All Countries are Hypocritical, Says Secretary of State
| by Arash Norouzi |
WASHINGTON, DC- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States "regretted" its role in the 1953 coup that destroyed Iran's democratic progress, acknowledging that America, like all nations, is susceptible to hypocrisy. She made the remarks to BBC Persian on October 26th, one of two interviews that week in which she answered questions directly from Iranians.
Three such questions, played for Clinton on video, dealt with U.S. behavior in the region and toward Iran, including its continuous military campaigns, support for friendly dictators, the CIA overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953, and the USS Vincennes' destruction of Iran Air Flight 655. Following up on the questioners' "double standards" theme, the BBC's Bahman Kalbasi asked Clinton, "[A]re you worried that people in the Middle East look at America and see it as a hypocritical power as opposed to one that stands by principle? Clinton responded:
We know that everything we have done in the course of our 235-plus year history is [not] going to appeal to or be supported by everyone, and we take our history seriously. So, for example, we’ve expressed regret about what was done in 1953. We’ve had high-ranking Americans say that that was a disruption of what could have and should’ve been a natural development of democracy with Iran. At the time, it was the Cold War, it was the Soviet Union which seemed to pose an existential threat to everyone, including Iran, Turkey, Greece, you name it. So we sometimes, in retrospect, look back and say, you know, “Could we have done that a different way?” And so we have regretted what happened in 1953.
"Well, I think our history is one based on principle and on values that we believe are universal values. Now, we do not expect every country or every people to agree with everything we do....
And finally, when it comes to the whole question about who we are, what we stand for... I think I’ve lived long enough to say that probably every country, every country has hypocrisy, because it’s difficult to be always transparent about what you’re doing and what you stand for. But I don’t know any country that has been more transparent, more self-corrective, more willing to say 'maybe we shouldn’t have done this', where we have elections and we swing from the right, we swing from the left, but within a stable constitutional system that respects the rights of individuals."
BBC Persian interview with Hillary Clinton, 10/26/11
Related links:
BBC Persian Interview with President Barack Obama - September 2010
All the Sham's Men — How the CIA Used 'anti-Communism' to destroy Iran's Democracy
US Institute of Peace Corrects "Iran Primer" Errors (Sort Of)
MOSSADEGH t-shirts - "If I sit silently, I have sinned"
