On this day in 1953, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was deposed in a coup orchestrated by the CIA and Britain’s MI6 (with the knowledge of both agencies’ governments). This covert act of regime change would become the catalyst for the foundation of the Iran we know today: the oppressive regime of the Shah that we had re-established in place of the country’s fledgling democracy would create conditions that allowed the noxious predecessors of today’s Islamic Republic to take power.
We attempted to shape a foreign nation so as to suit our interests, and in doing so inadvertently helped make a monster just two decades later, a country that is – for obvious reasons – vehemently anti-American. It’s even more cruelly ironic to imagine the self-styled leader of the free world bringing down a democracy in order to reinstate a monarchy. It would appear that in some cases, especially during the paranoid power politics of the Cold War, a free nation was only as good as it’s capacity to not get in the way of our geostrategic and economic interests.
Unsurprisingly, this intervention is the poster child for the concept of blowback, in which covert operations lead to unintended and often horrific consequences that often manifest many years later. It was an arrogant and shortsighted attempt at manipulating the world order to suit America’s preferences, and something the country’s intelligence agencies – ostensibly tasked with protecting the nation – would go about perpetrating numerous times throughout the world.
It is perverse that the national security of this nation would somehow be contingent on friendly dictators and oppressive authoritarian regimes; that assassinating undesirable leaders, overthrowing unfriendly free governments, and imposing destructive economic policies could all be framed as beneficial to the interest of the world’s preeminent bastion of freedom, liberty, and democracy. I wonder how many Americans are truly aware of how many destructive things our government and military did for the presumed good of the public? Given our track record with learning about – and from – history, u’s probably not enough.
I often try to imagine what would’ve happened had Iran been allowed to pursue it’s democratic course. Would it have still ended up as the prominent “rogue” state it is today? Would it have eventually turned into a beacon of democracy in the region, a rare example of a secular democratic Islamic nation? How many lives would’ve been saved through the aversion of the bloody revolution that emerged to overthrow our virtual puppet dictatorship?
Mosaddegh’s administration was by no means flawless or even secure, given it’s brevity, but it was undeniably far better and more progressive than what was imposed in it’s place. Iran’s first relatively freely elected leader was an interesting figure: an author, administrator, lawyer, well-established parliamentarian, and leading politician. His tenure was marked with the initiation of a wide range of progressive social reforms, including things we take as a given in developed states like our own: the introduction of unemployment benefits, worker’s compensation, and sick pay; the banning of virtual slavery that existed for land tenants under their landlords; and the creation of a program, funded from 20% of the landowner’s rent payments, to develop public works such as public baths, rural housing, and pest control.
He was, and remains, most famous for instituting the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had until then been under British control since 1913, through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later to become British Petroleum, or BP). Controlled directly by the UK’s government, the AIOC was barred from receiving any more concessions and had it’s assets seized, much to the obvious chagrin of the British, who lodged a complaint with the UN and established a de facto blockade of Iranian oil exports. Mossadegh explained the purpose of his nationalization policy, which was widely popular, as follows:
Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries… have yielded no results this far. With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence. The Iranian state prefers to take over the production of petroleum itself. The company should do nothing else but return its property to the rightful owners. The nationalization law provide that 25% of the net profits on oil be set aside to meet all the legitimate claims of the company for compensation…It has been asserted abroad that Iran intends to expel the foreign oil experts from the country and then shut down oil installations. Not only is this allegation absurd; it is utter invention…
It was mostly on this pretext that the UK would come to request America’s aid to overthrow the nuisance administration. At first, however, the British only turned to the US for assistance in settling the dispute. The United States was not only disinterested in getting involved, but explicitly troubled by the British government’s “destructive” policies towards Iran. The US was initially keen only on mediating between the two parties, though these negotiations broke down.
But the election of Eisenhower and the appointment of a different set of policymakers set about a change in attitudes towards the region, and towards covert foreign intervention. The British, then under Winston Churchill, also changed their tune and said the words that always seemed to get the US involved at that time: that Mossadegh was “increasingly turning towards communism” and that his government was friendly with the Soviets and would no doubt take the country to their sphere of influence (all this despite his open disapproval of socialism).
It was at this point that both the UK and the US were united in denouncing the Iranian government’s policies as harmful and dangerous, and from there moved on to commence Operation Ajax. Due to time constrains on my end, I’ll just quote from Wikipedia, which has a pretty good article on the subject:
In November and December 1952, British intelligence officials suggested to American intelligence that the prime minister should be ousted. The new US administration under Dwight D. Eisenhower and the British government under Winston Churchill agreed to work together toward Mosaddegh’s removal. In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mosaddegh.
On 4 April 1953, CIA director Dulles approved US$1 million to be used “in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh”. Soon the CIA’s Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh. Finally, according to The New York Times, in early June, American and British intelligence officials met again, this time in Beirut, and put the finishing touches on the strategy. Soon afterward, according to his later published accounts, the chief of the CIA’s Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, arrived in Tehran to direct it.
In 2000, The New York Times made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled, Clandestine Service History – Overthrow of Premier Mosaddegh of Iran – November 1952-August 1953. This document describes the point-by-point planning of the coup by agent Donald Wilbur, and execution conducted by the American and British governments. The New York Times published this critical document with the names censored. The New York Times also limited its publication to scanned image (bitmap) format, rather than machine-readable text. This document was eventually published properly – in text form, and fully unexpurgated. The word ‘blowback‘ appeared for the very first time in this document.
The plot, known as Operation Ajax, centered on convincing Iran’s monarch to issue a decree to dismiss Mosaddegh from office, as he had attempted some months earlier. But the Shah was terrified to attempt such a dangerously unpopular and legally questionable move, and it would take much persuasion and many U.S. funded meetings, which included bribing his sister Ashraf with a mink coat and money, to successfully change his mind.
Mosaddegh became aware of the plots against him and grew increasingly wary of conspirators acting within his government. According to Dr. Donald N. Wilber, who was involved in the plot to remove Mossadegh from power, in early August, Iranian CIA operatives pretending to be socialists and nationalists threatened Muslim leaders with “savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh,” thereby giving the impression that Mossadegh was cracking down on dissent, and stirring anti-Mossadegh sentiments within the religious community. A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99 percent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against. According to Mark J. Gasiorowski, “There were separate polling stations for yes and no votes, producing sharp criticism of Mosaddeq” and that the “controversial referendum…gave the CIA’s precoup propaganda campaign an easy target”. On or around Aug. 16, Parliament was suspended indefinitely, and Mosaddeq’s emergency powers were extended.
Shortly after the return of the Shah, on 22 August 1953, from his flight to Rome, Mosaddegh was arrested, tried and convicted of treason by the Shah’s military court. On December 21, 1953, he was sentenced to death. Later, Mosaddegh’s sentence was commuted to three years’ solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest in his Ahmadabad residence, until his death, on 5 March 1967.Mosaddegh’s supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed. The minister of Foreign Affairs and the closest associate of Mosaddegh, Hossein Fatemi, was executed by order of the Shah’s military court. The order was carried out by firing squad on Oct. 29, 1953.
Zahedi’s new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium and “restore the flow of Iranian oil to world markets in substantial quantities”, giving the U.S. and Great Britain the lion’s share of Iran’s oil. In return, the U.S. massively funded the Shah’s resulting government, including his army and secret police force, SAVAK, until the Shah’s overthrow in 1979
If anyone is curious, the CIA document detailing this entirely plot is actually available on the web in it’s entirety. While it would’ve been better to imagine that this was an operation undertaken in secret by our spy agency, it’s very clear that many politicians and officials within our civilian administration were not only aware of the plot but directly participated in it. US involvement wasn’t publicly acknowledged until 2000.
To be sure, I’m not saying the Iranians are guiltless their nation’s current predicaments either (though the majority of them today seem clearly opposed to their current regime, and many people certainly didn’t want the brutal theocratic dictatorship that ended up emerging). Mossadegh wasn’t a perfect leader, but for his time and place he was far more progressive. Ultimately, the US facilitated the instability and unrest that allowed the currently noxious rulers of Iran to come to power in the first place. It’s a lesson that will hopefully be learned some day, assuming that the greed and self-interest that motivates such policies ever sufficiently subsides in the first place.
If anyone is interested in reading more about this, which I strongly encourage, consider these sources:
- Democracy Now’s 50th anniversary discussion on the subject, including an interview with the writer of All the Shah’s Men, an authoritative source on the event.
- A brief account of the events before and during the coup
- The Secret CIA History the Iran Coup, from the National Archives
- The Wikipedia article on the subject, which while imperfect is certainly a good starting point.
Sarvodaya 
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