As this month's Sojourners goes to press, we face the threat of war with Iran. Fifty United States citizens have been held hostage in the U.S. embassy in Teheran for more than six weeks. The frustration of the American public is intensifying. Angry feelings of revenge and racism against the Iranians boil just beneath the surface, sometimes breaking out in ugly demonstrations. The political climate is increasingly self-righteous, demanding "toughness" from an insecure president facing a difficult re-election campaign.
Most Americans seem genuinely astonished at the depth of the Iranian people's anger toward the United States. Confused and defensive, they appear quite unable to understand why their country has been singled out for attack and wonder aloud, "Who do these people think they are?" This may be the most significant thing to recognize in the present crisis, for it demonstrates that the American people have not come to terms with the role of their government in the world.
In August of 1953, the nationalist prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossedegh, was overthrown. The coup was organized by Kermit Roosevelt of the Central Intelligence Agency, a grandson of another Roosevelt who was also quite experienced in intervening in the affairs of other countries. Having been restored to power, a grateful Shah Reza Pahlavi told Mr. Roosevelt, "I owe my throne to God, my people, my army--and to you."
From that day until he was forced to flee his country by a popular uprising last February, the shah's principal backer was the United States--politically, militarily, and economically.
In exchange, the shah supported American political and military interests in the area while pursuing Western-style capitalist development. Every Iranian knows this.
The chief beneficiaries of the arrangement were the shah's family and the multinational corporations which did business in Iran. Corruption became a way of life in Iran as the royal family amassed a fortune estimated in the billions of dollars, while the majority of the people remained poor. Traditional cultural and religious values were trampled to make way for "modernization."
The shah's regime was brutal and dictatorial. It has been said that every family in Iran was touched by the shah's tyranny. Dissent from the policies of the government was not tolerated, and all opposition was crushed or exiled. Shah Reza Pahlavi personally ordered the torture and execution of many thousands of his own people. The evidence documenting his atrocities is incontrovertible.
A quarter century of this corruption and political abuse is the root cause of the crisis we now face.
To hold 50 American hostages responsible for the crimes others have committed is unfair and cruel. These unfortunate persons and their families have become the victims and pawns of much larger emotional and political forces. Their safety and release must remain a central priority.
But to isolate the taking of hostages as the only real issue involved insults the Iranian people and puts the hostages in greater jeopardy.
The Carter administration has repeatedly said that now is not the time to discuss the demerits of the shah's regime.
Yet now is precisely the time to talk about the shah's crimes against the people of Iran and American complicity in them. Only such an honest recognition of the truth of the past could be the basis for beginning real negotiations with the Iranians.
Yet the administration has been silent about the shah's regime and about the United States' role in Iran. It has simply reiterated the demand that the hostages be released, while retaliating against the Iranians economically, diplomatically, and with military threats.
Admitting the shah to this country for medical treatment and then granting him protective haven on an Air Force base in Texas is to the Iranians what a U.S. decision to harbor Nazi war criminals would have been to the Jews.
The Iranians have no reason to interpret this behavior as anything other than continued U.S. support for the shah and his regime.
The biblical virtues of confession and repentance have an obvious political relevance in this crisis. Nothing could more potentially ease the conflict and redeem the situation than a genuine acceptance of our responsibility in the great suffering caused by the shah and a commitment to make restitution to the people of Iran. What if we asked the Iranian people to forgive us for installing and maintaining the shah, for interfering in their country, for profiting from their poverty, for corrupting their traditional values, for equipping and training the police that tortured and killed them?
The United States pressed for an international legal process at Nuremburg to try Nazi leaders for their crimes. Will the U.S. now support an international tribunal in which the Iranian government could make its case to the world against the acts of the shah and the role of his U.S. supporters?
Public indications from Iranian officials suggest that convening such a forum might begin to break the impasse and even hold out hope for the release of the hostages.
Apparently, Americans still don't want to face the fact that our government has become a consistent supporter of dictatorship around the world. We still don't want to recognize what it means for the United States' best friends to be men like the shah, or Somoza of Nicaragua, Park of south Korea, Marcos of the Philippines, Pinochet of Chile, and a host of others.
We should be learning from the Iranian crisis that to support dictators who oppress their people is to insure that our nation becomes a target of these people's hatred. That hate may take decades to develop into social revolutions, but ultimately revolutions will come. To ignore that historical inevitability or to point only to the excesses of the revolution is both a moral and political failure.
U.S. support for dictatorships around the world is sowing the seeds of violence that will grow to turn back on us. In the Iranian crisis, we can see our future. Already, the United States has become feared and hated in the poorer countries of the world because of our support for tyranny. It is no longer possible to say that anti-American feelings are motivated by communism. For example, the Iranian Moslems are fiercely anti-communist. Their anger is motivated by the role the United States has played in their country.
The Bible says if we sow the wind, we will reap the whirlwind. If we don't change our course, the Iranian crisis will be repeated in different forms and circumstances around the world. If we could face the truth now being so painfully revealed in Iran, it could be a turning point in U.S. foreign relations.
However, the U.S. political climate is not very congenial to the spirit of reflection and repentance. Instead, the cry is to get tough and show the world that we can't be pushed around. The volatile responses of an insecure superpower sensing its loss of control in the world hold great potential for violence.
If our national pride and arrogance prevail over our reason and compassion, we will indeed reap the whirlwind.
Jim Wallis was editor-in-chief of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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