After the Countercoup: Advising the Imperial Armed Forces of Iran
Abstract : Iran in the 1950s was in the cross hairs of the Cold War power struggle between the United States and the USSR. Strategically located, Iran became critical to the foreign policy endeavors of the Eisenhower Administration in the Middle East. After the decision to force Mohammed Mossadeq to retire as Prime Minister, the United States gave more than $700 million in mutual security assistance to the Shah of Iran from 1953-1959. In addition to the money, the United States faced the challenge of transitioning the Iranian Armed Forces from an organization used by Iranian monarchs to quell unrest in the major population centers into a collective security partner with a trained and equipped military that could fight a defensive campaign against a possible Soviet invasion. A Military Assistance Advisory Group was created and advisory efforts began. Iranian history, international rivalries, and the strategic constraints of continuous interference from policy makers in Washington and the Shah's embellished interests for Iran weighed heavily on the effort. This case study discusses the strategic context of Iran in the 1950s, the national-level deliberations regarding the importance of Iran and the amount of assistance it required from the United States, and whether or not the USSR was deterred from intervening in Iran due to the United States' demonstrable commitment there. The case study attempts to inform future policy makers as to the roles and organizations necessary to conduct foreign internal defense and advise the militaries of allied nations. Success or failure at advisory operations can have strategic consequences.
The Pentagon and the Presidency: Civil-Military Relations from FDR to George W. Bush
mation from liberal to neocon ideologue (George H. Nash); and Commentary’s third generation of neocon thinkers and policy makers (John Ehrman). Ultimately, the underlying burden of the book is to explain two astounding ironies in Commentary’s history: First, how did a magazine, initiated by a cluster of alienated liberal intellectuals on the Left become, decades later, the voice of a neoconservative movement and set of ideas on the intellectual and political Right? Second, how did a supposedly independent Jewish magazine, led essentially by Jewishly illiterate and anti-establishment Jewish intellectuals divorced from Jewish interests and institutions, become launched and sustained by the American Jewish Committee, a pillar of the Jewish communal establishment? And how did this magazine come to represent and vigorously defend core Jewish interests such as Israel, American Jewish rights and opportunities, and the repudiation of anti-Semitism? On these questions, Nathan Abrams’ essay on the beginnings of Commentary and its relationship to the American Jewish Committee, Glazer’s critical participantlobserver memoir on the early years, Wisse’s offering on how Commentary’s defense of Jewish interests in the 1960s adumbrated its subsequent neocon transformation in the 1970s, and Nash’s article rooting Podhoretz’s neoconservative transformation in his reaction to the extreme anti-Americanism of the Left are absolutely pivotal and compelling. In sum, the growing scholarly and memoir literature on American conservatism and neoconservatism has been significantly enhanced by this collection, whose focused attention to Commentary magazine, its public policy impact and intellectual legacy, has resulted in a book accessible to scholars and laypeople alike.
Cultural constraints on the delivery of HIV/AIDS prevention in Ireland.
HIV appeared in Ireland following an opiate epidemic in the early 1980s. Initially, however, the gay community mounted the only response to the spread of the virus while the implementation of early actions by the government was hampered by the constructions of the disease within Irish society. This paper considers the influence of the religious hierarchy in both the development of AIDS policy and in the shaping of public perceptions of the disease and those affected. A qualitative methodology is used to examine the role of such cultural constraints in an evaluation of the social context within which the prevention of HIV infection occurs. Three key issues pertinent to the policy context in Ireland are explored in depth. These are the role of the Catholic Church, the influences on health education programmes, particularly information giving, and the development of services and other interventions. These findings are discussed within the social and political contexts in which health policy is formulated.