On this day in 1953, the U.S. and British governments initiated a coup d’état against the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had been preparing to nationalize Iran’s British-owned oil fields.
Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), later re-named British Petroleum, and to limit the company’s control over Iranian oil reserves. When the AIOC refused to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament voted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.
In response, the British began a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically and engaged in subterfuge to undermine Mosaddegh’s government.
After considering military action, Britain opted for a coup d’état. President Harry Truman rejected the idea, but when Dwight Eisenhower took over the White House, he ordered the CIA to embark on one of its first covert operations against a foreign government.
The coup was led by an agent named Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. The CIA leaned on a young, insecure Shah to issue a decree dismissing Mossadegh as prime minister. Kermit Roosevelt had help from Norman Schwarzkopf’s father: Norman Schwarzkopf.
The CIA and the British helped to undermine Mossadegh’s government through bribery, libel, and orchestrated riots. Agents posing as communists threatened religious leaders, while the US ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American nationals.
Some 300 people died in firefights in the streets of Tehran.
Mossadegh was overthrown, sentenced to three years in prison followed by house arrest for life.
The crushing of Iran’s first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms. The anti-American backlash that toppled the Shah in 1979 shook the whole region and helped spread Islamic militancy.
After the 1979 revolution President Jimmy Carter allowed the deposed Shah into the U.S. Fearing the Shah would be sent back to take over Iran as he had been in 1953, Iranian militants took over the U.S. embassy–where the 1953 coup was staged–and held hundreds hostage.
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Alright I’m never leaving hexbear again.
I decided to make an account on another lemmy instance to make an amazing, well-thought out comment about how Lincoln not opposing slavery does not contradict the fact that the civil war was about slavery. Now I’m in an argument with someone who read everything I wrote, agreed with it, and somehow twisted it to support his belief that slaveowners deserve some sympathy. What is this world.
I love how literally the Vice President of the Confederacy gave a fucking speech, called the Cornerstone Speech, in which he declared the institution of slavery to be the cornerstone of the confederacy, and yet we’re still gaslit that it wasn’t about slavery
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What I have learned from this experience is that if you criticize the north or Lincoln at all, even after you spell out “the civil war was about slavery,” “slavery is wrong and I have no sympathy for slaveowners,” liberals will attack you for “justifying slavery” and confederates will take your stance as confirmation that both sides were wrong and the south should not be criticized. Even though I was literally calling out confederate apologia in the first place.
Extremely bleak out there.
Planet Liberal
God is a lib
It is wild how much batter it is here