I have been a student of history for many years, so when I came across this article in The Nation, I wanted to share it with you. I remember many of the events and details enumerated, but the author puts them in context and shows the progression to today's US foreign policy in the Middle East.
We’re still paying the price of Henry Kissinger’s “grand strategies.”
The only person Henry Kissinger flattered more than President Richard Nixon was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran. In the early 1970s, the shah, sitting atop an enormous reserve of increasingly expensive oil and a key figure in Nixon and Kissinger’s move into the Middle East, wanted to be dealt with as a serious person. He expected his country to be treated with the same respect Washington showed other key Cold War allies like West Germany and Great Britain. As Nixon’s national security adviser and, after 1973, secretary of state, Kissinger’s job was to pump up the shah, to make him feel like he truly was the “king of kings.”
Less well known is the way in which Kissinger’s policies toward Iran and Saudi Arabia accelerated the radicalization in the region, how step by catastrophic step he laid the groundwork for the region’s spiraling crises of the present moment. …
What the shah wanted most of all were weapons of every variety—and American military trainers, and a navy, and an air force. It was Kissinger who overrode State Department and Pentagon objections and gave the shah what no other country had: the ability to buy anything he wanted from US weapons makers.
“We are looking for a navy,” the shah told Kissinger in 1973, “we have a large shopping list.” And so Kissinger let him buy a navy.
By 1976, Kissinger’s last full year in office, Iran had become the largest purchaser of American weaponry and housed the largest contingent of US military advisers anywhere on the planet. By 1977, the historian Ervand Abrahamian notes, “the shah had the largest navy in the Persian Gulf, the largest air force in Western Asia, and the fifth-largest army in the whole world.” That meant, just to begin a list, thousands of modern tanks, hundreds of helicopters, F-4 and F-5 fighter jets, dozens of hovercraft, long-range artillery pieces, and Maverick missiles. The next year, the shah bought another $12 billion worth of equipment.
After Kissinger left office, the special relationship he had worked so hard to establish blew up with the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the flight of the shah, the coming to power of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the taking of the US Embassy in Tehran (and its occupants as hostages) by student protesters.
Read the rest of this very interesting, albeit long article. It certainly casts a brighter light on US foreign policy in the Middle East.
14 Responses to “How One Man Laid the Groundwork for Today’s Crisis in the Middle East”
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All about oil just like the Vietnam War…with neverending ripples following including weapons manufacturers' preferences in foreign policy in the region…
Kissinger should be tried as a war criminal and he certainly is one. Take him to the Hague!
Henry Kissinger
Easily one of the most controversial Nobel Peace Prize winners of all time (if not the most) is Henry Kissinger. The U.S. Secretary of State during both the Nixon and Ford administrations was a joint winner in 1973 with North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho. Le Duc Tho rejected the award, given for the pair’s peace work in South Vietnam, because he felt that peace had not yet been achieved in the area — and doubly, didn’t want to share the award with Kissinger.
Kissinger accepted the award “with humility,” but many felt that it should never have been offered to him in the first place. There were two reasons for this controversy. Kissinger was accused of war crimes for his alleged role in America’s secret bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1975. His win was also called premature since North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam two years after the prize was awarded, voiding his work. Two Norwegian Nobel Committee members resigned to protest Kissinger’s win.
http://www.cheatsheet.com/politics/10-most-controversial-nobel-peace-prize-winners.html/?a=viewall
I agree Jim . . . off to The Hague! But that will never happen at his age, even though it should, age be damned! There was a woman just recently that is 92 and recently convicted of crimes in relation to the Nazis in WWII. I did not hear what her punishment would be.
I don't suppose there is anything like a statute of limitation on war crimes. Although it might be difficult to establish a "smoking gun" after all this time.
I know if we released everyone from our prisons who was there for drug possession alone, there would be a lot more room in them than there is now. But would there be enough room for all the was criminals? I don't know, but I'd love to see us try to find out.
Kissy, and Nixon…geez, who woulda thought?!
This reminds me of what I have read is an old (Chinese?) saying: Love thine enemies, for you have creatd them!
Our long running foreign policy of setting up puppet, dictatorial, governments, killing off people like Salvatore Allende, as part of our drive for imperialistic supremacy, has created more enemies for us than anything else.
Amen Mitch!
One related petition to push for peace in Syria:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/senators-standwithhimes?source=c.em&r_by=1135580
MoveOn petition signed. End the strife and civil war in Syria.
And who knows how many others with influence in DC have brought us to where we are today? The war with Iraq bred so many terrorists that we will never see the end of them.
You're right Edie! The US is the author of it's own misfortunes whether directly or by setting the stage. Wasn't it Teddy Roosevelt that said "Walk softly, but carry a big stick"? Until the US repairs it modus operendi and makes big changes in how it addresses other nations, there will be no peace in the valley. The same has to happen everywhere.
Actually, I think this was about more than just oil. I think Kissinger allowed his heritage to influence his policy-making, to the great detriment of our country. He supported, or had supported, the cruelest of governments the world over just so his "influence" could be said to be great. I think this was more about his enormous ego than what was morally correct. I consider him a war criminal and the worst Secretary of State this country has ever had.
I so agree Gene!
Thanks everyone! The new articles are up.