All the Shah′s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

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Mossadegh′s Iran faced formidable foes: British oil executives, the C.I.A. and the brothers Dulles, all of whom come off wretchedly here. The least sympathetic of all are Iran′s erstwhile British rulers, who continued to gouge Iran via the Anglo–Iranian Oil Company. When the Truman administration prodded it to share the wealth with Iran, its chairman sniffed, "One penny more and the company goes broke." In 1951, to London′s fury, Mossadegh led a successful campaign to nationalize the oil company, drove the British to close their vital oil refinery at Abadan and became prime minister. The British began drafting invasion plans, but Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson warned them that gunboat diplomacy would hurt the West in its struggle with Moscow. Why did you Americans do that terrible thing?" a relative of Mossadegh demands of Kinzer. "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?" Less flattering is portrayal of the Iranian monarchy. But it is the British that leave the worst impression in this

a(OCoLC)173499042 |z(OCoLC)987454150 |z(OCoLC)989766545 |z(OCoLC)1043375580 |z(OCoLC)1059406032 |z(OCoLC)1133776180 |z(OCoLC)1283805081 Although over ninety, Dad is unusually active. He is a docent at the Dundee Historical Society and, thanks to the influence of his Danish wife, Lene, takes courses as a non-degree-seeking student at the Roosevelt University campus out in dreary Schaumburg, Illinois. He tends towards history and political science, having said at one time that he enjoys ganging up with the liberal teachers against his mostly right-wing, fellow suburban students. (Dad always was a pinkish Democrat.) This book was recommended by him after he'd taken some course which used it. He had asked it I'd read it and, having read Kinzer's other book about the overthrow of the Guatemalan government by the C.I.A. and having enjoyed that one, his recommendation was enough for me to obtain the thing. I wasn't disappointed. While Prime Minister Clement Attlee argued for action based on imperialist principles, Churchill realized that Eisenhower would not be swayed by such arguments. He instead contended that Iran could easily fall under Communist sway, becoming a second Korea and allowing Iran's oil wealth to fall into the hands of the Soviet Union. This argument found ready supporters in the Eisenhower administration, mainly the Dulles brothers, who headed the Department of State and the CIA. While Eisenhower signed off on the coup, code named Project Ajax, he did not want to dirty his hands with the planning. Thus the Dulles brothers and their British counterparts were free to act as they saw fit. Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Notes

Kinze who has written an entirely engrossing, often riveting, nearly Homeric tale, which, if life were fair, would be this summer′s beach book." ( The Washington Post, Sunday, August 3, 2003) provides an able and often vivid summary of our knowledge..." ( BBC History Magazine, December 2003) foreign correspondent and the author of books on Nicaragua ( Blood of Brothers) and Turkey ( Crescent and Star), Kinzer has combed memoirs, academic works, government documents and news stories to produce this blow-by-blow account. He shows that until early in 1953, Great Britain and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company were the imperialist baddies of this tale. Intransigent in the face of Iran's demands for a fairer share of oil profits and better conditions for workers, British Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison exacerbated tension with his attitude that the challenge from Iran was, in Kinzer's words, "a simple matter of ignorant natives rebelling against the forces of civilization." Before the crisis peaked, a high-ranking employee of Anglo-Iranian wrote to a superior that the company's alliance with the "corrupt ruling classes" and "leech-like bureaucracies" were "disastrous, outdated and impractical." This stands as a textbook lesson in how not to conduct foreign policy. (July) For example, it is hard to see how Eisenhower could take advantage of Mossadeq’s mishaps when he was informed by his intelligence services that the “CIA presently has no group which would be effective in spreading anti-Mossadeq mass propaganda” and the “CIA has no group in Iran which could effectively promote riots demonstrating against Mossadeq.” (from recently declassified CIA documents) British goals in Iran were thwarted as well by U.S. opposition. President Harry Truman had no patience for the idea of empire, and his gut support for nationalist movements in the Third World made him cool to British overtures to help overthrow Mossadegh. In an attempt to calm tensions, Truman offered a number of compromises, which the British rejected. When Winston Churchill was re-elected prime minister in 1951, he had little doubt that covert action was called for. And when Dwight Eisenhower was elected president, Churchill found a much more receptive ear.

And what a towering historic figure Mohammad Mossadeq was. Although, to be precise, his “historic persona” is what is towering, since he’s been romanticized into something like a movie star. However, the real man, as it clearly transpires from even just this book, was an uncompromising, deceitful and obsessive guy who with his rigidity put the people of his country at serious risk various times. That is not what a “great politician” does. After the Mongol conquest of 1220 the Safavid dynasty in 1501 established Iran as the center of Shia Islam. At the turn of the 17th century Abbas Shah combined modernization with tyranny, creating artistic marvels in Isfahan. In the mid-18th century Nadir Shah looted Delhi and lands around. The dissolute Qajars ascended to power during the 19th century selling off natural resources. Movements toward reform were delayed by a British-Russian partition in 1907. Truman named Dean Acheson secretary of state in 1948. Acheson in turn named a Texan, George McGhee, as assistant secretary for Near Eastern, South Asian and American affairs. McGhee had studied geology at the University of Oklahoma and had won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. Around the end of 1949, "McGhee repeatedly warned directors of Anglo-Iranian that if they hoped to save Prime Minister Razmara and persuade the Majlis to approve their Supplemental Agreement, they must make concessions." (86-87).It probably goes too far to lay all blame on the Dulles brothers or Winston Churchill or Kermit Washington. Avoiding shortsightedness is hard, because seeing the future is impossible. Not every bad thing after 1953 happened simply because of the coup. Nothing is inevitable, and there are always possibilities for people to act differently, no matter the past. After the coup, an international consortium was organized to run the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which had named the National Iranian Oil Company by Mossadegh. Anglo-Iranian held 40% of the shares. The consortium agreed to share profits with Iran on a fifty-fifty basis, but still refused "to open its books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors." (196). Iran had been ruled by a monarch, the Shah (or "king"), for centuries. In the mid-1800s, the Qajar Dynasty under Nasir al-Din Shah began to sell concessions (ie. access) to Iran's natural resources to support a lavish lifestyle instead of benefitting his people. There were no terms of parity as Iran essentially became a cog in Great Britain's industrial empire. Perpetuating his father's practices, Muzzafir al-Din Shah had sold in 1901 the most pivotal concession in his country's history -- access to Iran's natural gas and petroleum for 60 years.

If the exploitation of our oil industry continues in which the Iranian plays the part of a mere manual worker, and if foreign exploiters continue to appropriate practically all of the income, then our people will remain forever in a state of poverty and misery."An exciting narrative. [Kinzer] questions whether Americans are well served by interventions for regime change abroad, and he reminds us of the long history of Iranian resistance to great power interventions, as well as the unanticipated consequences of intervention." The intervention and military involvement of the US stemmed from sour Iranian-US relations, communist fears and economic interests. Mossadegh argued vehemently that the US “once upheld moral principles but was wilting in the face of British pressure” (100). As Eisenhower was elected into office, he willingly accepted involvement on behalf of GB. Not only would this aid their Atlantic counterpart, help stop the potential spread of communism but also gain entry into the middle-east’s lucrative oil industry. Consequently, while the first coup failed, the team of CIA agents as well as Brits was successful four days later (166). They utilized propaganda, the press and local mobs to encourage domestic instability in Iran. As the streets were turned into battlegrounds for a new leader to come in, the CIA succeeded and Mossadegh was forced into house arrest for the remainder of his life. A Quasi-Victory for America i129312289 |b1160002917752 |dvlnf |g- |m |h4 |x1 |t0 |i2 |j70 |k200207 |n06-21-2022 00:19 |o- |a955.05 |rKIN