U.S. should water peace efforts in Middle East, not gin up war

Saudi Arabia and Iran have been competitors due to religion, the Saudi’s are Wahhabi Sunnis a sect who probably sponsored 9/11 through an intermediary, the Iranians are essentially Shia. You’ll find both fighting and murdering each other through proxy wars with Russian and American weaponry, we’ve been supplying them to the Saudis who have been busily murdering Yemeni Houthis civilians, who previously over threw the old government in Yemen.

These countries occupy both sides of the Straights of Hormuz which is entered through the Gulf of Oman and leads to the Persian Gulf. Neither are my favorite countries, politically; the Saudis recently paid a huge bail to get a Saudi citizen who was in jail in Portland out of jail and then whisked him off on a plane to Saudi Arabia where the American courts can’t touch him.

This isn’t the first time this has happened and probably won’t be the last. It shows a disrespect of our law and order.  They also allegedly whisked off a number of officials just after 9/11 when the government had a no commercial flights ban in place. Were they meeting with Bush officials when it happened? We’ll probably never know.

The Iranians are enemies of our ally Israel, and have threatened to destroy it even though it’s not near Iranian territory, they also supply many others such as Hezbollah and the Palestinians with weaponry to interfere in the area, not to mention supplying insurgents during the Iraq war and causing other problems throughout the Middle East.

We can trace our involvement in Iranian affairs to the overthrow of a democratically elected Prime Minister named Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 by Britains MI6 and the CIA, Mossadegh was seeking to audit documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.  The overthrow was called Operation Ajax, the CIA records were released documenting the occurrence. Afterward, we installed Shah Pahlavi, who was a U.S. puppet. He was overthrown by the Iranian citizens in the1979 revolution.  Shah Pahlavi was responsible for the Savak, which was actually involved in torturing Iranian dissidents.

We were ostensibly there to protect oil largely headed to Europe and some to Japan and elsewhere; the 1979 revolution led to the taking of our embassy in Iran, and possibly the election of President Reagan. The 1979 revolution was led by Ayatollah Khomeini who had returned from exile in France. 

There is much more history to this, and many developing themes such as the Chinese wanting to build a naval station in Djibouti which could be used to interfere in Africa, and the shipment of oil through the Suez. As a corollary, how would we feel if China or Russia decided to sail war ships into the Caribbean to protect Cuba and end our embargo of Cuba? Would that be a threat to us?

War should be the court of last resort. We as leaders in the world should be trying to bring peace between the Iranians and the Saudis rather than attempting to gin up another war in the area, a group of international peace makers agreeable to both sides would be appropriate.  Wars over religion and petroleum are not in the interest of anyone.

The U.S. should be leading the way to finding a solution to this very old and costly problem, war is not the answer, many will die, there will be homeless and starving citizens from the Middle East attempting to migrate possibly to Europe or the U.S. which will help no one, and it will cost us treasure, lives and many ex combatants needing medical services for the rest of their lives.

Rob Brostoff lives in Cascade Locks.