Jason Kuznicki has a post up about Iran hosting a conference on the holocaust and urging people to be "open-minded" about recent comments by their clearly insane President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the holocaust was a myth. And he has it precisely right that the notion of Iran, a nation that has been killing dissidents and crushing freedom for the last 50 years (since at least our collosal foreign policy mistake of 1953), calling for open-mindedness is utter hypocrisy and a fraud. But it makes me wonder if perhaps Larry Darby would like to attend this conference. I know he's an atheist and Ahmadinejad is a Muslim, but they share the fantasy of holocaust denial and a hatred for "Zionists".
Incidentally, and this isn't directly related to what I said above, I really do believe that our overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 was the single biggest mistake we made during the Cold War. Had we nurtured the movement toward freedom and self-rule in Iran rather than crushed it, we might well have had 50 years ago what we are now trying to build in Iraq - an example of genuine democracy in the middle east that would help spur similar movements in other nations. And best of all, it would have been a homemade movement that came up from the people themselves rather than being imposed by the United States.
Alternative history is always a shaky game, but the whole history of the middle east over the last 50 years may well have been entirely different had we not sent Kermit Roosevelt on his fateful, and fatal, mission. We certainly can see that what we did backfired completely on us. The brutal repression of the Shah radicalized the religious elements of Iranian society, leading directly to the revolution in 1978 and to so much anti-American fervor (and who can blame them?). It has been especially tragic for the Iranian people, who have had to suffer under brutal dictatorships, one secular and one religious, for half a century. Had we allowed 50 years ago what we are trying so hard to build artificially now, the world might well be a different and better place today.
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My first read of the first sentence above was that Sandefur was urging people to remain open-minded about Holocaust denial, in part because Ahmadinejad is not the subject of the sentence. It is not Sandefur, of course--it's Ahmadinejad who "urged the West to be sufficiently open-minded to allow a free international debate on the Holocaust" in the cited article... just in case anybody else misread that.
Actually, it wasn't Sandefur at all! The post was written by Jason, not Tim, and I completely screwed the pooch the first time. But yes, as you point out, the first sentence could be read to imply that Jason is the one urging the false open-mindedness, but that is not the case. It is Iran doing so.
I agree that overthrowing Mossadegh was a huge mistake and the most glaring example of imperialistic activity in our history. And while I believe that Iran would have been a better place with him in power, you cannot reduce the situation to a simple algorithm of "if Mossadegh had not been overthrown, we have a representative democracy in Iran".
While that would be nice, its crucial to note that Iran's people are extremely religious, and although Khomeini had to overcome secular parties in 1980 to take over the government after the revolution, it is not an accident that Iran is essentially a theocracy. I think we should look west to Iraq to see what happens in the Middle East when democracy is given a chance: sectarianism, a la Lebanon. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while it would be romantic to think that Iran would be a beacon for all the West to point towards in the Middle East if Mossadegh had stayed in power, it somewhat ignores the fact that Iran's people are essentially relgious. And until the West can find a way to build a democracy in the Middle East that overcomes sectarianism but does not alienate religion, we will have problems building good faith with the Middle East.
Iran, one of the few remaining countries of any heft that still publicly calls for the destruction of Israel and is acquiring nuclear weapons, must change by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering impotent associated organizations. Although our Middle Eastern nation-building experience is still limited, it appears so far that the pace and nature of reform such as occurred in Germany after WWII will be difficult to achieve without politically untenable decisions to insert a far larger share of national blood and treasure. If there is a shooting war with Iran, the West's political will will be tested. Comparing the experience of Germany with our limited results highlights the key role played by local characteristics. China is an interesting case; broadly similar in age to Iran. Perhaps Iran can develop an Islamic society with "modern" characteristics, or some other such transitional form. What can Iran change into? The obstacles to modernity may well be less than we see in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it seems implausible that they will be as easily swept away as in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.