Salmiya

When recently visiting Iran, I saw a framed picture of Mohammed Mossadegh on the mantelshelf in the living room of a friend. In our discussions he told me that Iranians would not forget Madeleine Albright’s apology in March 2000 for the 1953 C.I.A. coup and reinstatement of the Shah. Albright, then Secretary of State in Clinton’s Administration, said: “In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons, but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs. Moreover, during the next quarter century, the United States and the West gave sustained backing to the Shah’s regime. Although it did much to develop the country economically, the Shah’s government also brutally repressed politica...

The National Intelligence Estimate which has considerably relieved the strain on Iran’s nuclear program was not entirely new. While IAEO Director General Mohamed ElBaradei wrote in October 2007 that there is no evidence that Iran was working actively to build nuclear weapons, largely confirming NIE, Seymour Hersh reported already one year ago about clandestine results of the C.I.A. activities which were perceived in the White House with hostility. He wrote in The New Yorker on November 27, 2006 (!): “The Administration’s planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House’s assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The C.I.A. declined to co...

This week’s published summary of the Iranian National Intelligence Estimate has considerably lowered apprehensions of new military actions in the Middle East. The American President is now personally addressing North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-il for some further nuclear clarifications. Anyway, G.W. Bush's last year in office might become more boring than had been suspected so far.