Rohrabacher’s Plan to Partition Iran
By TOURAJ DARYAEE | August 27, 2012
From time to time it is important that one provide a teach-in to nonacademics and educate those who promote wrong and harmful ideas. As a history professor I would like to teach a history lesson to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher, the honorable Congressional Representative of California’s 46th District in Orange County where I live and work. On July 26, 2012 Mr. Rohrenbacher wrote a letter to the US Secretary of the State, Hillary Clinton, informing her that since the “people of Azerbaijan are geographically divided and many are calling for the reunification of their homeland after nearly two centuries of foreign rule,” the United States should help them reach that goal. He then goes on to say that: Russia and Persia divided the homeland of Azeris in 1828, without their consent. “The Azerbaijan Republic won its independence in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed,” continues the letter “Now it is time for the Azeris in Iran to win their freedom too.” Finally, Rohrabacher states: “Aiding the legitimate aspirations of the Azeri people for independence is a worthy cause in and of itself… yet, it also poses a greater danger to the Iranian tyrants than the threat of bombing its underground nuclear research bunkers.”
Obviously Mr. Rohrabacher is concerned with the immediate issues at hand in the Middle East and the interests of the US and Israel in a very twisted way, because he calls the MEK (Mojahedin Khalq Organization, an Iranian exile group on the US terrorist list), “Israel’s Friends.” This obviously demonstrates Mr. Rohrabacher’s political stance and the influence of its supporters which is detrimental to US policy in the Middle East. This shortsightedness and lack of knowledge about the region and its history is indeed exactly the reason for which the US has gotten involved in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), which has bankrupted us. The question is how this kind of interference in different countries and plans of dismantling nation-states, recognized by the UN, would help the US? Or does it simply just help other countries in the region? Well, the short answer is that it doesn’t help a bit! Last time I checked, it was the work of colonial powers in the nineteenth century which created and divided countries in Middle East. Even in Orange County it is taught that such ideas and actions were evil and have caused problems in the world for the past two centuries.
Mr. Rohrenbacher states that the Azeri people have been divided for the past two centuries by Russia and Persia in 1828 (I wonder how much travel he has had in the Republic of Azerbijan and Iran’s province of Azarbijan to make such a claim). Just a short glance in any preparatory college world history book will make it clear that the territory he is discussing was part of Iran (known as Persia then), which was invaded by Russians in 1828 and annexed through a peace treaty. But what is important is that the territory that Imperial Russia took as part of her victory over the Persians was never called Azerbaijan. It was the Soviet strongman, Stalin who in order to meddle in Iran’s affairs renamed the region of Arran (historical ancient Albania) as Azerbijan as a thorn on the side of Iran and those allies who disagreed with the USSR, namely US and the UK. It seems Mr. Rohrabacher is following Stalin’s footsteps!
As an ancient historian I am also tempted to give Mr. Rohrenbacher a history lesson about the very ancient past. The name Azerbaijan (Turkified as Azerbijan), comes from the name of the last Satrap (Persian word now existing in English, check it in any good dictionary) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, named Aturpat, in the 4th Century BCE. His family stayed on as local rulers even after Alexander the Great’s conquest and hence the region became known as Azarbijan (Old Persian Aturpatakan). The Old Persian terms mean “Protector of Fire.” This, however, is only the region south of the Aras River (Iranian Azarbijan), while to the north; Arran was named Azerbaijan by Stalin. The Republic of Azerbaijan is a twentieth century creation. Hence, there was never historically a unity or connection between the two. The region was turkified in the medieval period and that is just one more ethnic group among many others in the modern nation-state of Iran and beyond.
But Mr. Rohrenbacher should also be told that it was the Azaris of Iran and Arran who in fact invented modern ideas of Iranian nationalism. Akhundzadeh, known in the Republic of Azerbijan as Akhundof, a national hero is the man who perpetuated the intellectual movement behind the idea of the greatness of Iran. Since then, many if not most Iranian statesmen and intellectuals have been of Azari background (Ayatollah Khamenei and the previous presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi are both from Iranian Azarbijan). Many of the most famous Iranian historians, linguists and scholars in modern times have also been ethnically Azari, but none have called for such a separation. I don’t know why Mr. Rohrenbacher and his handful of friends (Mojahedin Khalgh in Washington who are spending money trying to buy congressmen and congresswomen, along with Israel), are making such nonsensical statements. They are both incorrect and historically inaccurate.
Furthermore, the Iranian Azarbijan is not only inhabited by Turkic speaking, but also Kurdish people as well as the Christian Assyrian and few remaining Armenians. Mr. Rohrenbacher should read a bit on the consequence of promoting a single ethnicity in a multi-ethnic nation-state such as Iran. Lessons from Kosovo and Serbia-Bosnia Herzegovina, as well as Armenia-Azerbaijan wars among others, places have shown that such ethnic divisions lead to ethnic cleansing and horrific acts of violence. Iran has been a multi-ethnic civilization for the past 2,500 years. It is people like Mr. Rohrenbacher who have fallen into the trap of Israel and the Mojahedin Khalgh who seek such divisions for their own opportunistic aims.
US involvement in the Middle East, particularly in Iran in the twentieth century, with a highlight of the US backed coup in 1953 which dethroned the only democratically elected prime minister in that nation’s history has made modern Iran as it is today. I am sure the congressman has heard of the term “blowback,” meaning any shortsighted action could lead to long-term problems in the Middle East and for the US. It should be a lesson to Mr. Rohrenbacher to stay out of Iranian affairs and concentrate on unemployment, the broken educational system and poverty in his own county. He is needed more here in Orange County where things are falling apart. His similar ideas about partitioning Afghanistan have made him persona non grata in that country. Let’s save California, before others begin to call for its secession from the US!
Touraj Daryaee is Professor of History at University of California, Irvine. He can be reached at tdaryaee@yahoo.com
Source
August 27, 2012 -
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Azerbaijan, Dana Rohrabacher, Iran, Israel, Middle East, United States
Aletho News
Aletho News 
Most enlightening. Penultimate para, wise counsel.
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Despite various Orientalist misrepresentations, the Persians are but one ethnic group within an extremely multicultural and multiethnic Iran. In addition to the Persians, there are Azerbaijani-Turks, Kurds, Baluchies, Arabs, Turkmens, Lors and other major ethnic groups, living in Iran who, combined together, constitute the numerical majority of Iran’s population.
According to the UN anti-racism panel statement “Azeri communities were notably subjected to “stereotyped and demeaning” portrayals in the media, while ethnic or religious minorities faced “limited enjoyment of political, economic, social and cultural rights.” Azerbaijani activists are in constant struggle for basic rights, such as the right to education in their natural mother tongue. They are not permitted to assemble in public places or in their own houses on dates important for the Azerbaijani nation’s history, such as honoring national heroes like Babak, Sattarhan, Baghirhan, as well as national leaders like Pishevari. Azerbaijani human rights activists are constantly arrested and mistreated in Iranian prisons. Even members of the Azerbaijani clergy, who have been trying to raise awareness about some of the most basic human rights, have been imprisoned.
The Azerbaijani Human rights activists lack resources to challenge the oppressive Iranian regime using the very basic means of communication while risking their lives. The movement for national rights in Iran lacks international experience or any support from outside, but still constitutes the strongest challenge to the Iranian regime. The US policy toward Iranis Tehran-centric; while the biggest challenge for the Iranian regime is in the provinces where ethnic minorities are concentrated.
We are asking for support to reach Azerbaijanis and other minorities inIran. They need to know that the world is paying attention to them. They need to know that putting their lives at risk for equal rights is not in vain. They need hope. And they are looking to the international community for it.
Knowing they have international support will give them the strength to continue fighting for equal rights. And that means greater stability and democracy for Iran and the wider Middle East. Iranian minorities are agents of change in a country that needs it badly. They are struggling for a positive transformation in Iran; and they need all the help they can get.
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The entities providing “international support” are the very same that just killed tens of thousands of Libyan civilians in bombing raids. Sounds like something no sane person would invite.
Of course the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.
One is left to wonder about the “greater stability” provided by interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan or now Syria. Is that now called “positive transformation”?
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The person with the nick name ‘South Azerbaijani’, who claims to be an Iranian Azari, is so misinformed of Iran’s inner dynamics and situations as well as misspelss the names of Iranian ethnics and icons in a way that people from Arran (Republic of Azarbaijan) usually spell that I have no doubt that he is not Iranian.
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The cognitive portion of Dana Rohrabacher’s brain was “annexed” a number of years back and the man has been severely dysfunctional ever since. Problem is, Dana the Deranged keeps getting re-elected to Congress and therefore he becomes a problem not only for ‘greater’ Amerika but also our sorely troubled world.
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Reblogged this on silbershark110neverdie.
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