Islamic Declaration Blasts Short-Sighted Capitalism, Demands Action on Climate

Just as scientists announced July was the hottest month in recorded history, and ahead of a major climate summit in Paris later this year, an international group of Islamic leaders on Tuesday released a public declaration calling on the religion's 1.6 billion followers to engage on the issue of global warming and take bold action to stem its worst impacts.

"What will future generations say of us, who leave them a degraded planet as our legacy? How will we face our Lord and Creator?" —Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change

Released during an international symposium taking place in Istanbul, the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change is signed by 60 Muslim scholars and leaders of the faith who acknowledge that—despite the short-term economic benefits of oil, coal, and gas—humanity's use of fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming which increasingly threatens "a functioning climate, healthy air to breathe, regular seasons, and living oceans."

The declaration states there is deep irony that humanity's "unwise and short-sighted use of these resources is now resulting in the destruction of the very conditions that have made our life on earth possible."

"Our attitude to these gifts has been short-sighted, and we have abused them," it continues. "What will future generations say of us, who leave them a degraded planet as our legacy? How will we face our Lord and Creator?"

The declaration by the Muslim leaders follows the widely lauded encyclical released by Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, earlier this summer in which he called for a drastic transformation of the world's economies and energy systems in order to stave off the worst impacts of an increasingly hotter planet. Additionally, hundreds of Jewish Rabbis also released a Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis and dozens of other denominations and churches have joined the global movement to divest their financial holdings from the fossil fuel industry.

Fazlun Khalid, founder of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences and a signatory to the declaration, said the unified statement "is the work of world renowned Islamic environmentalists" and that its goal is to trigger richer dialogue and further action. Khalid said he would be happy if other people adopt or improve upon the ideas contained within the document.

"Civil society is delighted by this powerful Climate Declaration coming from the Islamic community as it challenges all world leaders, and especially oil producing nations, to phase out their carbon emissions and supports the just transition to 100% renewable energy as a necessity to tackle climate change, reduce poverty and deliver sustainable development around the world." —Wael Hmaidan, Climate Action Network

As with the papal encyclical, the Muslim scholars take special note of how global capitalism—namely the "relentless pursuit of economic growth and consumption"—has fostered an energy paradigm that now threatens the sustainability of living systems and human society.

With a focus on the upcoming Conference of Parties (COP21) talks in Paris, the declaration urges leaders to forge an "equitable and binding" agreement and called on all nations to:

• Aim to phase out greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible in order to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere;
• Commit themselves to 100 % renewable energy and/or a zero emissions strategy as early as possible, to mitigate the environmental impact of their activities;
• Invest in decentralized renewable energy, which is the best way to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development;
• Realize that to chase after unlimited economic growth in a planet that is finite and already overloaded is not viable. Growth must be pursued wisely and in moderation; placing a priority on increasing the resilience of all, and especially the most vulnerable, to the climate change impacts already underway and expected to continue for many years to come.
• Set in motion a fresh model of wellbeing, based on an alternative to the current financial model which depletes resources, degrades the environment, and deepens inequality.
• Prioritise adaptation efforts with appropriate support to the vulnerable countries with the least capacity to adapt. And to vulnerable groups, including indigenous peoples, women and children.

When it comes to wealthier nations and the oil-rich states of the world, the declaration called on them to specifically:

• Lead the way in phasing out their greenhouse gas emissions as early as possible and no later than the middle of the century;
• Provide generous financial and technical support to the less well-off to achieve a phase-out of greenhouse gases as early as possible;
• Recognize the moral obligation to reduce consumption so that the poor may benefit from what is left of the earth’s non-renewable resources;
• Stay within the ‘2 degree’ limit, or, preferably, within the ‘1.5 degree’ limit, bearing in mind that two-thirds of the earth’s proven fossil fuel reserves remain in the ground;
• Re-focus their concerns from unethical profit from the environment, to that of preserving it and elevating the condition of the world’s poor.
• Invest in the creation of a green economy.

Additionally, focusing on the corporate sector and business interests who profit most from exploitative activities and the current burning of fossil fuels, the declaration argues those institutions to:

• Shoulder the consequences of their profit-making activities, and take a visibly more active role in reducing their carbon footprint and other forms of impact upon the natural environment;
• In order to mitigate the environmental impact of their activities, commit themselves to 100 % renewable energy and/or a zero emissions strategy as early as possible and shift investments into renewable energy;
• Change from the current business model which is based on an unsustainable escalating economy, and to adopt a circular economy that is wholly sustainable;
• Pay more heed to social and ecological responsibilities, particularly to the extent that they extract and utilize scarce resources;
• Assist in the divestment from the fossil fuel driven economy and the scaling up of renewable energy and other ecological alternatives.

Such a rounded and full-throated declaration was met with applause by climate campaigners, anti-poverty advocates, and social justice voices from around the world.

"Muslim leaders single out wealthy nations and oil producing states to lead on a fossil fuel phase out and provide support to those less well off to curb emissions and adapt to a changing climate. They also call on big business to stop their relentless pursuit of growth, change their extractive models and provide greater benefits for people and the climate."
—Lies Craeynest, Oxfam International

"Today’s declaration is an unprecedented call by Muslim leaders to end the destruction of Earth’s resources," stated Lies Craeynest, the food and climate justice director for Oxfam International. "Muslim leaders single out wealthy nations and oil producing states to lead on a fossil fuel phase out and provide support to those less well off to curb emissions and adapt to a changing climate. They also call on big business to stop their relentless pursuit of growth, change their extractive models and provide greater benefits for people and the climate."

Referring to Pope Francis' earlier declaration, Craeynest acknowledged the vital importance of religious leaders taking such bold and powerful stances. "As leaders of the two largest global faiths express grave concern about our fragile climate, there is no justifiable way political leaders can put the interests of the fossil fuel industry above of the needs of people, particularly the poorest, and of our planet."

Wael Hmaidan, international director of the Climate Action Network, called the declaration a potential game changer and said, "Civil society is delighted by this powerful Climate Declaration coming from the Islamic community as it challenges all world leaders, and especially oil producing nations, to phase out their carbon emissions and supports the just transition to 100% renewable energy as a necessity to tackle climate change, reduce poverty and deliver sustainable development around the world."

Celebrating the growing call among faith communities and religious scholars for bold climate action, Hoda Baraka, the global communications director for the climate action group 350.org, said the Islamic declaration reveals the important ways in which international consensus is solidifying across cultures. "With the end of the fossil fuel era approaching," declared Baraka, "we have a moral responsibility to expedite the transition to clean energy protecting those most impacted from the climate crisis. The declaration’s call for divestment reinforces the moral impetus behind the fast-growing movement to divest from fossil fuels and helps expand its reach in faith communities around the world."

Speaking for the UN climate body, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres also welcomed the declaration.

"A clean energy, sustainable future for everyone ultimately rests on a fundamental shift in the understanding of how we value the environment and each other," Figueres said. "Islam’s teachings, which emphasize the duty of humans as stewards of the Earth and the teacher’s role as an appointed guide to correct behavior, provide guidance to take the right action on climate change." More

 

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Islamic Climate Change Declaration Calls for Zero Emissions Strategy

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18 August 2015: Islamic leaders, during an International Islamic Climate Change Symposium, called on the world's 1.6 billion Muslims to take an active role in combating climate change and urged governments to agree to a new climate change agreement in Paris.

The Symposium convened to discuss proposed messages from the Islamic community and to mobilize stakeholders in advance of the Paris Climate Change Conference in December 2015. It also aimed to seek consensus on an ‘Islamic Declaration on Climate Change,' which was drafted and circulated for comments prior to the symposium.

Approximately 60 participants, including international development policymakers, faith group leaders, academics and other experts, attended the Symposium, which met from 17-18 August 2015, in Istanbul, Turkey. The event provided the opportunity for: networking with leaders from other faiths and secular organizations; promoting inter-faith and cross-movement cooperation around joint messages; focusing on the role and contribution of Muslims to the climate movement; and securing high-level representation from participating stakeholder groups. The Symposium reaffirmed that the Islamic faith community represents a significant section of the global population and, thus, can be influential in the climate change discourse.

The 'Islamic Declaration on Climate Change,' agreed to by participants, presents the moral case, based on Islamic teachings, for Muslims and people of all faiths to act on climate change. It was drafted by international Islamic scholars from around the world and is “in harmony” with the Papal Encyclical.

The Declaration urges: setting clear targets and monitoring systems; phasing out greenhouse gas emissions; committing to 100% renewable energy and/or a zero emissions strategy; and richer countries and oil-producing states to lead the way in phasing out their emissions by 2050. The Declaration also calls for, inter alia: the provision of financial and technical support to poorer countries to phase out greenhouse gases; limiting temperature rise to below 2°C, and preferably below 1.5°C; investing in a green economy; and prioritizing adaptation efforts with support to more vulnerable countries.

In addition, the Declaration urges corporations, finance and the business sector to, inter alia: reduce their carbon footprint; commit to 100% renewable energy and/or a zero emissions strategy; adopt a “circular economy that is wholly sustainable”; consider social and ecological responsibilities; and help in divesting from the fossil fuel driven economy.

Welcoming the Declaration, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Secretary Christiana Figueres said that Islam's teachings, which emphasize the “duty of humans as stewards of the Earth and the teacher's role as an appointed guide to correct behavior,” provides guidance to take action on climate change.

The Pew Research Center data estimates that 84% of the world's population is religiously affiliated, which points to the importance of support by faith groups for climate action. Many other faiths and denominations have also called for governments to act on climate change, including through the Papal Encyclical, a forthcoming Buddhist Declaration on climate change and a Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis. [Symposium Website] [Islamic Declaration on Climate Change] [UNFCCC Press Release] [Climate Action Network Press Release] More

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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To avoid counting civilian deaths, Obama re-defined “militant” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone

Virtually every time the U.S. fires a missile from a drone and ends the lives of Muslims, American media outlets dutifully trumpet in headlines that the dead were "militants" — even though those media outlets literally do not have the slightest idea of who was actually killed.

They simply cite always-unnamed "officials" claiming that the dead were "militants." It’s the most obvious and inexcusable form of rank propaganda: media outlets continuously propagating a vital claim without having the slightest idea if it’s true.

This practice continues even though key Obama officials have been caught lying, a term used advisedly, about how many civilians they’re killing. I’ve written and said many times before that in American media discourse, the definition of "militant" is any human being whose life is extinguished when an American missile or bomb detonates (that term was even used when Anwar Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son, Abdulrahman, was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen two weeks after a drone killed his father, even though nobody claims the teenager was anything but completely innocent: "Another U.S. Drone Strike Kills Militants in Yemen").

This morning, the New York Times has a very lengthy and detailed article about President Obama’s counter-Terrorism policies based on interviews with "three dozen of his current and former advisers." I’m writing separately about the numerous revelations contained in that article, but want specifically to highlight this one vital passage about how the Obama administration determines who is a "militant." The article explains that Obama’s rhetorical emphasis on avoiding civilian deaths "did not significantly change" the drone program, because Obama himself simply expanded the definition of a "militant" to ensure that it includes virtually everyone killed by his drone strikes. Just read this remarkable passage;

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. "Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don’t hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs," said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.

This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the "single digits" — and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants.

But in interviews, three former senior intelligence officials expressed disbelief that the number could be so low. The C.I.A. accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One called it "guilt by association" that has led to "deceptive" estimates of civilian casualties.

"It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants," the official said. "They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are."

For the moment, leave the ethical issues to the side that arise from viewing "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants"; that’s nothing less than sociopathic, a term I use advisedly, but I discuss that in the separate, longer piece I’ve written. For now, consider what this means for American media outlets. Any of them which use the term "militants" to describe those killed by U.S. strikes are knowingly disseminating a false and misleading term of propaganda. By "militant," the Obama administration literally means nothing more than: any military-age male whom we kill, even when we know nothing else about them. They have no idea whether the person killed is really a militant: if they’re male and of a certain age they just call them one in order to whitewash their behavior and propagandize the citizenry (unless conclusive evidence somehow later emerges proving their innocence).

What kind of self-respecting media outlet would be party to this practice? Here’s the New York Times documenting that this is what the term "militant" means when used by government officials. Any media outlet that continues using it while knowing this is explicitly choosing to be an instrument for state propaganda — not that that’s anything new, but this makes this clearer than it’s ever been. More

 

 

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UNFCCC’s Internship Programme - General Information and Governing Conditions

Purpose

The objective of the internship programme is to provide a framework through which postgraduate students from diverse academic backgrounds may be assigned to the UNFCCC secretariat to enhance their educational experience through practical work assignments. It allows selected candidates to gain insight into the work of the United Nations and provides assistance and training in various professional fields.

UNFCCC secretariat’s internship programme is coordinated by the Administrative Services Programme and a designated focal point is responsible for liaising with the relevant substantive programmes for placement of interns. At the end of an internship period, both the intern and the staff member acting as his/her supervisor are required to submit an evaluation report to the designated focal point of the Internship Programme.

Eligibility requirements

i) An undergraduate degree should have been completed with work on a Master degree in progress. Applicants should therefore be enrolled in a recognized university course of study in fields related to the work of the UNFCCC secretariat (including economics, environmental sciences, international law, international relations, natural sciences, political science, human resources and/or public administration, event management, IT/computer sciences, and communication) at the time of application and during the entire period of internship.

ii) Applicants should be able to work in English.

Applicants pursuing their studies in countries where higher education is not divided into undergraduate and postgraduate stages should have completed at least four years of study and be a student at the time of application and during the internship.

Terms and conditions

a) The normal duration of an internship is two months, which can be extended for an additional period of two months by mutual consultation and consent. The total duration may exceptionally be extended to a maximum period of six months when there are special academic requirements or special needs of the receiving programme.

b) Applicants may not be related - i.e. spouse, mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son - to a staff member of the UNFCCC secretariat.

c) Upon selection for an internship placement, an ‘Internship Agreement’ is forwarded to the confirmed candidate for signature and returned together with proof of medical insurance coverage for the entire duration of the internship. This must be done prior to the agreed starting date.

d) There is no promise of employment either during or upon completion of an internship with the UNFCCC secretariat.

e) An intern with UNFCCC secretariat is not a staff member of the UNFCCC secretariat, therefore the privileges and immunities agreed between the UNFCCC secretariat and the host Government do not apply to interns.

f) An intern undertakes to conduct himself/herself at all times in a manner compatible with his/her responsibilities as an intern of the UNFCCC secretariat.

g) The intern is required to keep confidential all unpublished information made known during the course of the internship, and must not publish any reports or papers on the basis of information obtained, except with the prior written authorization of the UNFCCC secretariat. These obligations will not lapse upon the expiration of the internship period. More

 

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Nuclear Nonproliferation

Our 70th Anniversary Homework: Confronting the Myths and Learning the Lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Seventy years ago, two nuclear weapons targeted against cities which met the criteria of having “densely packed workers’ homes,” killed more than 200,000 people in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the years that have followed, many more have suffered and died from cancers, radiation disease, genetic damage and other fallout from the atom bombings.

The myths that the A-bombings were necessary to end the war against Japan and that they saved the lives of half a million US troops remain widely believed. The myths serve as the ideological foundation for continuing U.S. preparations for nuclear war, which in turn has served as the primary driver of nuclear weapons proliferation and the creation of deterrent nuclear arsenals

It is no accident that this wartime propaganda took on a life of its own. Japanese and other journalists’ film footage and photos of the devastation wrought by the A-bombs taken within days of the A-bombings, were seized by U.S. Occupation forces and were locked away in Pentagon vaults for more than two decades. In 1995, the Smithsonian Museum’s initially excellent 50th anniversary exhibition was censored beyond recognition to prevent people from seeing what the A-bombs inflicted on human beings. Also removed were the facts that U.S. Secretary of War Stimson had advised Truman that Japan’s surrender “could be arranged on terms acceptable to the United States” without the atom bombings. (That arrangement was later deemed acceptable – even necessary – by U.S. military occupation authorities.) Indeed, before it was sterilized, the exhibit included quotations from senior US wartime military leaders including Admiral Leahy and General (later President) Eisenhower who thought, “It wasn’t necessary to hit [Japanese] with that awful thing.”

Scholars now know that numerous factors contributed to Truman’s decision to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their civilian populations. These include Truman’s political calculations as he looked to the 1948 presidential election, vengeance, racism, institutional inertia, and the callousness that came with already having burned more than sixty Japanese cities to the ground.

But, as General Leslie Groves, the commander of the Manhattan Project, told senior scientist Joseph Rotblat, the bombs came to be designed for the Soviet Union. The determinative reasons for the A-bombings were to bring the war to an immediate end so that the US could avoid sharing influence with the USSR in Northern China, Manchuria and Korea and to intimidate Stalin and other Soviet leaders by demonstrating the apocalyptic power of nuclear weapons and Washington’s willingness to use them – even against civilians. Little Boy and Fat Man, as the bombs were named, announced the beginning of the Cold War.

Americans also continue to suffer from the misconception that nuclear weapons have not been used since the Nagasaki A-bombing on August 9, 1945. In fact, the US, and to a lesser degree the other nuclear powers, have repeatedly used their nuclear arsenals. Long ago, Daniel Ellsberg, a senior Pentagon nuclear war planner for Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, explained that the US has repeatedly used nuclear weapons “in the way that you use a gun when you point it at someone’s head in a confrontation….whether or not you pull the trigger...[and] You’re also using it when you have it on your hip ostentatiously.” During wars and international crises, the US has prepared and/or threatened to initiate nuclear war on at least thirty occasions - at least 15 times during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and crises with China, and at least 10 times to reinforce US Middle East hegemony. And each of the other eight nuclear powers has made such threats or preparations at least once.

Eric Schlosser, author of Command and Control, reported last December to the International Conference on the Consequences of Nuclear Weapons, attended by representatives of 158 governments that luck, not state policies and regulations, best explains why humanity has survived nuclear blackmail, reckless dependence on deterrence, miscalculations and nuclear accidents.

Still more sobering are the recent scientific studies demonstrating that even a “small” exchange of 50-100 nuclear weapons targeted against cities would result in fires, smoke that would cause global cooling, and up to two billion deaths from famine.

All of which lead to a series of existential questions: As we race against time to save our civilizations from the impending ravages of climate change, why are our governments preparing to inflict nuclear annihilation? Why do we tolerate the continued deployment and stockpiling of nearly 16,000 nuclear weapons, 90% of them in U.S. and Russian arsenals? Why have the P-5 nuclear powers (US, Russia, Britain, France and China) refused to implement their 45 year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligation to begin negotiations for the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals? And why did the US condemn this past spring’s NPT Review Conference to failure by refusing to honor its long-standing commitment to co-convene a conference to lay the foundations for a nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East?

There are high costs to denying history and reality. In a worst case scenario, the failure of the US and the other nuclear powers to heed the warning of A-bomb survivors that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot coexist is the end to life on earth as we know it.

The majority of the world’s governments are not in similar denial. The NPT Review Conference’s one achievement was the commitment of the vast majority of the world’s governments the Humanitarian Pledge. Initiated by Austria, 113 governments pledged “to cooperate with all relevant stakeholders, states, international organizations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, parliamentarians and civil society, in efforts to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences and associated risks.” The gulf between the non-nuclear weapons states and the nuclear powers has widened, and in time the former may use their economic, political and other power in the struggle to secure humanity’s future.

On August 6, many in Japan will appreciate the silent presence of U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy at Hiroshima’s official 70th anniversary commemoration, but there will be no apology. And, even as we celebrate and work for the implementation of the nuclear deal with Iran, the sorry truth is that the US is now on track to spend one trillion dollars to “modernize” its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems, with the other nuclear powers following the U.S. lead. And, despite his pledge in Prague, President Obama has retired fewer nuclear weapons that any other US post-Cold War President.

As the US-Russian confrontation, marked by implicit and explicit nuclear threats remids us, we are living on borrowed time. Seventy years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombings, human survival still hanging in the balance. Midst the carnival of the 2016 presidential election, let us insist that those who seek to rule us and the world finally learn the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Never again to anyone! No more Hiroshimas! No More Nagasakis! No more nuclear weapons!

 

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CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup

The CIA has publicly admitted for the first time that it was behind the notorious 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, in documents that also show how the British government tried to block the release of information about its own involvement in his overthrow.

On the 60th anniversary of an event often invoked by Iranians as evidence of western meddling, the US national security archive at George Washington University published a series of declassified CIA documents.

“The military coup that overthrew Mosaddeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government,” reads a previously excised section of an internal CIA history titled The Battle for Iran.

The documents, published on the archive’s website under freedom of information laws, describe in detail how the US – with British help – engineered the coup, codenamed TPAJAX by the CIA and Operation Boot by Britain’s MI6.

Britain, and in particular Sir Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, regarded Mosaddeq as a serious threat to its strategic and economic interests after the Iranian leader nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, latterly known as BP. But the UK needed US support. The Eisenhower administration in Washington was easily persuaded.

Mohammad Mosaddeq

British documents show how senior officials in the 1970s tried to stop Washington from releasing documents that would be “very embarrassing” to the UK.

Official papers in the UK remain secret, even though accounts of Britain’s role in the coup are widespread. In 2009 the former foreign secretary Jack Straw publicly referred to many British “interferences” in 20th-century Iranian affairs. On Monday the Foreign Office said it could neither confirm nor deny Britain’s involvement in the coup.

The previously classified US documents include telegrams from Kermit Roosevelt, the senior CIA officer on the ground in Iran during the coup. Others, including a draft in-house CIA history by Scott Kock titled Zendebad, Shah! (Viva, Shah!), say that according to Monty Woodhouse, MI6’s station chief in Tehran at the time, Britain needed US support for a coup. Eden agreed. “Woodhouse took his words as tantamount to permission to pursue the idea” with the US, Kock wrote.

Mosaddeq’s overthrow, still given as a reason for the Iranian mistrust of British and American politicians, consolidated the Shah’s rule for the next 26 years until the 1979 Islamic revolution. It was aimed at making sure the Iranian monarchy would safeguard the west’s oil interests in the country.

The archived CIA documents include a draft internal history of the coup titled “Campaign to install a pro-western government in Iran”, which defines the objective of the campaign as “through legal, or quasi-legal, methods to effect the fall of the Mosaddeq government; and to replace it with a pro-western government under the Shah’s leadership with Zahedi as its prime minister”.

Kermit Roosevelt

One document describes Mosaddeq as one of the “most mercurial, maddening, adroit and provocative leaders with whom they [the US and Britain] had ever dealt”. The document says Mosaddeq “found the British evil, not incomprehensible” and “he and millions of Iranians believed that for centuries Britain had manipulated their country for British ends”. Another document refers to conducting a “war of nerves” against Mossadeq.

The Iranian-Armenian historian Ervand Abrahamian, author of The Coup: 1953, the CIA and the Roots of Modern US-Iranian Relations, said in a recent interview that the coup was designed “to get rid of a nationalist figure who insisted that oil should be nationalised”.

Unlike other nationalist leaders, including Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mosaddeq epitomised a unique “anti-colonial” figure who was also committed to democratic values and human rights, Abrahamian argued.

Some analysts argue that Mosaddeq failed to compromise with the west and the coup took place against the backdrop of communism fears in Iran. “My study of the documents proves to me that there was never really a fair compromise offered to Mosaddeq, what they wanted Mosaddeq to do is to give up oil nationalisation and if he’d given that of course then the national movement would have been meaningless,” he told the Iranian online publication, Tableau magazine.

“My argument is that there was never really a realistic threat of communism … discourse and the way justifying any act was to talk about communist danger, so it was something used for the public, especially the American and the British public.”

Despite the latest releases, a significant number of documents about the coup remain secret. Malcolm Byrne, deputy director of the national security archive, has called on the US intelligence authorities to release the remaining records and documents.

“There is no longer good reason to keep secrets about such a critical episode in our recent past. The basic facts are widely known to every school child in Iran,” he said. “Suppressing the details only distorts the history, and feeds into myth-making on all sides.”

In recent years Iranian politicians have sought to compare the dispute over the country’s nuclear activities to that of the oil nationalisation under Mosaddeq: supporters of the former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad often invoke the coup.

US officials have previously expressed regret about the coup but have fallen short of issuing an official apology. The British government has never acknowledged its role. More

 

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Is the Iran deal about staving off the coming oil shock - By Nafeez Ahmed

The Iran nuclear deal signals a major shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Integral to the equation is oil, economics, terror – and US hegemony.

The Bush administration had initiated a long-term covert strategy to undermine Iranian influence in the Middle East and Central Asia, combined with overt pressure through diplomatic initiatives and economic sanctions.

Under Obama, this strategy accelerated, largely in concert with other Gulf powers like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, who have long sought to roll-back Iranian influence.

Yet even as the strategy accelerated, unlike its predecessors which openly declared their warmongering hostility to Iran, the Obama administration had used the pressure to forge an unprecedented deal with the country.

Averting regional war

The reasons for the shift are, of course, pragmatic. For years, US intelligence agencies have told the White House that there is simply no evidence Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.

And the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly certified that uranium is not being enriched to levels necessary for weaponisation, nor is it being diverted to a secret weapons programme.

Meanwhile, senior US military officials have long warned that the sort of US-Iran military confrontation which frothing neoconservatives have been pining for would likely fail and destabilise the entire region.

What about an Israel-Iran confrontation? A classified Pentagon war simulation held in 2012 found that an Israeli attack on Iran would also lead to a wider regional war.

Unlike the neocons, for the military pragmatists in successive US administrations, war with Iran could never be a preferred option.

The added bonus is that Iran might notch down its involvement in Iraq and Syria.

Earlier this year, the US assured its allies at the Camp David summit that under the nuclear deal, Iran’s growing geopolitical influence in the region would be curtailed. Simultaneously, the US gave Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and others the green light to accelerate support to the Islamist militants of their choice in Syria.

George Friedman, founder and CEO of private US intelligence firm Stratfor – which operates closely with the Pentagon and State Department – forecasted the US-Iran détente four years ago.

His prescient assessment of its strategic rationale is worth noting. Friedman explained that by reaching “a temporary understanding with Iran,” the US would give itself room to withdraw while playing off Iran against the Sunni regimes, limiting Iran’s “direct controls” in the region, “while putting the Saudis, among others, at an enormous disadvantage”.

“This strategy would confront the reality of Iranian power and try to shape it,” wrote Friedman.

Ultimately, though, the US is betting on the rise of Turkey – hence the latter’s pivotal role in the new anti-IS rebel training strategy, despite Turkey’s military and financial sponsorship of IS. More

 

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