"It's Always About Oil": CIA & MI6 Staged Coup in Iran 70 Years Ago, Destroying Democracy in Iran
Date: 15–19 August 1953
Location: Tehran, Imperial State of Iran
Result: Overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeg
“It’s Always About Oil”: CIA & MI6 Staged Coup in Iran 70 Years Ago, Destroying Democracy in Iran
Amy Goodman | Democracy Now! | August 23, 2023
We look at the 70th anniversary of the August 19, 1953, U.S.- and U.K-backed coup in Iran, which took place two years after Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry that had been controlled by the company now known as British Petroleum.
“If nationalization in Iran of oil was successful, this would set a terrible example to other countries where U.S. oil interests were present,” explains Ervand Abrahamian, Iranian historian and author of Oil Crisis in Iran: From Nationalism to Coup d’Etat and The Coup: 1953, The CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations. While the CIA has historically taken credit for Mosaddegh’s overthrow, “the British have not admitted their leading role,” notes Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani, whose documentary film Coup 53 uncovers the influence of MI6 agents who sought to preserve their imperial-era access to Iranian oil and pulled in the Americans by promising a “slice.” Seventy years later, says Amirani, “We are still living with the ripples of this disastrous event.”
Guess who set up the SAVAK?
Norman Schwarzkopf Jr.'s Daddy
Before retiring from the Army in 1953 with the rank of major general, Schwarzkopf was sent by the Central Intelligence Agency as part of Operation Ajax (correct name TPAjax, TP meaning Soviet-backed Tudeh Party of Iran), to convince the self-exiled Iranian monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah, to return and seize power. Schwarzkopf went so far as to organize the security forces he had trained to support the Shah, and in so doing, he helped to train what later became known as the SAVAK
Happy Anniversary!
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Islamic theocracy, but she didn't know she was doing that then.
She was/is naturally liberal and raised affluent and educated in an urban environment, but she was also Muslim in a very conservative culture and she was very concerned for the direction of her country. The Shah's "White Revolution" of forced massive modernization and liberalization hurt her affluent family. And she was young, of course. She thought she was voting for democracy to replace the Shah's authoritarian government, not to revoke her new rights as a woman.
She believed the Ayatollah's reform rhetoric -- that she was voting for a sort of kind and gentle theocracy lite overlay on democracy that would provide moral guidance to reform corruption (populist leaders ALWAYS claim to be "reformers"
and offset the wave of westernization that was swamping Iran's own beloved culture.
Long before she and her sister fled the country for the U.S., she of course knew what a terrible mistake many moderate voters like her had made, including underestimating the power and passion of Iran's religious conservatives. Their dying father helped them leave to escape the very conservative brother who would take over their lives after he was gone.
