that didn't invade them first? Or when last did they overthrow a US President or a British PM and install a dictator who tortured his opponents and made sure to direct revenues from US or British industry back to Iran?
In the 1950s the CIA and MI6 conspired to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosadegh because he was threatening to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, then under tight control by the British using the Anglo Iranian Oil Company, later to become that outstanding corporate citizen known as British Petroleum - much loved and respected by many Americans, I'm sure.
As a result of the CIA/MI6 conspiracy, the Shah was placed on the throne as a dictator and his notorious and much feared secret police, the SAVAK were trained in the fine art of torturing and executing the Shah's opponents by CIA and Israeli experts, and the oil profits continued to flow to the West. Unfortunately for them, the Brits had to give up their monopoly on Iranian oil and share it with the US for the US assistance provided in subverting democracy.
A 'great venture', overthrowing the government of Iranby Mark Curtis From Lobster 30
This is a slightly abridged version of part of chapter four of Mark Curtis's book The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy since 1945 (Zed Press, 1995). In August 1953 a coup overthrew Iran's nationalist government of Mohammed Musaddiq and installed the Shah in power. The Shah subsequently used widespread repression and torture in a dictatorship that lasted until the 1979 Islamic revolution. The 1953 coup is conventionally regarded primarily as a CIA operation, yet the planning record reveals not only that Britain was the prime mover in the initial project to overthrow the government but also that British resources contributed significantly to the eventual success of the operation. Two first-hand accounts of the Anglo-American sponsorship of the coup - by the MI6 and CIA officers primarily responsible for it - are useful in reconstructing events. (1) Many of the secret planning documents that reveal the British role have been removed from public access and some of them remain closed until the next century - for reasons of 'national security'. Nevertheless, a fairly clear picture still emerges. Churchill later told the CIA officer responsible for the operation that he 'would have loved nothing better than to have served under your command in this great venture'. (2)
In the 1950s the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) - later renamed British Petroleum - which was managed from London and owned by the British government and British private citizens, controlled Iran's main source of income: oil. According to one British official, the AIOC 'has become in effect an imperium in imperio in Persia'. Iranian nationalists objected to the fact that the AIOC not only made revenues from Iranian oil 'greatly in excess of the revenues of the Persian government but
dominates the whole economic life of Persia, and therefore impairs her independence'. (3) The AIOC was recognised as 'a great foreign organisation controlling Persia's economic life and destiny'. The British oil business fared well from this state of affairs; the AIOC made £170 million in profits in 1950 alone. (4)
Iranians could also point to AIOC's effectively autonomous rule in the parts of the country where the oilfields lay, its low wage rates and the fact that the Iranian government was being paid royalties of 10% or 12% of the company's net proceeds, whilst the British government received as much as 30% of these in taxes alone. (5) Shown the overcrowded housing afforded to some of the AIOC workers, a British official commented: 'Well, this is just the way all Iranians live'. (6)
snip
The British priority was to support political 'stability' in the country, in effect by aiding Iranian parliamentarians and Prime Ministers 'to preserve the existing social order from which they profit so greatly' (9) - as did, it might be added, British oil interests. One difference with the National Front (of which Musaddiq was the leader)was that its members were, according to the Ambassador in Iran,'comparatively free from the taint of having amassed wealth and influence through the improper use of official positions; they can therefore attack the majority deputies, few of whom are in the same happy condition without fear of dangerous counter-attacks'. (10)
snip
The go-ahead for the coup was finally given by the US in late June - Britain by then already having presented a 'complete plan' to the CIA (54) - and Churchill's authorisation soon followed, the date being set for mid-August. (55) That month, the head of the CIA operation met with the Shah, the CIA director visited some members of the Shah's family in Switzerland, whilst a US army general arrived in Tehran to meet 'old friends', among them the Shah and General Zahidi. (56)
When the coup scenario finally began, huge demonstrations proceeded in the streets of Tehran, funded by CIA and MI6 money, $1 million dollars of which was in a safe in the US embassy (57) and £1.5 million which had been delivered by Britain to its agents in Iran, according to the MI6 officer responsible for delivering it. (58)
According to then CIA officer Richard Cottam, 'that mob that came into north Tehran and was decisive in the overthrow was a mercenary mob. It had no ideology. That mob was paid for by American dollars.' (59) One key aspect of the plot was to portray the demonstrating mobs as supporters of the Communist Party - Tudeh - in order to provide a suitable pretext for the coup and the assumption of control by the Shah. Cottam observes that agents working on behalf of the British 'saw the opportunity and sent the people we had under our control into the streets to act as if they were Tudeh. They were more than just provocateurs, they were shock troops, who acted as if they were Tudeh people throwing rocks at mosques and priests'. (60) 'The purpose', Brian Lapping explains, 'was to frighten the majority of Iranians into believing that a victory for Mussadeq would be a victory for the Tudeh, the Soviet Union and irreligion'. (61)
http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/l30iran.htm
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