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To Understand Iran’s 150-Year Fight, Follow the Trail of Blood and Oil

Cynthia Chung

This past April 17th, a dispute between Iran and the U.S. occurred over the U.S.’ decision to increase its military presence in Caribbean and Eastern Pacific waters, with the purported reason being a counter-narcotics campaign.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this past Sunday, that the real purpose for this move by the U.S. is to “intervene and create disruption in the transfer of Iran’s fuel to Venezuela.”

In the same letter, Zarif expressed concern over “the United States’ intention to consider dangerous, unlawful and provocative measures against Iranian oil tankers engaged in perfectly lawful international commerce with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”

The Iranian deployment consists of five tankers carrying around $45.5million of gasoline and related products, as part of a wider deal between Iran and Venezuela. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on both nations’ oil exports.

For the first time since 1962, Iran has requested IMF assistance due to severe shortages created by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Iran requesting an emergency loan of $5 billion. However, the request is currently being blocked by the U.S., which accounts for slightly more than 16.5% of IMF’s voting shares and has an effective veto over decisions.

Iran is presently experiencing a critical shortage of medicines and equipment amid the pandemic, and yet is prohibited from purchasing medicines and supplies because of the banking sanctions.

It is clear that these manoeuvres against Iran are not on behalf of anyone’s “security” but rather an attempt to force Iran to finally bend the knee and be reduced to a state of complete dependence.

Iran has fought a long fight to claim its independence from western powers.

However, what if I were to tell you that once there was a time when Iran and the U.S. had good relations and that the U.S. was in fact the leading promoter and supporter of Iran’s sovereignty?

Almost out of a Shakespearean play of tragedy and betrayal, the relationship was jeopardised by a third player. As identified by John Perkins, in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, the first ever U.S. coup against a foreign country was the overthrow of Iran’s nationalist Prime Minister Mosaddegh in 1953. However, what is often left out…is that it was a British authored and designed operation.

In order for us to understand how and why the U.S. was dragged into such an affair, our story starts 150 years ago…

Dieu et mon droit

It all started in 1872, with Nasir al-Din Shah having granted to the British Baron Julius de Reuter, rights to Iran’s entire economic estate. Reuter not only controlled Iran’s industry, farming, and rail transportation, but also held the right to issue currency and to set up a national bank, called the Imperial Bank of Persia, which was under direct British control.

In 1901, Muzzaffar al-Din Shah negotiated what became known as the D’Arcy Contract, granting William Knox D’Arcy, a millionaire London socialite, the special and exclusive privilege to basically own and manage the natural gas and petroleum of Iran for a term of 60 years.

In May 26th 1908 D’Arcy struck pay-dirt in Iran, discovering a huge oil field in Masjed-Soleiman. Britain immediately set up APOC in 1908, purchasing the rights to the black gold from D’Arcy. Six years later, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill gave the order to purchase 51% of APOC, effectively nationalizing the company. This was to ensure the free flow of oil to the British navy. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran.

Iran received only 16% of the royalties on the oil.

Britain continued to pursue total control of Iran, not through colonial occupation, but rather through economic “agreements”. In the midst of carving up the empire’s new “jewels” of the Middle East from the Sykes-Picot fraud on the Arabian people and the illegal British occupation of Palestine, the notorious Anglo-Persian Agreement of Aug 19, 1919 was also signed, with London effectively turning Iran into a de facto protectorate run by British “advisors”. Britain had succeeded in becoming the masters of Iran’s natural resources through this agreement.

Iran received almost nothing in return, not even oil from APOC for domestic consumption, but rather had to import it from the Soviet Union!

On Nov 28th 1932 Reza Shah announced that he would be cancelling the British concession to APOC. The British Navy was heavily dependent on cheap Iranian oil and thus Britain refused to acquiesce. A compromise was reached in 1933 through bilateral negotiations and the British managed to extend their concession up until 1993! Iran had succeeded in getting the British to pay a higher price but it still did not control its own oil.

The American Relationship

Despite claiming a neutral stance for Iran during WWII, word had gotten out that Reza Shah was apparently sympathetic to the cause of Hitler. The argument was thus used that a pro-German Iran could become a launching pad for an attack against the Soviet Union, justifying British and Soviet entry into the country on Aug 25th 1941 for what would be a several years’ occupation. On Sept 16th Reza was forced by the British to abdicate and go into exile transferring power to his 22 year old son, Mohammad Reza Shah.

Mohammad Reza Shah was not happy with the joint occupation and sought an American military presence as a mediator to British and Soviet interests. The Shah sent a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Aug 25th 1941 asking him to:

be good enough to interest yourself in this incident […] I beg Your Excellency to take efficacious and urgent humanitarian steps to put an end to these acts of aggression.”

In response to this plea, Roosevelt sent Gen. Patrick Hurley as his special representative to Iran to help prepare what was to become the Iran Declaration, finally adopted at the Tehran Conference where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill would agree to guarantee the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Iran.

The Iran Declaration was used to finally end the foreign occupation of Iran after WWII, despite some resistance, and would play a crucial role in Iran’s future fight for sovereignty. The Iran Declaration thus proved itself to be more than just words, and this would certainly never have happened if not for FDR.

As part of Hurley’s report to FDR, he wrote some biting words on the present system of British imperialism, “The imperialism of Germany, Japan, Italy, France… will, we hope, end or be radically revised by this war [WWII]. British imperialism seems to have acquired a new life. . . What appears to be a new life… is the result of the infusion, into its emaciated form, of the blood of productivity and liberty from a free nation [Iran] through Lend-Lease.”

Roosevelt sent a copy of the Hurley report to Churchill with his thoughts on the matter: “The enclosed memorandum was sent to me… I rather like his general approach to the care and education of what used to be called ‘backward countries’…the point of all this is that I do not want the United States to acquire a ‘zone of influence,’ or any other nation for that matter [in Iran].”

Churchill was less than enthusiastic on the Hurley-FDR vision. He was particularly irked by Hurley’s notion that British imperialism were in conflict with democracy.

FDR died only a few months later, and with his interment, Hurley’s plans for American support for a sovereign and democratic Iran as a model for the rest of the Middle East were relegated to the dust bins of time and forgotten by much of the world.

Following WWII, nationalistic sentiments were on the rise including in the Middle East, the most notable being Iran. However, following the death of FDR the British were free to disingenuously respond to Iran’s request for better economic conditions by offering what was called the “Supplemental Agreement”, in May 1949. This entailed a better payment in royalties but still denied Iran any oversight over accounts or any other form of control over Iranian oil.

Enter Mosaddegh

In the late 1940s, a new political force emerged in Iran called the National Front led by Mohammad Mosaddegh. Their campaign was centered on the demand to nationalize the AIOC and the people of Iran were in accord, electing Mosaddegh into the Majlis (parliament) in 1949.

Mosaddegh lost no time, and quickly became the head of the Majlis Oil Committee which was tasked to study the British “Supplemental Agreement”. When it came time to put it to a vote on Nov 25th 1950, the committee delivered a resounding “no” to the British proposition.

Less than four months later, the Majlis voted on March 15th 1951 for nationalization of the AIOC, and it was renamed as the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Less than two months later, Mosaddegh became Prime Minister of Iran on April 28th 1951.

The British were left empty handed.

Twice the British tried to argue their case before the international community, once in May 1951 at The Hague and again in October at the UN Security Council. Both attempts were to lose to Mosaddegh’s defense. Mosaddegh had earned a Ph.D. in law from the Neuchatel Law School in Switzerland in 1914.

This was anything but a formal victory. It was to set a precedent in the international community that a country’s right to national sovereignty would be favored over Britain’s imperial “claims”, which were exposed during these two very public trials as amounting to nothing more than the threats and bribes of pirates.

At the UN Security Council, Mosaddegh responded to Britain’s imperial ambitions over Iran with these eloquent words:

My countrymen lack the bare necessities of existence…Our greatest natural asset is oil. This should be the source of work and food for the population of Iran. Its exploitation should properly be our national industry, and the revenue from it should go to improve our conditions of life. As now organized, however, the petroleum industry has contributed practically nothing to the well-being of the people or to the technical progress or industrial development of my country…if we are to tolerate a situation in which the Iranian plays the part of a mere manual worker in the oil fields…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. These are the reasons that have prompted the Iranian parliament… to vote unanimously in favor of nationalizing the oil industry.

A British coup

The British were fuming over Mosaddegh’s high profile humiliation of the British Empire’s claim to Iran’s oil. Mosaddegh would have to be deposed, however, this could not look like a British retaliation.

During Averell Harrimann’s visit to Tehran in July 1951, in an attempt to salvage the broken British-Iranian relationship, Mosaddegh is reported to have said,

You do not know how crafty they are. You do not know how evil they are. You do not know how they sully everything they touch.”

As coup rumours circulated and reports were rife of British contact being sought with Iranian military officers, Mosaddegh severed diplomatic relations with the UK on Oct 16th 1952. The British were further humiliated and had to leave the country taking their agents with them.

It was at this point that Churchill “invited” his lap dog, de facto president Truman, to participate in his vision for regime change in Iran. In November 1952, NSC 136 and 136/I were written into record, Truman had agreed to promote direct intervention in Iran through covert operations and even military force. A detailed plan was approved on Jan 8th 1953 which was 12 days before Eisenhower was inaugurated.

The management of this covert operation was under the treasonous Dulles brothers, who would use the very same technique when JFK first entered office in setting him up with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, however, JFK managed to publicly expose Allan Dulles in this scheme and fired him. Dulles had been the Director of the CIA for 8 years up until that point, and was Deputy Director of the CIA for two years prior. Refer to my paper on this for further details.

A preliminary meeting in Washington saw representatives of the Near East and Africa Division (NEA) with British Intelligence. The key personalities were Christopher Montague Woodhouse who had been station chief for British Intelligence in Tehran and on the American side Kermit Roosevelt (son of Teddy Roosevelt) acting as NEA Division Chief. It was the British who would propose a joint political action to remove Prime Minister Mosaddegh according to CIA documents, which were in part leaked by the New York Times on April 16th 2000. The final plan was codenamed TPAJAX.

Appendix B, aka “London Draft of the TPAJAX Operational Plan” was black propaganda aimed at hammering out these themes 1) Mosaddegh favors the Tudeh Party and the USSR 2) Mosaddegh is an enemy of Islam since he associates with Tudeh.

The aim of such tactics was to drive a wedge between Mosaddegh and his National Front on the one side and his clerical allies, especially Kashani on the other. Demonstrations against Mosaddegh in the streets were to provide the pretext for bought MPs to hold a vote against him, if he refused to step down the plan was to have Fazlollah Zahedi, leader of the opposition, to arrest him. Zahedi, as laid out in Appendix B was selected by the British to replace Mosaddegh as Prime Minister after the coup.

Chief of Staff Gen. Taghi Riahi found out about the coup plans and alerted Mosaddegh in time. When the chief of the Imperial Guards, Col. Nasiri went to Mosaddegh’s house the evening before the planned coup day (Aug 16th) to arrest him, Nasiri himself was taken as prisoner by the pro- Mosaddegh military. Zahedi managed to flee.

The coup attempt had failed and the word spread fast, crowds flooded the streets supporting Mosaddegh and denouncing the Shah. The Shah left the country quickly.

The CIA informed of the fiasco alerted Kermit Roosevelt that he should leave Iran immediately. But Kermit believed the coup could still work and would make a second attempt three days later. British Intelligence and CIA orchestrated demonstrations set to the streets on Aug 19th. The royal decrees signed by the Shah for the deposal of Mosaddegh to be replaced by Zahedi were made public in the press that very day with the radio news announcing: that Zahedi was Prime Minister, that Mosaddegh had been ousted and that the Shah would return soon.

Military units were dispatched to Mosaddegh’s home. As his house was being destroyed by gunfire and tanks, Mosaddegh managed to escape. It is said he later turned himself in to the authorities.

After a ten-week period in a military prison, Mosaddegh was tried on charges of treason, because he had allegedly mobilized for a rebellion and had contradicted the Shah. In fact, the accused treason was a nationalistic response to a foreign-led coup.

Mosaddegh was promptly found guilty and sentenced to death, later lessened to three years in prison, followed by house arrest.

Mosaddegh’s response to the kangaroo court proceedings was:

My only crime is that I nationalized the oil industry and removed from this land the network of colonialism and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire [the British Empire] on Earth.”

Members of his government were also arrested, as were the leading military who remained loyal to him. Six hundred of the 6, 000 of these men were executed.

Even after Mosaddegh had passed away, on March 5th, 1967, his enemies were fearful of his influence. Mosaddegh had requested that upon his death, he be buried in the public graveyard beside the victims of the political violence that occurred on the 21st July 1952 from British-backed Ahmad Qavam who ordered soldiers to shoot at Mosaddegh nationalists during a demonstration, resulting in a blood bath.

Not wanting his grave to become the site of political manifestations, a public funeral for Mosaddegh was denied and his body was quietly buried underneath the floorboards of a room in his house.

This is Part One of a planned three-part series originally published by Strategic Culture

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Henry
Henry
Jun 15, 2020 1:08 PM

Stepping away from the historical crimes against Iran, does anyone know the Iranian psyche? There have been a whole series of simply disastrous decions. Are they gullible children, do they think the west are honorable boy scouts, do they believe in fate to the point that they dont ponder decisions, what? How can the following be explained?
 
1. How could they leave their centrifuge computers open to viruses from the net?
2. How could they buy an off shelf cryptographic programming “from the Swiss” giving access to western intel to state decisions (is this true?)?
3. How could they choose not to defend their own, invited, troops in Syria from Israeli attacks? Being a defenseless target is bad psychology.
4. How could they claim to have proof of western involvement in ISIS creation and control, and then say they were withholding that info for strategic reasons? That only makes sense on other planets. Plus it invites the other side to attack first, say with genetically engineered and targetted biowar.
5. How could they allow a top general to waltz in and out of enemy held territory?
6. Accidents waiting to happen are stopped by accident prevention. How could they not declare a nationwide no fly zone the night of their missile “demos”?
 
More?
 
Anyone?

Charlotte Russe
Charlotte Russe
Jun 11, 2020 1:28 AM

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK
 
“My only crime is that I nationalized the oil industry and removed from this land the network of colonialism and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire [the British Empire] on Earth.”
 
 Mosaddegh didn’t realize nationalizing Iran’s oil companies and using its profits to improve the lives of Iranians was the most damning action he could have taken against the British Empire–it was the kiss of death. Self-determination is not an option when you’re a vassal state. A country which is historically, economically, politically, and militarily subordinate to a powerful nation-state can’t suddenly nationalize its most valuable assets without expecting retribution in the form of a CIA coup, or some insidious regime change operation.  
 
Perkins’ book title “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” says it all. Criminal or political organization hire professional hitman to perform assassinations.  Worldwide gangster capitalists attached to powerful nation-states demand obedience from their client states. Submission, is usually achieved through IMF loans or ancillary deals ensuring the extraction of all significant natural resources leaving indigenous populations indigent. This is how rulers comply to the “protection racquet” that guarantees survival, as long as they never threaten the geostrategic assets of the Empire. 
 
What I found interesting was the significant role Kermit Roosevelt Jr. the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt played in overthrowing Mossadegh. Imperialism, must be a dominant genetic trait passed on to all ruling class offspring. Kermit, appears to be a chip off the old Theodore Roosevelt block. As it turned out, the first plan to overthrow Mossadegh wasn’t successful but that didn’t deter Kermit whose leadership in Operation Ajax achieved the regime change desired by the US Government.  Kermit, was able to get the Shah to issue decrees, dismissing Mossadegh while he formed a network of Shah sympathizers who were willing to take part in the coup.  This regime change operation proved to be such a success it was adapted for use in other third world countries during the Cold War. 
 
And to think just a little more than a decade earlier Franklin D. Roosevelt was having discussions with his envoy General Patrick Hurley about an independent democratic Iraq and even sent a letter to his Secretary of State saying: “I was thrilled with the idea of using Iran as an example of what we could do by an unselfish American policy. We could not take on a more difficult nation than Iran. I would like, however, to have a try at it.” 
 
FDR’s ideas about Iraq’s independence turned out to be a pipedream, inasmuch, as what actually followed over the last 70 years were military interventions, regime change wars, and economic sanctions–quite the opposite of FDR’s notion of an unselfish American foreign policy…….

jakob
jakob
Jun 13, 2020 5:35 AM

You’re a blatant idiot if you believe that Iran wanted to be the vassal of anyone. They deserve their fucking freedom as any other country on earth and having an important natural resource doesn’t change anything about it.

Charlotte Russe
Charlotte Russe
Jun 13, 2020 11:53 AM
Reply to  jakob

You’re an idiot who needs to take a reading comprehension course.

Pnin
Pnin
Jun 17, 2020 5:19 PM

Don’t thing it’d work.

Charlotte Ruse
Charlotte Ruse
Jun 17, 2020 5:43 PM
Reply to  Pnin

I guess, it was optimistic on my part.

Pnin
Pnin
Jun 17, 2020 5:49 PM
Reply to  Charlotte Ruse

Optimism, such a curious think.

Charlotte Ruse
Charlotte Ruse
Jun 17, 2020 6:04 PM
Reply to  Pnin

Where there’s life there’s hope. 🙂

Objective
Objective
Jun 10, 2020 2:39 PM

The irony of the US ongoing attempts for regime change in Iran via various methods including inciting civil unrest (as they have done elsewhere including Egypt, Libya, Syria etc) is that I get no satisfaction seeing America suffer the same issues with protests against their despotic regime “democracy”.
 
Lets not pretend any of those countries including Iran were governed to the benefit of their people. My sympathy is for the people not the governments & regardless of how regime is brought about its always innocent civilians that pay the price & change never seems to benefit them anyway.
 
Iran a perfect example, leaping from one elite leader to another, King to Theocracy, So what would they/you replace it with?

paul
paul
Jun 10, 2020 10:51 PM
Reply to  Objective

I, on the other hand, get a lot of satisfaction from it. I hope that the Exceptional Folk get a taste of their own medicine and they experience even more mayhem and devastation than they have inflicted on Syria and so many other countries.
 
Iran was ruled by a democratically elected government, which was overthrown and destroyed in a campaign of subversion and terrorism in the interests of Big Oil. It was replaced by the Shah’s puppet dictatorship till the Iranian people kicked him out. They voted in a referendum by an overwhelming majority to replace him with an Islamic Republic, with its contested multi party elections.

Objective
Objective
Jun 11, 2020 5:11 AM
Reply to  paul

Unlike you I get no sadistic pleasure seeing innocent people suffer, the vast majority of Americans don’t feel any more exceptional than those on left doing the violence.
 
Hmm that old chestnut democracy eh? Mob rule!
 
comment image?itok=RaJpi0bz

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 12, 2020 2:27 PM
Reply to  Objective

Sounds like a smart saying, until one realizes that it is really nothing but a distortion of what Democracy was originally intended to be. What we have today still thinks of itself as “democracy”, but it is not democracy at all, while I am old enough to remember a time in the UK when the label “democracy” was not used for the purpose of depriving people of their rights. Yes, I’m THAT old, and such labels are now obsolete.

paul
paul
Jun 13, 2020 11:26 PM
Reply to  Objective

Nor do I normally, but I make an exception for them. They have rampaged across the planet for 7 decades, slaughtering, butchering, starving and immiserating hundreds of millions. I want to see them suffer as they have made others suffer. I celebrate the deaths of every single one of them. I would like to see them watch their children starve in front of them and die for lack of basic medicine. All of them. Nothing will change and they will never stop until this happens. If this COVID was genuine and wiped them all out, the world would be an immeasurably better place.

richard
richard
Jun 18, 2020 4:34 PM
Reply to  paul

Paul, which country do you come from? Is your government blameless?
If not then you, by your logic, share their guilt.
People are kept in the dark by their media – when it is controlled by the government. Today, we have both the government and the media controlled by the same forces and they are not on the side of the people.
Are the people still to blame? Are they still to blame when the voting system is corrupted? I could go on….

crispy
crispy
Jun 10, 2020 12:59 PM

Wow,simply WOW,WOW,WOW

And not one mention of the Anglo- Russian Convention of August 31 which effectively partitioned Persia into British and Russian spheres of influence,in other words full-blooded imperialism imposed upon what is now called Iran,but according to Cynthia,it can all be blamed on Britain 😜

But wait,you can’t include the notion that Russia was an imperialist power,no you can’t do that,especially when you’re publishing stuff on Strategic Culture,another pro kremlin propaganda outfit masquerading as some sort of academic thing,which is then amplified by Off G

Oh i note more BS in this propaganda puff piece about Iran not having access to medicine,which isn’t exactly true as a special trade mechanism called The Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement was set up specifically for this purpose,although Iran doesn’t like it because it would force them to spend money which they have,but would rather spend on proxy force’s causing trouble in Syria,hence they’d like to have the loan from that terrible 😉 imperialist organisation,controlled by the Great Satan,the IMF

😂😂😂😂😂

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Jun 10, 2020 4:04 PM
Reply to  crispy

Could you choose a single ID and post solely under that please Louis

crispy
crispy
Jun 10, 2020 4:30 PM

Could you stop Kremlin propaganda 😁

That Anglo- Russian Convention,i forgot to mention it was in 1907

Its the excitement you know,the thought i could actually get one published,as I’ve grown rather fond of the memory hole

I see you’ve moved the conspiracy sheeple onto your next subject!

This stuff from Strategic Culture isn’t to their taste???

ZigZagWanderer
ZigZagWanderer
Jun 10, 2020 11:47 PM
Reply to  crispy

“That Anglo- Russian Convention,i forgot to mention it was in 1907” ….. you also forgot to mention it was in the dustbin by 1918 , At the request of the Russian side.

Objective
Objective
Jun 10, 2020 4:25 PM
Reply to  crispy

Oh i do enjoy trolls.

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 12, 2020 2:29 PM
Reply to  Objective

Useful target practice.

paul
paul
Jun 10, 2020 11:00 PM
Reply to  crispy

The article makes it quite clear that Russia was one of the 3 members of the criminal cabal in the 1941 aggression. But it was only a bit player compared to the major imperial powers.
 
Iran is unable to conduct any trade in medical supplies because all its banking transactions including that are blocked by US economic terrorism. The so called Swiss Agreement has never been used because it is unusable. Any bank handling an Iranian payment would be immediately subjected to US economic terrorism.
 
Iran fights the western sponsored and western orchestrated terrorist throat slitters in Syria and Iraq so it won’t have to fight them at home.

Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Jun 17, 2020 11:31 AM
Reply to  crispy

Russia stopped their ‘imperialism’ some time ago, whereas the British are still at it, using the same formula. The Iranians were invited into Syria by its gov’t, so they are hardly troublemakers.
Does that cia rock you live under have an internet connection? because the facts of the matter are freely available.

sharon marlowe
sharon marlowe
Jun 10, 2020 12:44 PM

Interesting article, thank you:) But this part bothers me to no end:
 
“As identified by John Perkins, in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, the first ever U.S. coup against a foreign country was the overthrow of Iran’s nationalist Prime Minister Mosaddegh in 1953.”
 
Of course, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, etc, were among many countries to suffer from U.S. coups prior to Iran. The author should have stated that.
 

kangal
kangal
Jun 10, 2020 1:33 PM
Reply to  sharon marlowe

And Syria 1949 a coup against Qwatli..of which Deane R Hinton a CIA man at the embassy said  “I want to go on record as saying that this is the stupidest, most irresponsible action a diplomatic mission like ours could get itself involved in, and that we’ve started a series of these things that will never end”
 
True until the time of Hafez Assad and still in the cross hairs.

paul
paul
Jun 10, 2020 11:05 PM
Reply to  kangal

Hafez brought stability and security to Syria for 30 years, despite the decades of western aggression and subversion against his country. If Bashar had been more ruthless, he could have put down the terrorists immediately and have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Moderation is an imbecility when you’re dealing with these rabid rats.

Nemo Nomark
Nemo Nomark
Jun 10, 2020 8:39 PM
Reply to  sharon marlowe

Perhaps they meant the first U.S. C.I.A. authored coup, which it was.

sharon marlowe
sharon marlowe
Jun 10, 2020 10:54 PM
Reply to  Nemo Nomark

That seems probable, Nemo Newark:)

Borncynic
Borncynic
Jun 10, 2020 12:10 PM

To enjoy the benefits of reading this website, of which there are many, it’s now fairly standard to have to tolerate the occasional, though not infrequent, pro US puff piece. This reads like a 1st year university essay packed with idealistic revisionism. The goodies v the baddies. Trueman and Roosevelt, like the Kennedy mob who followed, were just as capable as the next guy.

S Cooper
S Cooper
Jun 10, 2020 2:40 PM
Reply to  Borncynic

You make a valid point. The writer seems to view FDR as a saint. He was not. Never bought “the traitor to his class” nonsense some have tried to sell about him.
 
US foreign policy (under the corporate fascists) from the beginning has been as bloody and criminal as the foreign policy of the British Crown criminals.

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Jun 10, 2020 9:02 PM
Reply to  Borncynic

Also promoting this idea I see from time to time that Britain is somehow the evil power behind all these regime change machinations. While perhaps some dreamers in Whitehall would love to be, I just don’t believe it’s the case. MI6 is more Johnny English than James Bond.

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 12, 2020 2:43 PM
Reply to  Mike Ellwood

“MI6 is more Johnny English than James Bond.” You’d have to be an insider to know that. My hunch is that it is an organization which is still too rooted in its upper-class-accent, WW1-officer genesis to be able to face the fact that the world has moved on. The result is probably a great deal of incompetence based upon obsolete, and therefore unrealistic, presumptions about modern human beings, and that incompetence is a long way from being as funny as Johnny English. James Bond is also obsolete, but the movies are great fun.
 

Mike Ellwood
Mike Ellwood
Jun 12, 2020 3:13 PM
Reply to  wardropper

Well of course, I’m not an insider, and I don’t know that for sure. So it’s partly sheer prejudice on my part, but also things I’ve read and heard over the years. When you read for example about the case of poor Gareth Williams, it’s not hard to come to the conclusion that they are a bunch of incompetent wannabees. (I’m not referring to Williams himself there; clearly he didn’t belong in SIS, and wanted out).
 
 

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 12, 2020 3:47 PM
Reply to  Mike Ellwood

Absolutely, Mike. My hunch doubtless has its fair share of prejudice too, based on the sort of people the BBC drag out of the cupboard to make public statements on matters concerning national security, stiff-upper-lip “patriotism”, The Cenotaph and the like – all well and good, but their day is gone. My MI6 would be very different, taking into account human beings the way they actually are today. Far ahead of its time, of course … 🙂
 
 

peter mcloughlin
peter mcloughlin
Jun 10, 2020 11:56 AM

It is a long trail of blood and oil. History tells us where it comes from: the past can tell us where it is going – the pattern of history. Today’s US-Iranian confrontation is a proxy war (for now) between the West and a Sino-Russian front. As history shows, history repeats itself.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
 

johny conspiranoid
johny conspiranoid
Jun 10, 2020 11:48 AM

If Iran gets an IMF loan they will return to colonial domination, since that is the purpose of the IMF. Can’t they do a deal with Russia or China?

S Cooper
S Cooper
Jun 10, 2020 10:48 AM

The report seems to have some bias but one gets its general point. The point being, that the people of Iran have gotten the short end of the stick (economically and politically) from predatory outside imperialist powers. Those powers are Great Britain under the British Crown criminals, to a lesser extent Russia (the USSR under Stalin) and after World War II by the various US corporate fascist regimes (which entered as friends but in short order showed their actual nature). The imperialist outside interference from the US corporate fascist regimes continue to this day.
 
The Iranian people deserve better. Criminal Imperialism must end.

Nixon Scraypes
Nixon Scraypes
Jun 10, 2020 10:09 AM

So the US blocks an IMF loan to Iran. Hang on a minute, the bankrupt US whose Treasury is run by it’s creditor the IMF is doing what? Methinks I smell a large rat.

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 12, 2020 2:51 PM
Reply to  Nixon Scraypes

I think we need to think much, much, much bigger than the rodent species…
On this, my thoughts tend to veer in the direction of those huge fatbergs clogging London’s sewers from time to time. The rats are harmless hamsters by comparison.

Nixon Scraypes
Nixon Scraypes
Jun 12, 2020 4:55 PM
Reply to  wardropper

Fatbergs! I can see them being levered into limousines after vast meals at their club.

Dr NG Maroudas
Dr NG Maroudas
Jun 10, 2020 10:08 AM

A plain tale from the past, good for the kiddies who never heard it till now; and good for us oldies who read the headlines, saw the photos of Mossadegh being manhandled but hadn’t a clue what it was about. And now after 150 years, having witnessed the end of the British Empire (“on which the sun never sets”) and currently witnessing the sunset of the U$ Empire, this modern Islamic Socialist country Iran, a country with 3,000 years of continuous history behind it, stands as a bedrock of resistance to Anglo Zio Capitalism, because Iranians have realized by bitter experience the truth of Mossadegh’s warning:
 
“You do not know how crafty they are. You do not know how evil they are. You do not know how they sully everything they touch.”

Gwyn
Gwyn
Jun 10, 2020 1:29 PM
Reply to  Dr NG Maroudas

‘The sun never set on the British Empire because even God couldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark.’

:o)

Objective
Objective
Jun 10, 2020 9:58 AM

I’m no expert on Iran, have no real admiration for there system of government (why would I im a libertarian, have little respect for our British own system) But economic sanctions are a human rights violation, designed only to hurt the innocent, unfortunately the U S of A is the biggest bully on the block so not much anyone can do is there really.

breweriana
breweriana
Jun 10, 2020 4:30 PM
Reply to  Objective

economic sanctions are a human rights violation”
They are not. Sanctions, like blockade, are an act of war. The ‘rights’ part follows that act.

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Jun 10, 2020 7:08 AM

Nice one, Cynthia Chung! 
British-German Baron Julius de Reuter, founder of the British-Canadian news agency that bears his name, was born Israel Beer Josaphat.
 
While Josaphat was busy in Iran, Cecil Rhodes was active in South Africa and Alphonse Rothschild was setting up the Caspian and Black Sea Oil Company.
 
Since it turns out that the Rothschild controlled Rhodes, could you see whether Josaphat/Reuter was also working on their behalf? You see, in all three countries: Iran, Russia and South Africa, the oil/diamond activities of outside forces led to the overthrow of the internal government.
 
If these were connected, it would be a global pincer movement that would change our view of history.
 
 

Nixon Scraypes
Nixon Scraypes
Jun 10, 2020 10:14 AM
Reply to  Moneycircus

Oh money circus, that could never happen. You obviously need a vaccination!

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Jun 10, 2020 6:55 AM

“… an attempt to force Iran to finally bend the knee and be reduced to a state of complete dependence.” Anyone notice that bending/taking the knee is now a GOOD thing?
 
Thank God that he blesses the earth with intelligent, noble and brave people like Mohammad Mosaddeq because we need someone like him now.
 
Oh, and after America’s left bends the knee, Bank of America responds with $1 billion funding for COVID-19 testing, telemedicine, flu vaccination clinics and other health services, with a special focus on communities of color. Exactly what the Plandemic is for and specially targeting black people. How clever, not!
 
Thank you, sir. Thank you so much, sir.
 
 
 
 

sunset
sunset
Jun 10, 2020 6:44 AM

Perhaps you only see History in the terms Off-Guardian would like- namely that the only people that ‘matter’ are names from the TOP of the power pyramid. Player A who wins or loses against player B, where both have pretty much the exact same background. And you are told that one or the other is the hero or villain.
 
Meanwhile multiple millions of nameless, faceless ‘atoms’, too ‘unimportant’ to be named by outlets like Off-Guardian, suffer and die at the hands of these power players.
 
Here’s a clue for the clueless- all those at the top of the power pyramid, the baddies and those that off-guardian tell you are the ‘goodies’ all sit at the same table. You and I, of course, do not- no matter our race, religion or nationality.
 
It’s all just a puppet show, with the SAME hands up each puppet.
 
When the Shah ‘fell’ the Deep State had a ‘religious fanatic’ just waiting safely in France ready to take over. And when Iranian people against the religious nutters took over the Iranian embassy in London, the so-called Shah supporting British government sent their best murderous thugs in to execute all of them as a gift for the Ayatollah.
 
Meanwhile the dead have no voice. Two million innocent Humans exterminated as a result of Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq (which like the earlier invasion of Afghanistan, was fully supported by the regime of Iran).
 
Off-Guardian loves to serve the usual leftie narrative of history. Were you visiting a right-leaning indy web site, they’d serve you the rightie narrative of history. Guess what? They are really both the same form of lying control propaganda. Either way the ordinary person gets shafted, dead and forgotten. But never mind, the sheeple can always breed a whole bunch of new ones, as they say at the ‘top’.
 
Ordinary people have everything in common with one another, and nothing with the power-hungry psychos that rise to the top in the (fake) name of this or that ideology. See the photo used at the top of the article? A ‘christ’ like figure raised above the servile ‘riff-raff’. Nothing could better embody what this form of historic narrative is really all about.

Jimmi
Jimmi
Jun 10, 2020 3:30 PM
Reply to  sunset

Greed, avarice, fanaticism and a weak-minded, gullible public are our greatest enemies.

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 12, 2020 2:54 PM
Reply to  Jimmi

That could all be condensed into, “the media”.

Joopy
Joopy
Jun 10, 2020 5:33 AM

“My only crime is that I nationalized the oil industry and removed from this land the network of colonialism and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire [the British Empire] on Earth.”

 
Independence is the supreme crime in the eyes of empire. Ask Haiti, the source of the first successful slave revolution in history, and is still to this day being punished. Ask Venezuela, which also, like Iran, dares to deprive Western oil corporations from exploiting its massive reserves. Look what just recently happened to Bolivia and Morales when he decided to nationalize the country’s lithium reserves. Or Libya and Gaddafi, who sought to create an gold/African alternative to the petro $ system. Same with Saddam, who started selling oil in euros. The same reason Russia and China are the subject to ceaseless propaganda campaigns, threats, and provocations, including Nato war games on Russia’s border and CIA destabilization in Hong Kong. And every other government in countless countries over the decades that sought lands reforms and nationalization of its resources and to build up its domestic industry and agriculture and consumption to improve the collective prosperity and living standards of its people. Don’t they know that the US owns the world?! Well the human rights sanctions, freedom bombs, and democracy color revolution and coups sober them up real fast from the delusion that their own land, resources, labor, and capital belong to them! That is essentially the radical, heretical belief behind socialism which has been so demonized so relentlessly all these years. But that’s not good for the bottom line. So they just make up wild accusations (Maduro is a drug kingpin, Iran sponsors terror, China has concentration camps, Putin is hiding under your bed!) and use every trick in the imperial book to sabotage even the most milquetoast reformist states wherever arise, while claiming it doesn’t work, and There Is No Alternative (TINA).
 
RIP Mr. Mosaddegh, and may humanity one day remove the political and economic influence of colonialism and imperialism, not just from Iran, but the entire planet. In order to do that we need to teach people the real history rather than the revisionism of the victors, and expose their lies and their propaganda and psy ops. We need to show them that there is an alternative. And we need to come together, overcoming the old (party, race, religion, nationality) and the new (social distancing) tactics to divide us, in order to control us, to chip us and digitally enslave us, in order to perpetuate this omnicidal system and prevent us from revolting. The system is in terminal crisis. The Corona coup is ruling class’ preemptive response to the inevitible collapse and unrest, deflecting blame onto the virus (and now attention and energy on the protests and riots) and manufacturing consent in the masses for their own enslavement using fear, conducting an unprecedented global experiment in social engineering and behavioral modification. Well, we need to wake everyone we know up, and fast, because it’s either revolution or a new neo-feudal, techno-fascist dark age. And the infrastructure for our electronic prisons is almost finished, waiting to be rolled out. The New Normal = transhumanist (read: post-humanity) hell.
 
 

dedaStanko
dedaStanko
Jun 10, 2020 11:23 AM
Reply to  Joopy

Excellent comment Joopy.
Here’s my modest contribution for today in a link to series of lectures by Prof. John Marciano entitled “Empire as a way of life”. It focuses on a crucial aspect of imperialism: its cultural and civilizational dimensions. These are crucial for a full understanding of imperialism.
 
http://www.mediafire.com/file/yff3kk4vcaa2vs6/Empire_as_a_way_of_life_-_lecture_notes.pdf/file

Aldous Hexley
Aldous Hexley
Jun 10, 2020 3:43 AM

Excellent. Please clarify the photograph. Who is this?

Joopy
Joopy
Jun 10, 2020 4:20 AM
Reply to  Aldous Hexley

Mosaddegh.