Big powers have drawn no lessons from the Iran fiasco and continue to force their writ on the Middle East, writes Aijaz Zaka Syed* Iran is celebrating 30 years of its Islamic Revolution. Al-Jazeera English, the Middle East's favourite television network, has been running a great series based on first person accounts and interviews to mark the occasion. I myself was too young and too far away to follow the cataclysmic events in Iran three decades ago. However, growing up in India, one had had the opportunity of watching people who were affected by the revolution. Hyderabad, a citadel of Muslim culture in India, is home to a large Iranian population and has had close, historical relations with Persia. Many young Iranians studied in Indian universities and colleges. Even though one really didn't grasp the significance of the fall of a 2,500-year-old monarchy at the time, it was great watching those amazingly good-looking Iranian students, bursting with revolutionary fervour and idealism, pitch for a new world order inspired by Islam, rather than one dictated by a big or small Satan. They would organise photo exhibitions of the anti-Shah movement or screenings of Mustafa El-Aqqad's classics like Lion of the Desert and The Message. At times, they would turn to the heart-warming poetry of Iqbal, the great South Asian poet who wrote both in Urdu and Persian languages. Whoever thought revolution would be such fun! Today, as Iran revisits the revolution, all those childhood memories and images have come flooding back. And one realises with shock that it has been three decades since those watershed events that left an imprint on many an impressionable mind at the time. How time flies! Perhaps 30 years are nothing in the history of nations. In these three decades, little has changed in Iran's relations with the West, especially the United States. America has yet to get over its humiliation after its man, Reza Shah Pahlavi, was booted out. It continues to see the Islamic republic as the fount of all problems and woes in the Middle East. Under Bush, this anti-Iran policy was taken to absurd lengths with the cowboy president condemning the country to the company of Iraq and North Korea. Iran has not been found wanting in reciprocating these sentiments: the American superpower remains the Great Satan in the Islamic republic's eyes. The Iran-US relationship serves as a case example for the rest of the Middle East. Islam's teachings urging resistance against oppression and injustice did play a seminal role in spawning the movement that brought down the Shah's corrupt and totalitarian regime. But America cannot disown its own role in sowing the seeds of change. Washington's short- sighted policies, especially the CIA's role in bringing down the elected government of prime minister Mohamed Musaddaq and propping up a discredited monarch in the face of fierce popular opposition also paved the way for the rule of the Ayatollahs. The more the Shah tried to force his fiercely patriotic and religious people into the liberal ways of the West the more they turned to their faith and ancient culture. While everyday Iranians identified with the Palestinians and Arabs, the Shah was palling around with the Israelis. SAVAK, the dreaded secret service agency, was trained and aided by Israel's Mossad. And the more force he used to suppress dissent and democratic and religious forces led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the stronger they became. The kind of mass protests Iran witnessed in those months and years with young men and women throwing themselves before the marching tanks were never seen in the region before and haven't been seen since. By identifying itself with the Shah and protecting his loathed regime, America invited upon itself the wrath and anger of the Iranian people. Even today, the West and Iran are not able to make peace with each other because both find it difficult to let go of their unpleasant, shared past and come to terms with their present and future. The US hasn't forgotten how it had to leave Tehran in undignified haste after the 444-day long siege of the US embassy by Iranian students. But more than the Americans, it's the Iranian people who have reasons to be unhappy with Washington. Iran continues to pay for the Shah's excesses sanctioned by the US. Even though the majority of the Iranian population today was born after the revolution, the West's interventionist policies in the past and continued vilification of Iran have poisoned their view of the West. They blame their woes and international isolation on the US, a view that is impossible to counter. The late Shah had plenty of warts and flaws. However, what really proved his undoing was his unquestioning fealty and abject loyalty to big powers, often at his people's expense. So if anyone is responsible for the monarch's downfall and ignominious exit, it's you know who. Reza Shah's nemesis was his own mentor and master. However, Reza Shah wasn't the first victim of the West and he won't be the last. Similar tales of exploitation and victimisation at the hands of big powers are everywhere. The US has drawn no lessons from the Iran fiasco. Even though it claims to champion democracy and freedom, it continues to impose its own colonial agenda and writ on the Middle East against its peoples' will. The historical manipulation and manoeuvring of Arab and Muslim states from Palestine to Pakistan -- while patronising and pampering Israel -- continually fills and multiplies the ranks of America's haters. I don't know if America's new leader can change this far from pleasant history of his country's engagement with the Muslim world. Perhaps it's too much to ask for in one term. But let's hope he at least gives it a try. The hero's welcome Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan received back home after he gave an earful to Israel's Shimon Peres in Davos and stormed out of the World Economic Forum in protest over Gaza offers you an insight into how Muslims think. Having long suffered the machinations of world powers, Muslims are elated when they spot a courageous leader who is not afraid of confronting big bullies and saying it as it is. Men like Erdogan, a rarity today, give them hope, restoring their dignity and confidence in themselves. If the West indeed wants things to change for the better in the Muslim world it should encourage and engage leaders like Erdogan. For, as Santayana warned, if you do not learn from the past, you are condemned to repeat it. * The writer is opinion editor of Khaleej Times .
