| Two significant things will happen this year. Firstly, millions of people will crap their drawers over the Police reunion. Secondly, fewer people will give much thought to the poorly thought out and poorly-intentioned imperial exercise playing itself out in the Middle East.
The two topics are related, literally. Stewart Copeland, worldly drummer for the Police, is the son of the late Miles Copeland II, worldly CIA spy, and partly responsible for the mess in which the Middle East currently resides. Yep, while Stewart was being exposed to exotic Middle Eastern rhythms, his pop was helping orchestrate regime change and, unwittingly, blowback.
This is old news. Miles II is long dead. It’s a story re-told and exploited for the Police’s appearance in Edmonton. Daddy-o Copeland spilled the beans on some of his CIA activities in the renowned 1969 memoir The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics (from which the quote in this article’s subtitle was taken). But he wrote the book before the Iranian revolution, Regatta De Blanc, the Sex Pistols re-union, and the September 11 attacks.
Copeland joined the CIA in its infancy after the Second World War. At the time, America was obsessed with its role of superpower, squaring off against Communist Russia while the old European colonial powers dwindled. The Middle East and Africa were prime territory to buy new friends before the Russians did. This is where Copeland was stationed and got involved in one of America’s biggest political blunders of the 20th Century. He helped overthrow a democratically elected government in Iran.
It’s the early ’50s. Mohammed Mossadegh is elected leader of Iran. He kicks out the king (a.k.a. the Shah). Fair enough for a democrat. Then he goes a step too far for a nationalist. He wants to use his country’s oil resources to fund infrastructure. This means buying out the holdings of British Petroleum. England doesn’t like this. Neither does America. It is economically bad for their corporations.
Copeland, working under his boss Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of president Teddy Roosevelt, starts paying Iranian organizations to stage phony protests. The objective is to make it appear there is a communist threat in the country, then foment public longing for the days of the Shah. One auspicious recipient is Devotees of Islam, a fundamentalist Muslim organization that serves as inspiration for the Islamic revolution in 1979.
With the coup d’etat complete in 1953, the Shah returns. He forms the brutal SAVAK secret police. Iranians hold distaste for being arbitrarily arrested, tortured and murdered, so they overthrow the megalomaniac in 1978. Fundamentalists, by their nature, are more fanatical, organized and obedient to the Ayatollah. This wins them the subsequent civil war and the right to rule the country.
Voila. It takes the Persians to show the Arabs that Islam is an expression of nationalism. Meanwhile, 52 American diplomats are held hostage for a year by university students who read about the events of the ’50s. At the same time the Brits and the Yanks are planning to shaft Mossadegh, in Egypt the CIA supports Gamal Abdel Nasser and his group of army officers who overthrow a corrupt king at the expense of pissing off the British. Copeland’s job is advising Nasser.
Nasser proves himself a poor customer when he starts buying his arms from the Russians, nationalizing the country’s chief asset (the Suez Canal) and talks about politically unifying the Arab states. Though Copeland throws his support behind Nasser, the CIA becomes more interested in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization formed in the 1930s that advocated for an Islamic government in Egypt, rather than a secular one. It isn’t above violence as a means to achieve its end.
Initially, the British send a few bucks to the Brotherhood. The assumption is that fundamentalist Muslims hate communists for espousing atheism and will spread the word of its evils, not unlike fundamentalist Christians. The CIA takes over some of the patronage duties in the ’50s thinking it would provide significant opposition to Nasser. The M-Bros attempt to assassinate Nasser several times and fail.
Fast forward in time. Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor and member of the M-Bros co-founds al-Qaida with Osama Bin Laden. Sheik Ahmed Yassin, an M-Bro from the territories, founds HAMAS.
Covert operation déjà vu: the Iran-Contra hearings, CIA support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan, support for an Iraqi nationalist dictator, Israeli support for the formation of Hamas as a counterweight to the PLO and the Fatah party, attempted coup in Venezuela, etc.
And its relevance to a Police reunion? When Sting and company launch into "Every Breath You Take" rethink those lyrics. Maybe Stewart Copeland’s dad wrote them. And double check for transmitters on any toonies handed to you by concession attendants. |
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