Me Read Good - All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

If a country that was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon mobilized thousands of ordinary people on the street to scream "Death to Canada," I'd be interested in finding out why they feel that way. I'm curious like that. It's widely considered to be part of my charm.

As a people, Americans aren't an overly curious sort, particularly where history and international relations are concerned. That's why the overwhelming majority believe the dangerously dumb canard that the 9/11 attacks occurred because "the terrorists hate freedom."

While they're almost certainly disturbed by Lady GaGa, the takfiris aren't willing to die because the "Poker Face" video isn't up to their entertainment standards. As soon as average Americans understand that, the safer they'll ultimately be. Unfortunately, that involves reading history and finally comprehending that the world is much more complicated than a simple contest between freedom and its alternative would suggest.

As recently as fifty years ago, the United States was revered in the Middle East. Despite expansion into Hawaii, Cuba and the Philippines, and exercises in regime change in Nicaragua and Honduras, America was seen by Muslims as anti-colonial power that challenged their European oppressors. The British, French and Russians were always loathed in the Middle East. The U.S had to work at being hated as fully as they are today.

As Stephen Kinzer details in his fine book All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, that work began on August 19, 1953. That challenges the world currently faces from Iran can be directly traced back to the CIA coup against Mohammad Mossadegh.

By 1053 the British had been interfering with Iranian politics and exploiting that countries resources and people for the better part of a century. British intelligence and corporate interests were actually picking the people that were governing Iran and changing them whenever British interests changed. The Pahlavi dynasty (1925-79) was actually a creation of the United Kingdom.

The exploitation of the Iranian nation was exemplified by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company(later called Anglo-Iranian), which you currently know as BP. APOC (which I'll interchange with AIOC) squeezed horrible concessions out of Iran in the early twentieth century and built what was the world's largest oil refinery at Abadan. For their trouble, Iran received a royalty of 16% of net profits and the Iranian workers, who were habitually excluded from management, lived in slums without running water or electricity.

This state of affairs gave rise to Mossadegh, the head of the only truly democratic government in 4.000 years of Iranian history, who raised the prospect of nationalization. AIOC refused to negotiate, and when the Standard Oil's Saudi arm, ARAMCO announced that it would split its profits with the Saudi's evenly, Iranian anger boiled over. Prime Minister Mossadegh, backed by the Magilis (their parliament), nationalized AIOC. Even Britain's toady, Mohammad Reza Shah had little choice but to approve, fearing for the survival of his reign. On October 4, 1952 Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Great Britain.

Despite their conducting a spree of nationalizing essential industries at home at the same time, the British were furious. The governments of first Clement Atlee and then Winston Churchill wanted Mossadegh overthrown, which is where the United States comes in.

Having been evicted from Iran, the British approached the Truman administration about toppling the democratically elected government of Iran. President Truman, in what might have been his most far-sighted decision, refused, saying that overthrowing Mossadegh could have "catastrophic consequences." Truman did however send the legendary Averell Harriman to break the impasse. When the Harriman initiative failed, Churchill waited until Dwight David Eisenhower was elected president.

The British convinced the Dulles brothers, John Foster and Allen - Ike's secretary of state and director of Central Intelligence, respectively - that Mossedegh was a communist. The fact that it wasn't true didn't seem to matter to anyone at the time. President Eisenhower, who was philosophically inclined to agree with Truman, was finally persuaded by the Dulles brothers. America was back in the regime change business.

The United States, beginning in 1893, had toppled a number of foreign governments to protect or advance commercial interests, usually those of American fruit or sugar companies in Central America and Hawaii. The CIA coup against Mossadegh - dubbed Operation Ajax - would be the first and only time that the United States overthrow a government on behalf of foreign business. It is important to remember that not only was AIOC not an American company, it directly competed with ARAMCO, which was.

Ajax, which was headed by the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, Kermit, was perhaps the strangest and most disastrous in American history. It succeeded and Mossadegh was deposed, but what followed caused exactly what's happening in Iran today.

After Mossadegh was removed from power, the Shah assumed dictatorial powers, brutally repressed his people and secularized a deeply religious society. The CIA funded and trained SAVAK, an intelligence service that was brutal even by Middle Eastern standards.

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the taking of the American embassy, it was learned that the Shah's government and Iranian society was riddled with CIA assets. That President Carter was considering a counter-coup served only to heighten the justifiable paranoia of the mullahs lead by Khomeini.

To top it all off, there wasn't an American president between 1979 and 2008 that didn't speak in public about regime change in Iran.

Most Americans either don't know or don't remember what happened to Mohammad Mossadegh at the hands of the United States. All Iranians do know and remember it, and they're determined that it will never happen again. As furious as they are about the fraudulent reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, nothing infuriates them as much as the prospect of further foreign interference in their country.

American Republicans have been driven insane what they describe as President Obama's "apology tour", which began in Cairo this summer. This is what he actually said about August 19, 1953;

The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.

This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the cold war, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against US troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question, now, is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

That might be the most candy-coated thing an American president has ever said. The United States didn't play "a role in the overthrow a democratically elected Iranian government", it did it all by itself. And it did so on behalf of a foreign private interest that was brutally exploiting the Iranian people. Sarah Palin's famous "Joe Six-Pack" might not remember that, but the Iranian people do.

In the preface to All The Shah's Men, Stephen Kinzer describes meeting an elderly Iranian woman at the book party for her memoir. He asked her about the Mossadegh coup. This was her response;

Why did you Americans do that terrible thing?" she cried out. "We always loved America. To us, America was the great country, the perfect country, the country that helped us while other countries were exploiting us. But after that moment, no one in Iran ever trusted the United States again. I can tell you for sure that if you had not done that thing, you would never have had that problem of hostages being taken in your embassy in Tehran. All your trouble started in 1953. Why, why did you do it?"

Mohammad Mossadegh died while under house arrest on March 5, 1967. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi died in exile in Egypt on July 27, 1980. John Foster Dulles died on April 22, 1959. Allen Dulles died January 29. 1969. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill died on January 24, 1965. Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, died on March 28, 1969. Kermit Roosevelt, Jr died on June 8, 2000.

Their ghosts haunt American-Iranian relations to this day.