paulitician
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- Oct 7, 2011
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Interesting article by Adam Bates.
While the Obama Administration continues to fight logic and law over what the definition of is is in Egypts bloodbath, August 19th is a good day to take note of the U.S. governments earliest and most consequential forays into modern Middle Eastern politics. If the battle lines in Egypt, between secular autocrats and a fractured alliance of religious and liberal reformers look familiar, its for good reason. Weve been down this road before.
On August 19, 1953, the Eisenhower Administration orchestrated a coup, codenamed Operation Ajax, to overthrow the secular, democratically elected government of Iran and install an authoritarian king. Two years earlier, the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh had nationalized the Iranian oil supply, angering the British government that had, through what would later become British Petroleum, essentially monopolized the Iranian oil industry after World War II (the Allied powers had forced another government abdication during their occupation of Iran in 1941). The nationalization of Irans oil prompted the British and Americans the latter a newly-minted world superpower to overthrow the Iranian government in pursuit of better terms.
Twenty-six years later a loose coalition of young liberal reformers and religious conservatives revolted against the shah, forcing him to abdicate. In the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the religious conservatives succeeded in suppressing their liberal former allies and Iran has suffered under the grip of an authoritarian theocracy ever since.
For many Americans, including presidential candidates like Rick Santorum, U.S.-Iranian relations began with the hostage crisis in 1979. On this understanding, Iran is and always has been an irrational, paranoid pariah state that lashes out at the Western powers for no legitimate reason. But when we start the timeline where it belongs, in 1953, it becomes obvious that the policy of the Iranian regime over the last thirty-four years, from the aid it offered the US and the Northern Alliance after 9/11 to its pursuit of nuclear weapons, has been designed to insulate the regime against another foreign overthrow.
Not only is the 1953 coup the starting point for decades of hostility between the U.S. and Iran, it was also a watershed moment in the development and galvanization of the reactionary Islamic authoritarianism that grips the region today...
Read more: A coup to remember | The Daily Caller
While the Obama Administration continues to fight logic and law over what the definition of is is in Egypts bloodbath, August 19th is a good day to take note of the U.S. governments earliest and most consequential forays into modern Middle Eastern politics. If the battle lines in Egypt, between secular autocrats and a fractured alliance of religious and liberal reformers look familiar, its for good reason. Weve been down this road before.
On August 19, 1953, the Eisenhower Administration orchestrated a coup, codenamed Operation Ajax, to overthrow the secular, democratically elected government of Iran and install an authoritarian king. Two years earlier, the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh had nationalized the Iranian oil supply, angering the British government that had, through what would later become British Petroleum, essentially monopolized the Iranian oil industry after World War II (the Allied powers had forced another government abdication during their occupation of Iran in 1941). The nationalization of Irans oil prompted the British and Americans the latter a newly-minted world superpower to overthrow the Iranian government in pursuit of better terms.
Twenty-six years later a loose coalition of young liberal reformers and religious conservatives revolted against the shah, forcing him to abdicate. In the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the religious conservatives succeeded in suppressing their liberal former allies and Iran has suffered under the grip of an authoritarian theocracy ever since.
For many Americans, including presidential candidates like Rick Santorum, U.S.-Iranian relations began with the hostage crisis in 1979. On this understanding, Iran is and always has been an irrational, paranoid pariah state that lashes out at the Western powers for no legitimate reason. But when we start the timeline where it belongs, in 1953, it becomes obvious that the policy of the Iranian regime over the last thirty-four years, from the aid it offered the US and the Northern Alliance after 9/11 to its pursuit of nuclear weapons, has been designed to insulate the regime against another foreign overthrow.
Not only is the 1953 coup the starting point for decades of hostility between the U.S. and Iran, it was also a watershed moment in the development and galvanization of the reactionary Islamic authoritarianism that grips the region today...
Read more: A coup to remember | The Daily Caller
