Episode 43: War Has Begun… What Would Dag Hammarskjöld Say?

With the United States and Israel now at war with Iran, the headlines feel eerily familiar: escalation, retaliation, alliances hardening, and the fear that this could spiral into something much larger.

So now that war has begun… what would Dag Hammarskjöld say?

After all: history doesn’t just repeat.

It warns.

Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Unicorn-New-Look-Hammarskj%C3%B6ld-ebook/dp/B0DSCS5PZT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/episodes/14229543

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet

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Sara's award-winning biography of Dag can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Unicorn-New-Look-Hammarskj%C3%B6ld-ebook/dp/B0DSCS5PZT

Her forthcoming project, Simply Dag, will release globally on July 29th! ✨

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

In Episode 43 of the Decoding the Unicorn podcast, host Sara Causey discusses the potential US-Israel war against Iran, emphasizing that Dag Hammarskjöld would oppose war. She highlights historical examples of US intervention in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954), criticizing the US for supporting coups to protect corporate interests. Sara also references the 1973 Chilean coup and the US's support for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. She reads from her upcoming book, "Simply Dag," where Dag debates with David Ben-Gurion about the necessity of war. She concludes by advocating for diplomacy over war.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

US-Israel war, Iran, diplomacy, war hawks, CIA operations, Operation Ajax, Operation Boot, United Fruit Company, Guatemalan coup, Iranian Revolution, Chilean coup, Saddam Hussein, Gulf War, Dag Hammarskjöld, Ben Gurion.

Welcome to the Decoding the Unicorn Podcast. Here's your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, Hello and thanks for tuning in. Welcome to Episode 43 of decoding the unicorn the podcast. I appreciate you joining me today in this episode. As you can probably imagine, I've been getting plenty of DMs and emails about, what would dag say? What would dag do now that we're in a situation of the US and Israel teaming up for war against Iran? How would dag handle that? I'm not going to bury my thesis here, don't. It's not a complicated question. It's really not a complicated issue. If someone feels that war is the only option, it isn't. If someone is thinking about going to war, don't that's what dag would say. We can imagine that he would try to complicate the issue and say 9 million words when only a few are necessary. But that isn't true. Don't if you're thinking about hitting the war button, don't I want to read now an excerpt from the author's Epilog that I placed at the end of decoding the unicorn. Quiet diplomacy didn't solve every problem. Preventive diplomacy didn't avert every crisis. Dag was only one person, and though he seemed indefatigable at times, he wasn't superhuman. The web of power that disturbed dag so deeply has not vanished. I would argue that it's stronger than ever, and many organizations that started with noble goals have been co opted. It also seems that diplomacy, in general, let alone calm, discreet diplomacy, is not even the first choice war. Hawks of varying political parties and affiliations are awfully keen to call for hot warfare at even the slightest hint of conflict, one hostility blends into another as reams of fiat currency are printed to fund it all, further driving up national debts and devaluing money. Unfortunately, there are plenty of war hawks they've never served in the military themselves, let alone been an act of combat. Their children haven't, their grandchildren haven't, but they're more than happy to send your children and your grandchildren into the theater of war. For them, generally speaking, it's about profits, some stock they own, or some constituent base that they're trying to keep happy. It's not even really about ideology. In most cases, it's about follow the money. And it's not as though the US doesn't have a history of this behavior. I'm American, so I can say this. I feel more than able to criticize. Let's go back in time for a minute to 1953 in the same location. I'll read now briefly from Wikipedia on August 19, 1953 prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddegh, was overthrown in a coup d'etat that strengthened the rule of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. It was instigated by the United Kingdom, mi six, under the name Operation boot and the United States, CIA, under the name Operation Ajax. The key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran, after most a day, nationalized the country's oil interest. End quote. Do you think that much has changed since then? Let's fast forward slightly now to 1954 and the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat. I'll read briefly again from Wikipedia, the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacopo Arbenz was deposed in a coup d'etat in 1954 marking the end of the Guatemalan revolution, the coup installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo armas, the first in a series of US backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala. The coup was precipitated by a CIA covert operation code named PB success. End quote. And by the way, it was about bananas. It was about the United Fruit Company and their banana monopoly. I'm not making that up. I recorded an episode about it early on on my nighttime podcast, the conspiracy theories. I'll drop a link to it if you care to listen to that. It's called episode 10, PB, success, a coup d'etat and bananas.

Just a reminder. Sara's award winning biography of Dag Hammarskjold, Decoding the Unicorn, is available on Amazon. Her next nonfiction project, Simply Dag will release on July 29th. To learn more about her other works, please visit SaraCausey.com. Now back to the show.

Dag tried to intervene in that situation and was cast to the side. So the United Fruit Company had lobbied the US government to intervene, which they did our bins was do. Posed and subjected to a pretty fierce propaganda campaign that painted him as a communist. In trying to prevent this situation, Dag wanted to intercede, and there were critics then, just as there are critics now that say that the UN is merely a vehicle for the West, and it's controlled primarily by the United States, for DAGs part, that wasn't true. Dag was not a marionette whose strings were pulled by the Western world. There have been some individuals who have made that claim in recent times. I think, personally, my opinion is, I think that that is part of an orchestrated propaganda campaign against dag that it just simply isn't fair and it isn't true. Dag was not able to gain traction on the Guatemala issue. Instead, the United States stalled by punting the question to the Organization of American States, the OAS, and then by the time that the UN Security Council convened, our bins had already been deposed, and the CIA backed coup was complete. An investigation by the Security Council was proposed, but the United States voted against it. Dag was concerned. He was upset, and he lamented that the US had created a tremendous setback, not only for Guatemala, but for the UN with its action, but the damage was already done, so there was a negative outcome for everybody involved, except for the robber barons.

Let's skip ahead now to 1979. I'll go back to Wikipedia. The Iranian revolution, or the Islamic Revolution, was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi Dynasty in 1979 the revolution led to the replacement of the Imperial State of Iran by the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the monarchical government of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was superseded by the Ayatollah Khomeini, an Islamist cleric who had headed one of the rebel factions the ousting of Pallavi, the last Shah of Iran, formally marked the end of Iran's historical monarchy in 1953 the CIA and MI six backed 1953 Iranian Coup D overthrew Iran's Prime Minister, Mosa day, who had nationalized the Anglo Persian Oil Company. The coup reinstated palavi as an absolute monarch, and significantly increased United States influence over Iran. In 1963 the Shah had launched the White Revolution, a top down modernization and land reform program that alienated many sectors of society, especially the clergy. Khomeini emerged as a vocal critic and was exiled in 1964 however, as ideological tensions persisted between Pahlavi and Khomeini, anti government, demonstrations began in October. 1977 developing into a campaign of civil resistance that included communists, socialists and Islamists. Mass protests were underway on January 16, 1979 Pahlavi left Iran for exile, leaving his duties to Iran's Regency Council and an opposition based Prime Minister on February 1, 1979 Khomeini returned, following an invitation by the government. Several million greeted him as he landed in Tehran. The revolution was fueled by widespread perceptions of the Shah's regime as corrupt, repressive and overly reliant on foreign powers, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom. Many Iranians felt that the Shah's government was not acting in the best interests of the Iranian people, and that it was too closely aligned with Western interests, especially at the expense of Iranian sovereignty and cultural identity. End quote. So I think we also have this scenario of the Western world propping up dictators or monarchs or whoever they feel is going to be aligned with their own interest, and then sowing the seeds of discord that wind up becoming fuel for the next war. Isn't it funny how that system works? Let's hop now to 1973 I'll return to Wikipedia. The 1973 Chilean coup d'etat was a military overthrow of the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity coalition government. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist, to be democratically elected president in the Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest and political tension with the opposition controlled National Congress of Chile on September 11, 1973 a group of military officers led by Augusto Pinochet seized power in a coup ending civilian rule. The Nixon administration, which had played a role in creating favorable conditions for the coup, promptly recognized the junta government and supported its efforts to consolidate power in 2023 declassified documents showed that Nixon. Henry Kissinger and the United States government, which had described Allende as a dangerous communist who are aware of the military's plans to overthrow Allende in the days before the coup d'etat. According to historian Sebastian Hurtado Torres, there is no documentary evidence to support that the US government acted actively in the coordination and execution of the coup actions by the Chilean armed forces. However, Richard Nixon's interest from the beginning was that Allende government. Allende's government would not be consolidated. Historian Peter Winn found extensive evidence of us complicity in the coup. End quote. And by the way, if you're not familiar with the rule of Augusto Pinochet. He's known for disappearing people and having death squads. If we go back to Wikipedia and look under the suppression of opposition tab on his page, we find he shut down parliament, suffocated political life, banned trade unions and made Chile his Sultanate, his government disappeared. 3000 opponents arrested, 30,000 torturing, 1000s of them. Finish, name will forever be linked to the caravan of death and the institutionalized torture that took place in the via Grimaldi complex. End Quote, let's also remember Saddam Hussein, who was an ally until suddenly he wasn't. During the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s the US saw Iran, who was being led at the time by the Ayatollah Khomeini, as a bigger threat between the two. So even though they were aware that Saddam was not exactly Mr. Congeniality, the US gave its support more towards Iraq, and this included things like sharing intelligence, giving agricultural credits and economic support, reopening diplomatic relations with Iraq in 1984 and then magically turning a blind eye to human rights abuses. We can try to justify this. I'm using massive air quotes here. We can try to justify this as cold war, real politic, but I don't really think that is the full story. We also have to remember that during the 1980s there was the Iran Contra affair, where the US secretly sold arms to Iran Iraq had chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians.

Was it really friendship? Was it calculation? Is it just disgusting conduct in the name of furthering a political agenda? You be the judge. Naturally, things changed when Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990 and then the US pushed for the Gulf War. That was, by the way, as a Gen Xer, the first war that I ever really remember being actively broadcast on television for my parents generation, the baby boomers. It was the Vietnam War. For me, it was the Gulf War really seeing CNN having live coverage of bombs going off and flares in the night sky. And it was like even then I thought, Why? Why are we even doing this? And the answer that you got from adults as well, Saddam is a bad person, and he's doing bad things, and so he has to be stopped. And yet, when you get older and you start doing your own research, you realize that it's never that simple. It's never just about some sort of surface level justification.

I want to read a passage now from Simply Dag. This book will be released on July 29 of this year, I'm so proud of the work that Dag and I have done together on this book. It absolutely has been a labor of love from the both of us. In this scene, DAG is meeting with David Ben Gurion, who's the Prime Minister of Israel. We walked down a short hallway and then into his private meeting room. I'd scarcely taken a chair, and Ralph was pulling papers from his briefcase when Ben Gurion leaned forward and proclaimed, Nasser is a dictator and Egypt is an aggressor. Nothing has changed. I understand. I attempted to speak. He shook his head sharply, no, I don't think you do. You're asking us to believe that UN EF is keeping the peace. But tell me, where are they when Egypt strangles us at the Suez, when they threatened to close the Gulf of Aqaba, when they say Israel has no right to exist, UNEF was never meant to be a paramilitary organization. It's a peacekeeping force, not an army. He scoffed. I'm not sure it qualifies as a peacekeeping force, because you're not keeping any peace. Nasser is playing you, and you're too blind to see it. He welcomes your visits. He shakes your hand, and the next day his press declares, Israel, the eternal enemy. His voice darkened, we are bullied, and many people, you included, pretend not to notice. He held his hands over his eyes. The Secretary General is trying to prevent a larger conflict. Prime Minister Ralph had a comforting way about him. He was trying to calm Ben Gurion, but it was clear that Ben Gurion did not want to be soothed. Yes, Mr. Bunch and I am trying to keep my country from being erased. Do either of you honestly think Nasser will change that he will suddenly become reasonable. I'm older than you hammershould. My hair has gone white, and I've seen my fair share of struggle, pain and death, but you remember the appeasement at Munich men like Hitler and Nasser too cannot be negotiated with. There's nothing rational inside of them to which you can appeal. We've secured cease fires and peace agreements before. I have faith that we will do so again. I responded. He scowled. So many peace packs and cease fires gone by the wayside. We don't need more documents. We need support, and yes, military support, weaponry, atomic bombs, to prevent the genocide of our people. It's the only way, sitting in that office on dry land, I felt seasick. This was not the way. More weapons, more bombs, more soldiers, more war. All the nuclear brinkmanship had to stop. I have to say I disagree. We should recall the passage from Isaiah, they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. He gave me a frosty glance. Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles. Prepare war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plow shares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. You can quote from Isaiah. I'll quote from Joel. No one may actively desire war, but we cannot be afraid to fight one when it's the only option with all due respect, as civilization evolves and as weapons of mass destruction threaten to obliterate all human life. We can no longer argue that war is acceptable so long as it's perceived as the only option. It is no option. It is death. It cannot prevent genocide, as all it does is cause genocide. Ben Gurion grunted, you're an idealistic Swede, it's not your fault. You can't help your nationality or your parentage, but none of that prepared you for the real world. I heard about your upbringing living in some old castle in a college town. That's cute. It sounds like a storybook. I however, was born in Płońsk, and my mother died when I was 11. It was not an easy life. About the time you were born, I left Poland for Jaffa. Many people were dying of disease or from hunger. I worked wherever I could find a job, but money was sporadic at best. During the First World War, I was part of the Jewish Legion in the British Army. Unfortunately, life has taught me that sometimes war is necessary if you really wish to prevent one in the Middle East, you should put a stop to Nasser with that, I bid you good day, Ralph and I nodded. I thanked Ben Gurion for his time, and after collecting bill from the hallway, we left. Ben Gurion was correct about one thing. I had grown up in a world far removed from his, but I was no longer a boy at Uppsala castle. I was an adult who had seen terrible things. I wished I could erase starving children, widows with no means of support, people dying from cholera and polio. As the car moved away, I turned briefly to glance at the office we had left behind. There was no resolution, no meeting of the minds only two men who had lived different lives seen different wounds and come to different conclusions about what those wounds required. Ben Gurion believed war was sometimes necessary, and I believed war was a failure. We must find the courage to stop repeating. I was weary, but I still had hope that the world would prove me right. I want to close this episode by repeating that. Ben Gurion believed war was sometimes necessary, and I believed war was a failure. We must find the courage to stop repeating. Take good care of yourself, stay safe, and I will see you in the next episode.

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