Even more important to understanding 9/11 were our actions in Iran. Chapter
8 tells of our repeated interventions on behalf of the shah, interventions that
explain that country’s enmity toward us today. The Iranian Revolution that
overthrew the shah is key to the subsequent history of the Middle East. Since
most textbooks don’t portray our role in Iran honestly, they are handicapped
when they try to explain what happened next, so students cannot use history to
understand what happens today. Just as we supported the shah in Iran in the
1970s, we cast our lot today with repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Egypt, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere, which prompts most Arabs and many other
Muslims to consider the United States “a great hypocrite,” in the words of
historian Scott Appleby. We preach democracy while supporting dictatorships.
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Also crucial to any understanding of the Middle East and terrorism is our tilt
toward Israel. The United States is adamant that Iran must not have nuclear
weapons. President Bush used Iraq’s alleged attempt to obtain nuclear
weapons to legitimize our preemptive war upon that country. Yet we have
never even admonished Israel verbally for possessing nuclear weapons, which
we have known about for decades.^22 On the contrary, from its formation in
1948 to today, regardless of its nuclear weapons or other policies, the United
States has always provided Israel critical financial and military support.
Having passed on the “why were we attacked” question, most textbooks also
ignore query three: How did we allow it to happen? Authors do not want to
criticize the U.S. government, but the blame is bipartisan. In its eight years in
office, the Clinton administration took few steps to improve our security
against terrorist attacks. In particular, the Immigration and Naturalization
Service has been notoriously incompetent for years—unable to create useful
lists of people who should not be let in to the United States, incompetent at
tracking people once they overstay student or work visas, not even willing to
seek people who fail to show up for court hearings related to immigration
violations. The Bush administration did even less to make us secure, but
authors say nothing about the president’s failure to act on the warnings he had
before 9/11/2001. In 2000, the Clinton administration had staged rescue
exercises simulating a plane being crashed into the Pentagon, showing that they
were aware of the possibility. “At least three months before 9/11,” according
to Lappé and Marshall, “German agents warned the CIA that ‘Middle Eastern
terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to