We Had a Democracy Once, But You Crushed It

Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman: We Had a Democracy Once, But You Crushed It:

Here's something you can bet on: Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz will not hold a press conference this month to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-led coup of the democratically elected leader of Iran -- Mohammed Mossadegh.

In it, he documents step by step, how Roosevelt, the Dulles boys and Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., among a host of others, took down a democratically elected regime in Iran.

They had freedom of the press. We shut it down.

They had democracy. And we crushed it.

Mossadegh was the beacon of hope for the Middle East.

If democracy were allowed to take hold in Iran, it probably would have spread throughout the Middle East.

We asked Kinzer – what does the overthrow of Mossadegh say about the United States respect for democracy abroad?

"Imagine today what it must sound like to Iranians to hear American leaders tell them -- ‘We want you to have a democracy in Iran, we disapprove of your present government, we wish to help you bring democracy to your country.' Naturally, they roll their eyes and say -- "We had a democracy once, but you crushed it,'" he said. "This shows how differently other people perceive us from the way we perceive ourselves. We think of ourselves as paladins of democracy. But actually, in Iran, we destroyed the last democratic regime the country ever had and set them on a road to what has been half a century of dictatorship."