‘Short History of Epic Blunder’

Walter A. McDougall’s article on Iran (Editorial Pages, Jan. 4), “A Short History of an Epic Blunder,” is an epic example of historical distortion. The Ayatollah Khomeini is simply another example of how extremes beget extremes, and when the United States is identified as the friend and mentor of the first extreme, it is naturally identified as the enemy of the second extreme.

It is ridiculous to state that President Carter’s attempts to get the Shah of Iran to liberalize begat Khomeini. (Unless you believe that the murder of Archduke Ferdinand was the cause of World War I.) And I have never understood what Jimmy Carter did by way of “bungling” the hostage situation in Iran, although I must admit he did bungle his PR. But then Carter ain’t no Reagan.

The history of our interventionism in Iran rather than support the case for covert warfare does exactly the opposite. Had we not conspired to get rid of Mohammed Mossadegh back in Dwight D. Eisenhower’s time, the most probable scenario is that Iran would have a reasonably democratic government today with whom we would be on friendly terms. Mossadegh was a conservative nationalist who was simply trying to get rid of undue foreign influence (a.k.a. rip-offs) and get Iran an increased share of its oil wealth. Through our covert machinations the United States did get a bigger short-term cut of Iran’s oil, but with the overthrow of the shah and subsequent events we lost any cut and became Khomeini’s Great Satan.

Thank goodness we do have an “open democratic system” that works, however imperfectly, to keep our covert heroes at bay. In a way Gippergate may benefit the nation. Perhaps we can back to providing responsible moral leadership to the free world rather than playing the deceitful bullyboy. But I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until 1988 for this (hopefully) to happen.

ROBERT W. HAYES

Altadena