Iran
is much in the news these days, mainly because of the conflicting views about
the “Iran deal,” which is highly touted by the Obama administration and highly
trashed by most Republicans—and some Democrats such as Senator Schumer.
And
most people remember well, and with great negativity, the events of the Iranian
Revolution in 1979—and the Iran hostage crisis when 52 Americans were seized
and held for 444 days.
The
latter was particularly a bitter pill for President Carter: it was perhaps the decisive
reason he was not re-elected for a second term. Most of you will perhaps recall
that the hostages were released as President Reagan was being inaugurated in
January 1981.
But
not so many people now remember what transpired in Iran back in 1953.
On
August 15 that year, exactly eight years after the surrender of Japan, the U.S.
began to determine the fate of another country. That was the start of Operation
Ajax, the coup d’état orchestrated by the CIA against the democratically
elected prime minister of Iran.
That
prime minister was Muhammad Mossadegh, and his story is told in Christopher de
Bellaigue’s notable book Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic
Anglo-American Coup (2012).
Perhaps
few now remember Mossadegh. He was, however, widely known 65 years ago—so much
so that he was Time magazine’s Man of the Year for 1951, chosen over such outstanding
personages as General Eisenhower and General McArthur.
The
1953 crisis in Iran developed, not surprisingly, because of oil. The
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was an English firm—the first company to extract
petroleum from Iran, beginning in 1908 when Iran was still called Persia. (The
year after the coup, the company’s name was changed to what we know it as
today: British Petroleum or BP.)
The
strong dissatisfaction with Mossadegh as the political head of Iran was
primarily because of his drastic act of nationalizing the oil company that was
so lucrative for Britain, but which seemed exceedingly unfair to most Iranians.
President
Truman refused to approve the U.S. action to overthrow Mossadegh, but soon
after President Eisenhower took office, the plan was approved and executed that
summer. The pretext was the necessity of combatting a possible Communist
takeover of Iran.
Two
powerful brothers were behind the planning and implementation of the coup: John
Foster Dulles, who was Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, and Allen Dulles, the Director
of the CIA. (The new airport on the Virginia side of Washington, D.C., which
opened in 1962, was named for the former.)
Kermit
Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, was the head of the
CIA’s Middle East Department and charged with carrying out the coup. His
undercover activities and details of the coup are well told in journalist Stephen
Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East
Terror (2003).
Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi was the Shah (king) of Iran beginning in 1941, but his direct rule
came mostly after the 1953 coup. According to Kinzer, in the 1960s and 1970s he
“became increasingly isolated and dictatorial. He crushed dissent by whatever
means necessary” (p. 196).
Strong
dislike of the Shah’s cruel rule fueled the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Much
of Iran’s current hatred of the U.S. can be traced back to the CIA sponsored
coup in 1953 and to the Shah being put in power then. As Kinzer concludes,
“Operation Ajax has left a haunting and terrible legacy” (p. 215).
The
“Iran deal” will, we hope and pray, be the beginning of an improved
relationship between the U.S. and Iran.
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