Issue 6

  Babak Layeghi

As a student of Middle Eastern Studies many historical events that have taken place in the region have always puzzled me.  For example, I wondered how it was possible for Egypt to be occupied by British forces in 1882 and be administered as a ‘protectorate’ under Lord Cromer for such a long period.  I was also puzzled to learn how easily British and Russian forces invaded Iran in World War II and removed the Shah and placed his 20 year old son on the throne.  I understood that that strength of both Egypt and Iran was no match for the sheer might of the European powers, but what about the millions of Egyptians and Iranians living in the country why were they not able to come together and force the invaders out of their native lands?

My questions were finally answered in 2001 and again in 2003, when against the will of any reasonable human being the commander and chief of the army, President George W. Bush, ordered his troops to invade and conquer Afghanistan and Iraq.  This was the first time in my life which I experienced first hand (from a safe distance of course) a sovereign state being invaded on the grounds of harbouring terrorists and possessing weapons of mass destruction, as a false pretext to satisfy the needs of an imperial regime.  The majority of the world understood that the claims put forward by the United States to invade these nations were false.  Articles were written, protests were held, and speeches were given, all to curb the United States from crushing another state on its way to imperial glory.

However, in the end no amount of peaceful activism was able to persuade the United States.  As for the Afghani and Iraqi people residing in these countries what could they really do? For those of us abroad and living in Western democratic states, where all the amenities one could wish for exist, we could not stop or even slow down the American war machine.

Perhaps the only thing one can walk away from all this is that no matter how powerful the United States is it could never invade Iran.  We can continue to boost our egos by thinking in such a manner, but let us not forget that for less then one million dollars, the CIA threw out the democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mossadegh in 1953 in favour of the Shah.