‘Espionage Den'

‘Espionage Den' Westerners can see a Hollywood re-enactment of the early days of the hostage-taking, “Argo”, the wildly popular but very inaccurate docudrama, winner of 2012 Best Picture Oscar ... In addition to Canada’s cloak-and-dagger role during the siege, the visit is made especially piquant because of the “conspiracy” surrounding the Stephen Harper’s decision to cut all diplomatic relations with Iran in 2012. Harper’s personal crusade to demonize Iran reached a bizarre high/low point when Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird announced the severing of relations with Iran in 2012 just hours before “Argo” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. “Life imitates art” takes on new meaning. The Tehran embassy had indeed been a ‘nest of spies’, as the Shah was the most reliable US ally in the Muslim world, along with Turkey’s Kemal Ataturk the only Muslim leader who recognized Israel, and it was only natural that the CIA made the US embassy in Tehran ‘mission control centre’ for all US espionage activity in the Muslim world. Officially, the US has since admitted that there were at least three bona fide CIA agents among the captives. The six diplomats rescued by Taylor were consular workers, so they probably were not CIA agents. No money changed hands as a result of the siege, and there were no American casualties, except for eight Marines who died when their helicopter crashed in the Iranian desert in Carter’s first bungled rescue attempt in April 1980. The 52 hostages were flown to Algeria January 20 1981, 20 minutes after Reagan concluded his inaugural address, the first move in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra affair. Reagan’s foreign policy team had secretly agreed to exchange arms-for-hostages with the Iranians, now at war with Iraq. Since 1979, the United States government has officially had no dealings with the Iranian government, and is represented in Iran by the United States Interests Section of the Embassy of Switzerland in Tehran. This is belied by the hostage crisis itself, as Reagan swore his oath of allegiance in 1980, resulting in their release, and by the subsequent Iran-Contra Affair, when Reagan authorized selling arms to Iran to fight Saddam Hussein (who of course also received US arms and much more to fight the Iranians), funneling the proceeds to the Nicaraguan contras in Reagan’s own personal jihad against the socialist Sandinista government. With reality this bizarre, who needs fiction? The visit to the embassy was bittersweet. Clearly Iranians are now of two minds about this time warp into their anguished past. The museum is generally closed, and visits require special arrangements for both foreigners and Iranians. Iranians uniformly want to restore relations with the US. Yes, in the siege, the US was reaping the fruits of decades of imperialist intrigues, notably its involvement in the overthrow of the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 and the reinstalling of the Shah, who kowtowed to the US and Israel, and presided over a ruthless and unpopular dictatorship, turning Iranians against the US. At the same time, Carter, who lost the 1980 election to the trigger-happy Reagan primarily due to the hostage crisis, was America’s most liberal president, now revered as a humanitarian. Reagan’s foreign policies were far more militaristic, leading to Bush and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, hardly policies that were favorable to Iran. RANDOM EXTRACTS ARTICLE BY:   Eric Walberg SOURCE  http://www.eurasiareview.com/03012015-espionage-den-american-ghosts-tehran-oped/ COMMENT Really enjoyed this article.   These are only random extracts.  Full article is on link above.