70 years ago, an Anglo-US coup condemned Iran to decades of oppression

https://theconversation.com/70-years-ago-an-anglo-us-coup-condemned-iran-to-decades-of-oppression-but-now-the-people-are-fighting-back-211698

by zeristor • 3 years ago

226 167 3 years ago

theconversation.com

mistrial92• 3 years ago

it was interesting to see a documentary on World War II recently, and a key summit of Allied leadership was a meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in Tehran. They used the royal palace there for photo ops quite a lot.

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

pjmorris• 3 years ago

I, showing my lack of education, first learned of the conference from reading 'War and Remembrance', Herman Wouk. It's amazing how much legitimate history he crammed into it and its prequel, 'The Winds of War.'

boringuser26• 3 years ago

There's a certain strain of political outlook exemplified by an article like this, commonly categorized as "post-colonial", that ironically morphs itself into increasingly complex and implausible shapes to explain why all of the bad things are caused by the "first world" and nobody else has or will ever have any autonomy as an agent in the world.

The other aspect of irony to this is that this worldview is cultivated uniquely in bourgeoisie Western spheres to be championed by chosen avatars of the parasitized people completely Westernized outside their disdain for Western culture.

What we really need is a Canada-infused Iranian with a Western worldview telling us what the Iranian people truly want -- how absurd.

The final and greatest absurd irony latent here is that in the minds of proponents of these conspiracy theories, the US and other Western powers go from bumbling buffoons that can't socially engineer their way out of a paper bag when you can see/prove it (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) to master machivellian puppeteers when you can't.

joemazerino• 3 years ago

You didn't know? Everything bad is the West's fault.

Meanwhile Iran's secular base disintegrates rapidly while the fundamentalist Islamists increase their stranglehold on their people.

boringuser26• 3 years ago

The people clearly support the Iranian government.

Whether or not you or I have anything to say about that is pretty irrelevant as I am not an Iranian citizen, and you are unlikely to be one.

von Mises once said that every government is fundamentally democratic because even the most autarchic government requires the governing consent of its people. This is clearly true.

This whole "people in the West get to decide whether or not a government is valid, but also they are evil bad guys" thing is really getting old.

_3u103• 3 years ago

As someone who left Canada for the “3rd world” and sees people crying about how awful it is in the happiest country on earth, let me just say it’s as awful as everyone says, please don’t come here or help us we certainly aren’t happy leave us to our misery.

orwin5• 3 years ago

The Shah couldn't have taken the power without US help. It's one of the US few success, Pinochet being the second.

Obviously it's easier when you have internal support.

Basically the Iranian conservatives were divided. The Shah was unlikeable (or untrustworthy I think, if I remember correctly), so the old feudal/clannish/agrarian society wouldn't really support him. The industrialists liked him better, and the islamistes didn't respect him.

He had one advantage: a semi-legitimate claim that a majority would recognize.

He promised the 3 guarantees once in power, and since he had the political acumen of a 12 yo, the Cia handed the negociations for him (this is a 3rd-hand story). The coup worked, but he gave too much of his power after that, and basically handed the state to islamists (his political acumen didn't improve with the years).

That's the story I heard from an Iranian. I choose to believe it until all is declassified.

lostlogin• 3 years ago

The Shah couldn't have taken the power without US help. It's one of the US few success, Pinochet being the second.

Can you explain this? I wouldn’t call Iran’s situation or Pinochet good outcomes at all, but are you meaning that the US achieved what it intended too, so was therefore successful?

anigbrowl4• 3 years ago

the US and other Western powers go from bumbling buffoons that can't socially engineer their way out of a paper bag when you can see/prove it (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) to master machivellian puppeteers when you can't.

Asinine argument. Colonial/aggressive powers do well at first because seizing the initiative gives them the advantage of surprise and dismayed targets take time to catch up. The same approaches work less well later because counterparties are wiser to the dynamics and the initiative is harder to seize. Same reason 9/11 only worked once and subsequent large-scale operations by Al Qaeda failed.

_3u103• 3 years ago

Could you remind me who is running Afghanistan these days? The name of the group is on the tip of my tongue.

flimsypremise4• 3 years ago

So.. what's your argument here? That the coup didn't happen? That it wasn't backed by the US and Britain? That is was good actually?

this is the general strategy of people who don't want to face up to factual terrible things that contradict their ideology. They speak in generalities to avoid confronting any inconvenient truths.

AndrewKemendo3• 3 years ago

All war boils down to the ability to access, control or set pricing for a natural resource

The perennial Iran/Iraq conflicts originated from disputes about access to the Shatt al-Arab River starting in the 16th century - once the industrial revolution hit, then of course oil was the key resource for growth

The Overthrow of the Shah then, was based on the requirement to not be beholden to anyone but the west when pricing Oil, to ensure the west had unmitigated control of how the largest oil property set prices.

Old school conquest of territory post WWII is considered gauche, so the 21st century approach to resource conflict is to find "other means" to have the same effect of guaranteeing access to someone else's property.

I think this extremely rare peaceful period of "orthogonal conflict" that was notably devoid of multiple widespread bloodshed in war (~1975-Today) might actually come to an end in the next few decades as state capitalism crumbles under it's own weight and no coherent alternative exists.

FirmwareBurner4• 3 years ago

TL;DR: throughout history several countries got super wealthy by stealing other countries' shit at gunpoint, which went out of fashion after WW2, and then had to find other avenues for less obvious colonial-like theft, usually involving toppling leaders thorough coups and installing their own puppets in place who would gladly sign off on their country's resources for pennies to large western corporations

AndrewKemendo3• 3 years ago

Bingo

Extra points if your colonialism exploits an internecine conflict such that it appears that internal problems of the country, rather than exogenous meddling with state or tribal sovereignty, led to it's failure to govern (reinforcing how "correct" your form of government is)

tamimio• 3 years ago

usually involving toppling leaders thorough coups and installing their own puppets in place

Pretty much yeah, and if that fails, sanctions and economic wars

labster2• 3 years ago

stealing other countries' shit at gunpoint, which went out of fashion after WW2

It didn’t go out of fashion. Industrialization made wars of conquest unprofitable by 1890-1910 or so, and it took the world that long to get a clue. (Russia, notably, still hasn’t figured it out.) If you build one factory, you make money; if you build an army to steal your neighbor’s factory, most likely you both get zero factories.

enkid5• 3 years ago

The US and UK didn't overthrow the Shah, they helped him stop from being overthrown. If you can't even get the basics of the historical events we're talking about correct, you shouldn't be making broad generalizations about all of history.

AndrewKemendo3• 3 years ago

I said nothing about the US or UK overthrowing the Shah

orwin5• 3 years ago

They put him in power on 53,they didn't 'stop' him from being overthrown. He failed his first coup and had originally too few local/regional supporters to succeed his second one.

gordian-not2• 3 years ago

All war is about resources except for all the times it isn’t: religion, culture, honor/shame or ideology.

Two world wars come to mind

readthenotes1• 3 years ago

One of those was about resources. Alsace-Lorraine may want a few words about the other

NickC25• 3 years ago

Sad to see what Iran has become - no in small part thanks to the US/UK's meddling and installing a crazed theocratic government. The Iranian people deserve so much better - they are a nation of really smart people and would be a beacon in the Middle East if it wasn't for a bunch of religious reactionaries holding power.

Some of the best engineers I've ever worked with were expat Iranians who left and have no intention of going back there.

EA-3167• 3 years ago

The theocratic government was not installed by the US or UK though, they're the ones who overthrew the shah and took over.

enkid5• 3 years ago

The US and UK assisted a nationalist and westernized monarch retain and consolidate power. They did not install a theocratic government. The current theocratic government came into power as a reaction against the Shah the British and US had helped.

orwin5• 3 years ago

'retain'. He was democratically booted of Iran, and his first coup failed.

The democratically elected president had even more western values and his only flaw was that he was a bit too socialist for the local elites, who couldn't have thrown him off without US pushing for cooperation.

daneel_w• 3 years ago

US/UK didn't install the current ruling set of islamists.

behnamoh3• 3 years ago

That's not entirely true:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/10/ayatollah-khom...

ReptileMan3• 3 years ago

The same way the US didn't install the Taliban as the rulers of Afghanistan. Twice.

29athrowaway• 3 years ago

And how did that government started?

jamesaurichs• 3 years ago

The young generation of Iran doesn't buy into the whole blaming the US thing for something that happened 70 years (1 generation!!) ago - which the US tried to install a more westernized leader. A lot of anti-US people with agenda wants the world to think otherwise. Case in point:

Mourners In Iran Refuse To Trample On Swedish, American Flags. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202307280335

Iranian students avoid stepping on images of U.S., Israeli flags. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNJLG8jCq1Q

tacocataco• 3 years ago

Sounds like the US can coup anyone it wants then and just wait 70 years! No worries all good!

ArnoVW• 3 years ago

Nit: one generation is the time between birth and reproduction. So depending on culture 20-35 years. 70 years is more than 2 generations.

hn_throwaway_99• 3 years ago

which the US tried to install a more westernized leader

Taking issue with your use of "westernized" here - it's either misleading or deliberately ambiguous. The US just wanted a less "socialist" leader, similar to how they favored autocrats in Central and South America over communist/socialist leaders, democracy be damned.

dogma11382• 3 years ago

The coup most definitely did not install a theocratic government, an autocratic one quite likely but lets not pretend that the western secular Iran of the 60’s people seem to be so fond off wasn’t there predominantly because of the Shah not despite of him.

The Islamic Revolution didn’t succeed power by chance, whilst the Shah was opposed by many factions form secular communists to religious fanatics the reason why the mullahs came on top was because the majority of the population was a bunch of illiterate religious nut jobs.

This is also why Turkey has regressed so much, the secular metropolitan elite that followed Ataturk’s legacy was and is out numbered by the rural masses at least 3 to 1. At some point something had to give which is now why you have decades of Erdogan.

ReptileMan3• 3 years ago

At some point something had to give which is now why you have decades of Erdogan.

What gave was the usual brilliance of Brussels. The generals were plotting to kill him on national TV as they usually did, but around 2005-6 EU leaders started pearl clutching about religious freedom and how Turkey would never enter EU if not human rights or similar bullshit - so Turkey is still outside of EU, no chance of getting in, but they enjoy serious regress in freedoms, Islamization and a monkey with a wrench in charge of their economy.

jl6• 3 years ago

a nation of really smart people

Measured how?

psunavy033• 3 years ago

Sad to see what Iran has become - no in small part thanks to the US/UK's meddling and installing a crazed theocratic government.

This is some tinfoil-hatted nonsense. I'll be charitable and assume you're unfamiliar with the history, as opposed to a conspiracy theorist who thinks the CIA is behind everything you think is wrong with the world.

Rightly or wrongly, the US and UK went after Mossadegh precisely because the Shah was pro-Western, anti-Soviet, and a staunch ally of the US. Similar in some respects to why the Saudis have been a US ally for so long, although that is starting to fray. Both were authoritarian governments which nevertheless closely aligned themselves with US foreign policy in the region, and got some of our best gear and support in return . . . this is why Iran to this day flies so many 1960s-late 1970s Western platforms in its Air Force such as F-4s, F-5s, and F-14s. They are the only nation we ever sold the Tomcat to, and the Shah personally picked it over the F-15 Eagle, which was also on the table.

The Ayatollahs hated the Shah and have hated the US since the beginning. They call us the Great Satan. If you aren't familiar with the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran and the consequences that had on US history, then you're talking out the wrong end of your alimentary canal about anything Iran- or Middle East-related. The Carter administration attempted Operation Eagle Claw, a do-or-die hostage rescue attempt using special operations forces which went horribly wrong. The storming of the embassy and the failure of Eagle Claw were a national embarrassment. They fed into an overall narrative that Jimmy Carter was a weak, ineffectual, and bumbling President, and were a key driver in Ronald Reagan winning the Presidency in 1980. As a final stick in the eye, the Ayatollahs waited until Reagan had been sworn in to release the Embassy hostages.

So no, the US and UK didn't "install" a bunch of theocrats. They opposed this, and the results of that opposition had historic consequences throughout the 70s and 80s and beyond to the present day.

JKCalhoun• 3 years ago

As a final stick in the eye, the Ayatollahs waited until Reagan had been sworn in to release the Embassy hostages.

You say that as though there were no quid pro quo involved.

danbruc2• 3 years ago

Was it not as follows? Mossadegh wanted the control over Iranian oil back, therefore the US and UK got rid of him which allowed Pahlavī to become dictator and he was supported by them to gain influence, oil, and defense against the Soviet Union. Especially with weapons. But the way he treated the people eventually made them unite behind Chomeini and that was the end for the Shah. This was of course not good, so the USA supported Hussein in his war against Iran. He became the enemy when he decided that Kuwait would be an easier target than Iran.

hollerith• 3 years ago

The "crazed theocrats" were the ones that (in 1979 or so) overthrew the government installed by the US and the UK.

markus_zhang2• 3 years ago

TBF the big shots have been putting their mouths into Iran much earlier than that. The British and USSR even had a plan to invade Iran because they were close to Germany back in the day. Of course German posing itself as the liberator because it wants the oil but Britain was blocking it from do so.

enkid5• 3 years ago

The British and Soviet Union did invade and occupy Iran during the war. It was focused on controlling the railroads, but it led to the then Shah to abdicate.

markus_zhang2• 3 years ago

Ah yeah my bad memory.

behnamoh3• 3 years ago

And let's not forget the great famine of Iran thanks to the British and Soviet invasion of Iran during WW2:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_famine_of_1942%E2%80%9...

* 4 million Iranians died as a result. Not a single mention of them on media, movies, etc.

georgeburdell• 3 years ago

Interesting aside about Germany from that time, but the word “Iran” is a reference to a people called Aryans that lived there, and the latter remains a not-uncommon name there. As a Westerner I found this a bit confusing since I don’t associate Iran with the kind of people over here that would use the term Aryan

anigbrowl4• 3 years ago

That's because you don't know any esoteric nazis (lucky you). Look into Savitri Devi. It's a common trope to think that neo-nazis only like caucasaians to the exclusion of everyone else; in reality a lot of them are into ethno-pluralism as long as its combined with separatism and oppression of 'inferior' ethnic groups. The same people that grumble about race mixing being degenerate (by other people) will also endorse scientific selective breeding for the production of superior genetic stock (by themselves). A lot of political extremism is rooted in reproductive frustration.

briankelly• 3 years ago

It’s a whole thing with white supremacy in general to try to claim direct lineage with these early civilizations that are considered great as a proof of superiority [1][2]. Unfortunately much of the conceptual framework of race was not at all limited to Nazis at the time; generally Western anthropologists assumed racial superiority of whites and claimed Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc as white civilizations and evidence for that belief [3].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_archaeology

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

bitwize• 3 years ago

That's because Hitler co-opted the term "Aryan" to refer not to an Indic people but to his preferred Nordic blonde white archetype. Since then the word has been closely associated with Nazi ideals of racial superiority in the west.

orwin5• 3 years ago

I met an exiled Iranian in Paris 13 years ago, and spent multiple nights in his appartement, drinking and talking (and testing his weed shipment :/ ).

He told me his clan/family was from northeast Iran, with presence in Afghanistan. They were allied to the Shah in 53 (not for his first coup though), and allied to both US and UK. He told me his 'import export' businesses was family business since the 50s: the US actually furnished them with both equipments and weapons and started their drug operation. He said his clan used and was used by the US twice, once against Iran democracy, the second time against the USSR in Afghanistan, and both times they ended up with nothing but troubles.

They ended up exiling most of their clan to western capitals in the 90s. They still have land there I think.

ggm• 3 years ago

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

aa_is_op• 3 years ago

That coup allowed a liberal society to flourish in Iran... now look where they are. I'd rather have US coups than any type of Iran-Russian autocratic regime.

fakedang• 3 years ago

Iran was "liberal" even before the coup, if liberal for you means ladies dressed in thigh-length skirts prancing about the big cities (mostly Teheran though).

Iran outside the big cities was still extremely religious and conservative. And dirt poor. Which is why the socialist Mossadegh government was popular, and why the Shah wasn't, and why the Islamic Revolution ultimately succeeded.

meitham• 3 years ago

One of the main reasons religion grows very strong in Iran eventually leading to the revolution was the Shah oppression of religious beliefs. Women were beaten in the streets if they had a scarf covering their heads. He was unpopular dictator, but of course the west like friendly dictators.

zelphirkalt• 3 years ago

Now, or soon they will be beaten in the streets for not wearing head concealing clothing. Can't do it right.

shrubble• 3 years ago

Interesting connection is that Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. helped train both the Iranian national police and what later became SAVAK, and negotiated with the Shah to return to Iran... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Schwarzkopf_Sr.

His son was the American general that led the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm/Shield.

echelon_musk• 3 years ago

I can recommend the documentary Coup 53 [0] on this subject. The rest of the episodes of End of Empire have kindly been uploaded to YouTube and are worth a watch.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_53

mountainriver• 3 years ago

There’s a great book about this called All the Shahs Men, highly recommend

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Shah%27s_Men

aapl888893• 3 years ago

Why is the US blamed and not Iran's socialist policies which occurred 30 years later, after the revolution?

"Following the nationalizations in 1979 and the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War, over 80% of the economy came under government control.[34]"

brendoelfrendo• 3 years ago

You can draw a line directly from the coup in 1953 to the revolution in 1979, so it's pretty fair to blame the US for the revolution and what came after.

AlbertCory3• 3 years ago

The next day, on August 19, 1953, with the aid of “rented” crowds widely believed to have been arranged with CIA assistance, the coup succeeded

I searched the article and its reference for any details on the mechanics of this "coup." Zilch.

WSJ has an article today, in fact, about it. Mossadegh was not "democratically elected." There was massive opposition to him inside Iran. The UK was opposed to him, of course.

As for the "rented" crowds: evidence please?

behnamoh3• 3 years ago

There was massive opposition to him inside Iran.

The clergy were against him because their agenda didn't align with his progressive one.

mzi• 3 years ago

Mossadegh was not "democratically elected." There was massive opposition to him inside Iran.

See also: presidents of the United States of America

There is no contradiction between democratically elected and domestic opposition. Quite the contrary.

psychphysic• 3 years ago

There was massive opposition to him inside Iran.

Massive opposition does not mean not democratically elected.

Trump case in point.

Btw, "Shah" means king. Iran had deposed a monsrch, that was part of why the Brits did not like it.

k1m• 3 years ago

A lot more info here: https://declassifieduk.org/iran-1953-mi6-plots-with-islamist...

IRAN 1953: MI6 PLOTS WITH ISLAMISTS TO OVERTHROW DEMOCRACY
Declassified British files highlight a little known aspect of the joint MI6/CIA coup against Iran’s democratically elected government in August 1953 – UK covert action in support of leading radical Shia Islamists, the predecessors of Ayatollah Khomeini.

AlbertCory3• 3 years ago

After WW II, the UK didn't have the power to overthrow anyone. They were ruined by two world wars. You seem to have confused "intent" with "ability."

That's why in 1956, the UK and France had to humiliatingly climb down from the Suez operation. Eisenhower just said, nope, nope and that was it.

LatteLazy• 3 years ago

A cold hard look at US (and UK) policy to Iran leads to the conclusion that we have worked very hard to create an enemy where one need not actually exist...

kenneth• 3 years ago

So I'm basically reading this as putting blame for Iran's reprehensible regime and its crackdown on its citizen yearning for freedom on Britain and the US.

No… let's stop with this rewriting of history. The only party to blame for the awfulness in Iran is their evil regime.

InTheArena• 3 years ago

hrm...

From wikipedia:

"His government came under scrutiny for ending the 1952 election before rural votes could be fully counted.[6] According to historian Ervand Abrahamian: "Realizing that the opposition would take the vast majority of the provincial seats, Mosaddegh stopped the voting as soon as 79 deputies—just enough to form a parliamentary quorum—had been elected."

Iran was many things, but not a utopia, nor even leagal here. Doesn't excuse any actions - and the cold war is one big example of be careful fighting monsters, lest you become one - but the storylines around Iran and Cuba don't hold up once the russiana propaganda bots disappear for a bit.

WalterBright3• 3 years ago

I've never seen any analysis of why the US was able to install stable, successful democratic governments in Japan and Germany, and generally failed to elsewhere.

throwaway4good• 3 years ago

100.000 soldiers in each country?

api3• 3 years ago

The US also came into those countries with massive reconstruction funds. Injecting tons of money buys a certain amount of loyalty, especially from anyone in those countries who did not support the previous regime or had fallen out of love with it.

We also promised them protection and trade and for some reason generally made good on that.

We didn’t do that with Iran or any of those other countries we messed with during the Cold War. In fact we seemed to not even really care much what happened after the coup. The only objective was to contain communism, so as long as whatever thing took power was not communist it was fine. It didn’t matter if they were monsters or even if they were even more anti-American than the previous regime as long as there wasn’t a hint of Soviet ideology.

We totally overreacted to communism to the point of actually building up more determined and ideologically consistent enemies.

WalterBright3• 3 years ago

We "injected" incredible amounts of money into Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mlller• 3 years ago

Yes, but somehow it worked in a not-so-tangible way.

Germany for one apparently gave much more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_reparations than it got out of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan#Expenditures in reverse. Imagine the allies had extracted much more wealth from Afghanistan or the Irak than they have put into it – itʼs inconceivable.

Slightly alternative explanation for West Germany, combining what others have said:

- First stage: The allies under US leadership were running the country anyway, they did it well and there was sufficient cooperation by Germans, for whom the Germany that was defeated represented an entity utterly discredited on account of the most horrible crimes against humanity.

- Second stage: The feeling “the Americans are actually on our side – defeating us they have liberated us and then helped us to a new state in which we can live better than ever before, plus they are protecting us from the USSR” became more or less mainstream.

(The experience in East Germany was completely different of course.)

So I think the most important factor was that American victory and American predominance were associated with liberation and freedom.

rendang• 3 years ago

Failed at installing democracies elsewhere? Aside from Afghanistan where has the US done that? More often the US has installed or propped up autocrats w/ varying degrees of success

reissbaker5• 3 years ago

Japan, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine. Technically Iraq as well, although I don't think the Iraqis were particularly happy about that.

BaculumMeumEst• 3 years ago

well i’m not going to change that with my guessing but i’d wager that it has more to do with the values of the populace, the willingness of the people to engage in and be ruled by democracy, and the regional stability at the time than anything the US did or didn’t do

thephyber6• 3 years ago

I’d argue the US government/military involvement was crucial in both Japan and West Germany. The US military ran their governments for a few years, eliminated their domestic politics from being involved in war/defense decisions, restructured their governments, made excellent choices when it came to social, education, healthcare, transportation, and industrial policies.

I would argue that local values played a part, but an emphasis on education, long term planning, and a lack of US political dysfunction were much more impactful.

Also worth mentioning that the wins over Japan and Germany weee pretty decisive. 1960s South Vietnam, 2001 Afghanistan, and 2003 Iraq (and potentially 1991 Russia) were all pretty ham fisted efforts and there was no US consensus about what to do with the country.

I don’t know enough about 1951 S Korea to say anything useful, except it was a military autocracy until the 1980s, at which point it made an incredible shift towards democracy and the economic growth story was one of the world’s most amazing.

jltsiren3• 3 years ago

Japan was the interesting case.

With Germany, you are basically asking how they managed to install a stable Western government in a Western country with a history with similar forms of government and the institutions to support them. It was probably easier than convincing the Confederate States of the legitimacy of the US after the Civil War.

leereeves6• 3 years ago

Germany had no history with stable democracy. The Weimar Republic was a short-lived, unstable disaster and before that Germany was ruled by the Kaiser (emperor, a word derived from Caesar).

Redoubts2• 3 years ago

“Do this, or we’ll nuke you / let the soviets invade”

-e-

Less flippantly, those countries gave it their all and lost. In most other places, the real struggle started after the government was toppled.

thephyber6• 3 years ago

This might be a good read:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg716cc.10

aapl888893• 3 years ago

Iran was actually rich in the 1970s and women weren't in veils. You can thank the US for that. The revolution happened after.

api3• 3 years ago

I don’t really see US foreign policy in that era as imperialistic. That’s giving it too much credit as it implies a degree of even Machiavellian intelligence. The British were imperialistic and they were actually kind of good at it.

It was sheer idiocy, an exercise in spending massive amounts of money to build up our own enemies and negate our own supposed values, turning billions away from Western democracy and toward backward totalitarian ideologies that are in the end more hostile to us than the USSR was.

Like I said in another reply it was mostly driven by paranoid overreaction to communism.

ImHereToVote2• 3 years ago

When has this stopped.

https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cyph...

goodbyesf2• 3 years ago

I don’t really see US foreign policy in that era as imperialistic.

US has been imperialistic from birth. Heck the revolutionary war was fought to secure our right to be imperialists and commit genocide against the natives. Our reason for existence is imperialism. Or maybe history is right and a bunch of racist slavers wanted to birth liberty and freedom into the world.

That’s giving it too much credit as it implies a degree of even Machiavellian intelligence.

From a ragtag group of 13 colonies, we've taken over the world. Not only that, we've taken over the world while having the world believe we are the liberators. There are idiots all over the world who legitimate look to the US as saviors and liberators. Doesn't get any machiavellian than that.

turning billions away from Western democracy and toward backward totalitarian ideologies that are in the end more hostile to us than the USSR was.

'Western democracy' was the excuse invented to invade and murder tens of millions across the world in the 20th century. Whereas the brits advocated 'white man's burden' in the 19th century to murder and steal. We came up with democracy. Nothing more imperialistic than the cause of spreading democracy.

Like I said in another reply it was mostly driven by paranoid overreaction to communism.

No. Communism was just an excuse to continue our imperialism. If communism never existed, we'd make up another excuse. What's our problem with Iran now? The USSR has been gone for 30 years and our relations with Iran is as bad as ever?

Stop accepting what dumb historians on TV or news tell you. Try to think for yourself and see if an assertion makes any sense.

alephnerd• 3 years ago

women weren't in veils

Sure among the elite in Tehran, but the rest of the country was still significantly conservative. You can see this in blockbuster movies from Iran in that era such as Qeysar [0] and Tangsir [1], as well as with Iranian thinkers with a mixed traditional and western educational background such as Ahmad Fardid, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, and Ali Shariati preaching about Gharbzadegi as a reaction to the rapid modernization the Shah used.

Iran was actually rich in the 1970s

But extremely unequal. The earliest Gini coefficient I could find for Iran (1984) was at 0.47, so roughly similar to Venezuela during that era. It also appeared that Tehran's household expenditures (and thus salaries) were 4x those of the rest of the country [2].

There's a reason why Islamic Socialism is the primary political philosophy within Iran, with the key intellectuals of the Iranian Revolution being influenced by a mix of Islamic Reformism, Third Worldism a la Frantz Fannon and the Algerian Revolution, and Marxist thought.

Basically, an Islamic version of Liberation Theology that was popular in South America and the Solidarity Movement in Poland, and directly influenced Pope Francis

[0] https://archive.org/details/gheysar-1348

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg2S3dHTKD0

[2] https://www.cairn.info/revue-internationale-des-etudes-du-de...

text0404• 3 years ago

You can thank the US for that.

you can also thank the US for the coup d'etat that overthrew a democratically elected PM and installed a pro-western dictator who executed dissidents, eventually leading to a student revolution that was hijacked by religious hardliners. but the women didn't have to wear veils, though, right?

flimsypremise4• 3 years ago

So many Americans naively believe this fairy story about their country, when the reality is a lot darker and more brutal. The intervention in Iran was neither an isolated event, nor was even close to the first coup that the US perpetrated at the behest of business interests. Starting with Samoa and Hawaii in the 1800s, an extremely violent occupation of the Philippines in the early part of the 20th century, and interventions in Honduras, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, The Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, the US had a long history of this sort of behavior before Iran. Often undertaken under the guise of fighting communism or some other nebulous threat, these acts were in fact naked money grabs intended to secure the dominion of US corporate interests, established during colonialism, over land, labor and assets like oil, lumber and precious minerals in countries where local governments were attempting to seize back control of these assets, and in many cases grant them back to the often poor and rural communities that should have owned them in the first place.

Tim Weiner's book Legacy of Ashes is a good overview of the many "interventions" the US undertook to replace regimes that threatened the economic domination of the West. For the lazy, Wikipedia provides a decent list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

It's a bizarre sort of internal contradiction that allows people to believe in the overwhelming power of the United States while refusing to accept that the exercise of that power has shaped pretty much everything about the modern world. From Korea, where the US propped up a puppet regime staffed by Japanese collaborators post-WW II, leading to a civil war and partition, to Iran, to Russia, which was bankrupted and impoverished by US interests after the end of the Cold War. Those same interests then hand-picked a certain Vladimir Putin as a successor to their man Yeltsin. Unfortunately, most Americans are entirely ignorant of what actually occurred during these events because they were either never reported in the news, or reported in the distorted and propagandistic fashion that the US media tends to adopt.

ImHereToVote2• 3 years ago

Hasn't stopped.

https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cyph...

flimsypremise4• 3 years ago

They've done it so many times at this point that they don't actually have to bother sending in the CIA, they just make their preference clear and let the "or else" remain unspoken.

metabagel• 3 years ago

The U.S. isn’t responsible for Putin coming to power. Putin handpicked himself to succeed Yeltsin.

flimsypremise4• 3 years ago

Putin didn't have that kind of power nationally during the Yeltsin years. He was powerful in St. Petersburg, but he would never have risen to national prominence had Yeltsin not hand-picked him as his successor. Yeltsin, in turn, was propped by a coalition of Western interests who had helped him orchestrate a slate of "market based" reforms known as shock therapy, which in effect bankrupted the country while simultaneously conducting a fire sale of everything valuable to western business interests. People forget, but when Putin rose to power the American press lavished him with praise as "someone we could do business with", and Putin even broached the idea of joining NATO with President Clinton at one point. Had Bush not (needlessly) pulled out of ABM treaty a year later, the first in a series of utterly pointless provocations of a country we at that point viewed as a potential ally, our relationship with Russia might look very different today.

mugman9• 3 years ago

Not just Iran, but also Egypt. ->https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FF 70+ years of darned military junta rule. With a small 1 year break between July 2012 and July 2013.

digitalsin• 3 years ago

Right, also while we're at it let's not blame Saddam Hussein, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Mussolini, etc. for their deeds but instead blame whatever happened 2 generations before them. Maybe even sainthood for those fine gentlemen, right?

This article is so biased and wreaks of Iranian state funded propaganda I'm going to need a shower to wash the stink off after reading it. Give me a break. This si not HN material.

tijl• 3 years ago

It's interesting to see how the perspective on this is shifting in Iran to the point that nowadays, it became controversial to call this a coup. In the royalist version of events, it is Mosaddegh who attempted a coup. Mosaddegh had lost is parliamentary majority, but was still very popular. A held a referendum to dissolve parliament and give himself as prime minister the power to make law. The Shah responded by dismissing Mosaddegh. The Shah had the constitutional right to do this, because Parliament was not in session.

That's of course only part of the story, and it completely ignores the role of Britain and the US. But what is interesting to me is not so much what exactly happened, but how peoples' view on history changes with shifting political moods. A generation ago in Iran, basically everyone agreed that this was a coup by Western imperialist powers. Today, with growing opposition to the political system, comes a questioning of the "official" history as thought in schools. Young people are today looking for different (but equally one-sided) versions of the story in which the roles of good and bad get reversed.

70 years ago, an Anglo-US coup condemned Iran to decades of oppression

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