Let Iran be the model
Monday August 25, 2003
The Guardian
As the US and UK struggle to develop a legitimate sovereign government in Iraq, it would be wise for policy-makers to look at the model of Iran in the early 1950s, even though 50 years ago the US helped the British to overthrow the freely elected constitutional government led by Iranian national heroes Mohammed Mossadegh, Hussein Fatemi and the National Front Party (The spectre of Operation Ajax, August 20).
That government was in harmony with the Islamic values enshrined in the Koran: governing with the consent of the governed. It was replaced by the hated Pahlavi regime, which ended with the Islamic revolution of 1979.
One can only speculate as to what the Middle East would be like today if the Mossadegh government had been allowed to flourish. Surely it would not have been dominated by armed societies masquerading as democracies and client states governed by authoritarian dictators.
Allow the Iraqis to develop that model now. Nothing else is working.
Fariborz Fatemi
Former staff member
Senate foreign relations committee
McLean, Virginia, USA
· I was heartened by the Guardian's call for increased security in Afghanistan through the introduction of more Nato troops and for their presence to be extended beyond Kabul (Leaders, August 19). Save the Children was a co-signatory to a letter sent on August 6 by aid agencies to the foreign secretary calling for the UK government to sponsor a UN resolution calling for just such an expansion of the International Security Assistance Force's mandate.
Our concern over the lack of a secure working environment was increased last week by a shooting incident in the Mazar-i-Sharif area in northern Afghanistan involving one of our vehicles. Although no one was seriously injured, the incident has forced us to suspend our operations temporarily while we reconsider the security situation.
Without improved security, similar incidents will continue, and seriously hamper Afghanistan's reconstruction.
Mike Aaronson
Save the Children
· Nothing could be more ludicrous than the suggestion that "the Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf, struck a deal with the US not to seize Bin Laden after the Afghan war for fear of inciting trouble in his own country" (Inside story of the hunt for Bin Laden, August 23). I would be keen to know your take on why Saddam Hussain has not been arrested so far.
Javed Akhtar
High Commission for Pakistan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1028842,00.html