50 years later, Iranians remember US-UK coup

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0822/p08s01-wome.html

TEHRAN, IRAN – Iranians mourned this week the consequences of Anglo-American regime change as they marked the 50th anniversary of a CIA coup that toppled their democratically elected prime minister.

At a time when the United States has adopted a policy of preemptive action in its war on terrorists - and is portrayed here as encouraging student street protests - the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh's government is taking on fresh relevance for some Iranians.

"This year, many political groups in Iran are showing more interest in the history of the military coup," says Ibrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister and leading member of a political party that traces its origins to Mossadegh's National Front. "Now it seems that the Americans are pushing towards the same direction again. That shows they have not learned anything from history."

Organized by the CIA and the British SIS to secure Iran's oil resources from a possible Soviet takeover and secure Iran's oil resources, the coup marked America's first intervention in the Middle East. Its aftershocks are still being felt.

more

[cprise]

1. a good history review

bump

[David Zephyr]

2. Allen Dulles and General Norman Schwartzkopf

Allen Dulles and General Norman Schwartzkopf (yep, THAT Norman Schwartzkopf's very father) did their dirty deed in Iran that has haunted this nation to this very day.

Of course, Dulles went on to oversee even bigger and greater events that have gone a long way in making the U.S. so hated around the globe.

Some of Allen Dulles' "Greatest Hits" include:

1.) The overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddeq, in 1953.
2.) The overthrow of the democratically elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, in 1954.
3.) The failed attempt to overthrow the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro in the operation known as the Bay of Pigs, 1961.
4.) Being fired by President John F. Kennedy after Bay of Pigs, 1961.
5.) The assassination of the democratically elected President of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy, 1963.
6.) Being appointed to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 1964.

[Keithpotkin]

4. thank u Mr. X.

...good movie.

[JoFerret]

3. Good to see

this piece of history get some attention. A salutary reminder.

[legin]

5. Bumped into this recently

It is ironic that CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, published his book on the 1953 CIA coup in Iran and the return of the shah in the same year that "his majesty's government" was overthrown. An American friend gave a copy of the book to me shortly after its publication in 1979. I skimmed through the book and put it on my bookshelf. The CIA coup appeared irrelevant when the old and decadent institution of monarchy in Iran seemed to be finished once and for all.

More importantly, however, I, along with many other Iranians of my generation, knew the story full well and did not need Kermit to repeat it. We knew that the shah owed his throne to the likes of Kermit. But we also knew something that Kermit didn't know, or didn't say. We knew that we owe to the Kermits of the world our tortured past: years of being forced as students to stand in the hot sun of Tehran in lines, waving his majesty's picture or flag as his entourage passed by in fast moving, shiny, big black cars with darkened-glass windows; years of being forced to rise and stay standing in every public event, including movie theaters, while his majesty's national anthem was being played; years of watching a dense megalomaniac try to imitate "Cyrus the Great" by wearing ridiculous ceremonial robes in extravagant celebration of his birthdays or crowning of his queens; years of being hushed by our parents, fearful of being arrested, if we uttered a critical word about his majesty's government or his American advisors; years of worrying about secret police (SAVAK) informants, who were smartly, but ruthlessly, trained by the best of the US's CIA and Israeli's Mossad; years of witnessing our friends and acquaintances being taken to jail, some never heard from again; years of passing by buildings in which, we were told, people were being tormented; years of hearing about people dying under torture or quietly executed; years of being exiled in a foreign country, which ironically was the belly of the beast, the metropolis, the center which masterminded much of our misfortune in the first place; years of spending our precious youth to free or save thousands of political prisoners by marching in the streets of the metropolis, wearing masks to hide our identities and looking bizarre to those who knew nothing about our story; and, finally, years of trying to prove to the American people that the 1953 CIA coup was not a fig-leaf of our imagination or a conspiracy theory, that it indeed happened and that they, whether they like it or not, have a certain culpability in what their government does around the world.

(more..)

http://www.counterpunch.org/sasan08192003.html
(not as long as it looks by judginging the scrollbar)

[StandWatie]

6. If you know how we did that..

You would know what kind of obstacles we placed in the path of the Iranian reform movement. Blowback.