Short Quiz

Post Reply
johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Short Quiz

Post by johnkarls »

.
1. Who was Mohammad Mossadeq?

2. Why did the CIA and the Brits depose Mohammad Mossadeq as Iran’s popular Prime Minister in 1953 and install in his place The Shah?

3. Did this have anything to do with U.S. President Truman’s “Marshall Plan for the Middle East” (using the foreign-tax-credit provisions of the Internal Revenue Code to funnel money to oil-rich Middle Eastern countries to by-pass the Congressional appropriations process) and the underlying policy of favoring/creating regimes that would oppose Soviet penetration of the Middle East?

4. Did President Truman, in the middle of a discussion about the Korean War (1950-1953), famously put his finger on Iran on a globe and say: “Here is where they will start the trouble if we are not careful. If we just stand by, they’ll move into Iran and they’ll take over the whole Middle East”? By “they” did President Truman mean the Soviets?

5. What was the Iranian Consortium?

6. Did the Shah of Iran serve as a loyal pawn in the West’s Cold War policy of containment of the Soviet Union from 1953-1979?

7. Was the 1979 Iranian Revolution greeted almost immediately by a 1980-1988 war launched against it by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in which more than a million Iranians died?

8. If you were the leader of the Iranian Revolution against the oil companies and Western governments, and had survived such a catastrophic war during the first 8 years of your existence, wouldn’t you want nuclear weapons?

9. In other words, hasn’t U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Libya on the one hand, and North Korea on the other, taught every non-nuclear power that the U.S. will not hesitate to “cut you off at the knees” if you are stupid enough to give up your nuclear-weapons programs, and will treat you “with kid gloves” if you are smart enough to refuse?

10. Was the father of our author, Nazila Fathi, a senior official at the Iranian Oil Ministry before the 1979 Revolution? Did he lose his job within a year after the Revolution?

11. Was Nazila Fathi turning 18 when the Iraq-Iran War ended in 1988? Did she decide to study English at Azad University? Did this lead to becoming a translator for foreign journalists? Did she decide to become a journalist in her own right in 1992?

12. Was she almost immediately summoned to a meeting with an intelligence-ministry official and recruited as a spy vis-à-vis other journalists? Did this official, for the next two decades, constantly alternate as a source, a protector and a threat? Would she even have been able to have a journalistic career if she hadn’t cooperated with this official?

13. As we have studied many times in the past, is it possible to have democracy without a free press? In other words, do you think George Orwell’s Big Brother would have had any trouble receiving 100% of the vote if he had bothered to hold elections? Or is anyone surprised that Stalinist leaders around the world have historically experienced no trouble in being elected with more than 90% of the vote?

14. Does Iran have a free press?

15. Wouldn’t Iran’s Islamic Regime, which was established via a popular referendum shortly after the 1979 revolution, presumably remain popular? And couldn’t its control over the press and over dissidents be viewed as self-defense measures against foreign countries that would like to overthrow an essentially popular regime?

16. How have Iran’s poor fared as a result of the Revolution?

17. How have women fared as a result of the Revolution?

18. Who are the women’s rights activists that Nazila Fathi describes in detail?

19. Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003?

20. Does Iran follow Islamic Law (aka Sharia)? Is this similar to the way that religious principles of the Roman Catholic Church are reflected in U.S. law?

21. Was one of Winston Churchill’s primary principles that ideas create organizations and ideas blow them away?

22. Throughout the Cold War, did the Soviet Union use the destruction of Israel as a Churchillian “idea” for trying to destroy American influence in the Middle East? In the wake of the Cold War, has Iran replaced the Soviet Union in using the destruction of Israel as a Churchillian “idea” for trying to destroy American influence in the Middle East?

23. Has the American-led boycott of Iran had much effect?

24. Or has the real devastation of the Iranian economy been caused by Non-Arab Iran’s deathly enemies, the Arab “Gulf State Six” (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman), opening the spigots to flood the world market with oil and drive its price down by more than 50%?

25. Is Iran likely to succumb to such pressure, or will it accept the temporary economic sacrifice necessary to achieve the nuclear weapons that Ukraine was stupid enough to surrender?

26. Did the NY Times report that Iran tested its nuclear weapons several years ago in North Korea?

27. If the NY Times article is correct, aren’t our current nuclear negotiations with Iran nothing more than an attempt get Iran to agree not to test any additional nuclear weapons so that we can pretend Iran doesn’t have them -- much like the U.S. was able to pretend for 13 years (1985-1998) that Pakistan didn’t have them?

Post Reply

Return to “Participant Comments – The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran – July 15”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest