might pose a threat to its own expansionist ambitions.

If I was an Israeli I'd see it that way too. Nothing wrong with that.
JO'N: @JayB: re your final paragraph. If you really think that then further discussion is pointless because you are either so blinkered or irredeemably stupid that nothing will persuade you.

JB. The West went in at the request of the millions of Refugees who escaped (displaced) the Saddam Terror regime.

Are you saying that there were no refugees from Saddam's regime? Strange I remember specifically, (on TV) an Australian woman & others begging Australia & the West to do something to help them. Are you saying there were no refugees coming to Australia at that time? You must have been very young or had your head in a Philosophy book at the time. Either that or you didn't want to know. The latter I think

JO'N: Neither did I suggest that Saddam Hussein was an angel. He did however create a secular al Qaeda free relatively advanced society that western greed, ignorance and criminality destroyed.

It was OK if you were a Sunni or brown nosed Saddam. Everybody else was disappeared or put into torture chambers, gassed or just plain shot in the Plain of Reeds. I wonder why people were leaving in droves to become refugees.

A précis of "Background to Dunsterforce." by WJ Preston. RSL News.
Many educated & Patriotic Persians supported steps to democracy. Due to corruption the Upper Classes & the Public Service were divided between Russia & Britain. It concluded with the Angle-Russian Convention of 1907 splitting the Country between themselves. The Mejlis refused to ratify the agreement & the Russians overthrew the Government. In 1909 the previously corrupt Government was restored to power, not forgetting that Persia was Bankrupt at the time.
The Caspian Oil fields had been abandoned by the Russians, so the upshot of this was that the hated Russians were out of the north & the less hated Brits remained in the south. The Dunsterforce was deployed north in the previously held Russian area.

The founding of the CIA was a combination of all America's Secret Agencies (about 5 in all, SAS, SES. SSS. & a few others) happened after WW2 & was in response to the rise of the Communist Party in China. The CIA was to help the Nationalists but they had no money. That's where the Golden Triangle comes in. But that's another story.

JO'N: @JayB: re your final paragraph. If you really think that then further discussion is pointless because you are either so blinkered or irredeemably stupid that nothing will persuade you.

God I love it when I'm right. You may not agree with what I say, but I can't force you to be right. ;-)

This is worth a read if you haven't seen it, by Boris Johnson the conservative Mayor of London.

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/tony-blair-is-mad-to-deny-iraq-was-a-tragic-error-20140616-zs97h.html

continued:

@Jayb, Rhrosty et al. Of course the atrocities committed by Islamists with a medieval mindset are deplorable. For all their killing however, they have stiff competition from the Americans and their allies. Half a million Iraqi children died due to western sanctions on Iraq between 1991 and 2003. See Madeleine Albright's callous rejoinder: "it was worth it".

Total Iraqi deaths caused by the west between 1991 and 2012 are more than one million according to a study done by Johns Hopkins University and published in The Lancet. More than 3 million Vietnamese died during what the Vietnamese aptly call the "American War". Not to mention depleted uranium, the gift that goes on giving (Iraq) or Agent Orange (Vietnam)

And then we have Obama's drone program, a weapon of terror as an instrument in a policy of terror (Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere).

When you express the same level of outrage at western atrocities as you do for Islamist atrocities then perhaps, only perhaps, your views might garner attention.