MB Civic

By H.D.S. Greenway | Tuesday, December 19, 2006 | The Boston Globe

Historically, nearly all societies embrace a ‘chosen trauma’ that divides them from one or more opponents. As Michael B has stated more than once on this Blog, in the case of Iran, the people’s fury against America has its roots in the overthrow of their elected president, Mohammed Mossadegh – who nationalized Iran’s oil industry – by the CIA, with quiet approval from Britain and France. The shah was returned to the throne. But the real topic was oil, and American interests in oil, and American money. On the American side, essentially permanent fury against Iran has its roots in the Embassy Crisis that effectively ended the Carter Administration and ushered in Reagan style conservatism.

Now we have Ahmadinejad’s dangerous rhetoric and absurdist Holocaust Conference (poking at the open wound of Hitler’s mass exterminations of WWII, the chosen trauma of American and Israeli Jews), rocking the boat yet again. Greenway hopes the conservative Shiite clerics who hold the real power in Iran stifle his mouth before he stirs up worse trouble still…BS

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/12/19/unwilling_to_forgive_or_forget/