Nostalgia for Nixon

By Paul Iddon

Flynt Leverett's distortions of Nixon's presidency and the present situation in Iran.

Nixon and Mao.

Cast your mind back to 1973. An eventful year to the least. That saw monumental events in not just the Middle East, but the entire world. Probably the most grotesque thing to transpire that year took place in the south American country of Chile. There the agency which Flynt Leverett used to work for carried out a brutal coup against the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende and installed a right-wing military junta headed by the brutal Augusto Pinochet. It was a heinous assault on the small non-aggressive state, a country that had never harmed or threatened to harm the United States. Consequently it was assaulted in such a grotesque manner exactly 20 years after the CIA backed the British in their blatant subversive action against the Iranian government. The CIA upon its retrospective assessment of the events of 1979 determined that the Iranian Revolution was among other things 'blowback' for their actions in 1953. And actions in the intervening time such as the installation of a secret police force that sought out and punished, that's putting it lightly, those who voiced dissent.

So in essence the oppressive regime currently in power in Iran today was able to force its way to power as a somewhat indirect result of that American and British intervention in Iran's domestic affairs in 1953. Whilst one can counter argue this point of view by outlining the geopolitical reasons the U.S and U.K had for undertaking that assault on Iran's independence one simply cannot realistically exclude the primary influence that both oil and geopolitics had on this imperial intervention.

Flynt Leverett always stresses the importance of Iran due to its resources and geopolitical importance. He often brings up and then downplays the opposition in Iran and has exhibited classic signs of double think when he insists Iran is an 'Islamic Republic' whilst using selectively dubious sources to try and prove the Iranian public, which hasn't been allowed participate in a democratic and free referendum on their destiny for over 30 years (a very large part of Iran's population is actually under 30 years of age), supports the authoritarian regime in power there. But he never seems to be able to reconcile with the fact that the regime has done its utmost to prevent a conclusive public opinion poll from being conducted to prove to the world that is the case.

Flynt's primary contention and argument is that it is completely Washington that is at fault for not undertaking a 'Nixon goes to China' with Tehran.

“He put every ounce of political skill, Machiavellian calculation, diplomatic acumen, capacity for secrecy…all of the good and maybe not so good parts of political persona, he put all of them into this and achieved this historic breakthrough, because he knew it was strategically vital for his country.”

That was him describing Richard Nixon of all people. Granted Nixon's overture to China was a breakthrough. But it was done, as was the case with nearly everything that Nixon done, purely for reasons for Realpolitik. Flynt by evoking such admiration for Nixon's action would like you to forget that Nixon only went to China after his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a classic case of political triangulation, purposely scuttled the 1968 peace accords in Vietnam and as a result prolonged that brutal, and blatantly colonial, war against the people of that country. That inevitably resulted in the killing of a great deal of American boys in the process by Peking's North Vietnamese allies. One doesn't even want to think about the number of Vietnamese that were killed during the period of that wars prolongation. This all transpired before Nixon decided to make his 'historic breakthrough' by going to Beijing -- 'diplomatic acumen' indeed.

Flynt would like you to forget that, and he would also like you to forget that the Cold War is over and remember that Iran has lots of oil and is strategically important for the United States. But the main thing he wants you to forget is that the United States played a prime role in robbing Iran of both her resources and her peoples freedom. It was because of people like Flynt, so-called 'realist' CIA analysts and advisers, that this happened in the first place. Now he is continuing to, in this post-Cold War world of ours, advocate a policy that will essentially see to the United States once again dealing with thuggish plunderers, oppressors and enemies of the people of Persia. All done under the guise of adopting a more sober foreign policy that will suit American interests. Dealing with the regime would also on a personal basis for Flynt potentially bring vast business contracts to a certain energy and consulting firm which a certain Mrs. Leverett is CEO of.

Here's what the famous 'Gonzo' journalist, one of Nixon's main detractors in print, Hunter S. Thompson said upon the former Presidents death in 1994:

“Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man -- evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him -- except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.”

Similarly I'd wager that the cold and clumsy policies and contentions of these cold self-described 'realists' will be frowned upon by history. I am reminded as I write this of a furious outburst Victor Klemperer had when writing in his personal diaries -- which recorded the lifespan of the discriminatory and repressive state system that existed in his home country of Germany. He expressed this burst of outrage when he jotted down the following:

'If one day the situation were reversed and the fate of the vanquished lay in my hands, then I would let all the ordinary folk go and even some of the leaders, who might perhaps after all have had honourable intentions and not known what they were doing. But would have all the intellectuals strung up, and the professors three feet higher than the rest; they would be left hanging from the lampposts for as long as was compatible with hygiene.'

As far as we constitute citizens of 'the west', we should strongly oppose any kind of conciliation with the regime occupying Persia. The people it oppresses have done nothing to threaten or harm us. Their land has been occupied by the great powers and their destiny subverted by them. 'Honest historians' would surely wonder what we were thinking if we were to listen to the likes of the Leverett's. Worse still, carefully ponder what those who fought for the most basic of civil rights and exerted extraordinary courage in facing down the brute murderers and rapists of the Revolutionary Guards would think of us if we embraced these criminals and thugs now. And sought to, as the Leverett's continually insist we should, recognize them as the true representatives of the Iranian people.

History shows there has never been, and probably never will be, a shortage of petty moral relativists, jesters and sly apologists for authoritarianism and tyranny. Sadly history also demonstrates time and again how the average decent citizen of the world is often fooled by them. One hopes we won't be fooled about the nature of the Iranian regime, and prove to be an exception to this historical rule.