Readers write
Choosing nonviolence is always best
As an academic whose area of specialization is peace philosophy, I was particularly delighted by AJC Opinion Editor David Plazas’ March 12 opinion piece (“Andrew Young’s nonviolence message saves communities and relationships”).
Plazas’ assertion that “We don’t have to wait for someone else to do the right thing” cannot be emphasized enough. Too often, we believe we are justified in engaging in violence (be it physical, psychological or institutional) because we feel we have been wronged.
Nonviolence calls on us to see the ones who we think wronged us as also being wronged by someone or something along the way. Thus, to be nonviolent means always remembering that, no matter what someone else has done, the power to act in ways that can break (and not perpetuate) ongoing, destructive cycles of counterviolence remains ours.
While living in such a way is not always easy, it is an ideal that we can all place before us. As Ambassador Young’s example shows, working toward this ideal can only be to our overall good.
SANJAY LAL, STOCKBRIDGE
Efforts to change Iran regime are nothing new
Commentators, government officials and even President Donald Trump himself seem to focus on the year 1979 as the beginning of the present conflict between the U.S. and Iran. The number 47 is also invoked as the number of years the current regime has been in power in Tehran and, presumably, because the war’s creator is the 47th U.S. president.
To truly understand the origins of the struggle, one must go back about 25 years to the time when Mohammad Mosaddegh, the duly elected nationalist leader of Iran, was overthrown by a coup sponsored by the American CIA and the British Secret Service. It seems that the Western oil interests were alarmed by the popular Persian president’s agenda to nationalize the oil industry so that the people of Iran, not the oilogopoly’s interests could be served.
This early act of “regime change” resulted in the installation of Reza Pahlavi as the head of state and ushered in a generation of authoritarianism, suppression of human rights, jailing and torture of opposition leaders at the hands of the Shah’s secret service, SAVAK. The U.S. support for this dictatorship was instrumental in the seizure of the U.S. embassy and hostages, as well as the expulsion of the Pahlavi family in the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of the Republican Guard.
The current U.S. administration’s efforts at regime change are nothing new and will probably be as ineffective.
WILLIAM FLEMING, ATLANTA
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