George Bush, Iran, and the Ghost of Kermit Roosevelt and Operation Ajax

[Emillereid]

http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=266879&lang=e&dir=news
31-12-2003, 09:23

by Mark Dankof

In his riveting and informative history of the sordid methodology employed by Kermit Roosevelt and the Central Intelligence Agency in overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in August of 1953, author and New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer posits the theory that, "It is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah’s repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York."

Kinzer’s impressive tome of twelve chapters, epilogue, and concluding scholarly notes and bibliography appeals to intelligent popular reader and scholar alike. To the uninitiated in Iranian history and culture, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2003, 258 pp.) sketches the foundational importance of the pre-Islamic Achaemenid and Sassanian dynasties; the 7th century invasion of Persia by the Arabs armed with the new religion of Islam; the Safavid dynasty; the role of both the Zoroastrian faith and the Shiite version of Islam in shaping contemporary Iranian thought on authority, divine favor, martyrdom and revolution; the core cultural, historical, and political significance of the eschatological doctrine of the Twelfth Imam; and the corruption and incompetence of the Qajar dynasty which ruled Iran from the end of the 18th century until 1925, setting the stage for ongoing foreign intrigue and intervention there--first through Britain and Russia and subsequently through the expansion of the American Empire after World War II.


<snip>
The story develops and intensifies with the role of the United States in the British-inspired covert operation to eliminate Mossadegh as Prime Minister of Iran, while re-establishing the Pahlavi throne as the most effective conduit for the protection of Western interests through the suppression of a potpourri of Iranian nationalist and independence movements, ranging from the Tudeh Communist Party and the National Front to the Islamic mullahs. Of particular historical interest is the author’s documentation of the proven opposition of both Clement Attlee and Harry Truman to this sinister course of action, followed by the wholehearted support of Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower Administration for it--expressed in the explicit Executive Authorization for British MI6 and the American Central Intelligence Agency to proceed with the Ajax project . Kinzer especially notes the conversion of Eisenhower from a position of compromise with Mossadegh and the recognition of the legitimate grievances of the Iranian people, to the incredible endorsement of a coup only two months after the former’s inauguration (p. 157).

In All the Shah’s Men, the role of the Dulles brothers proves pivotal to the process of tracing the President’s reasons for radical departure from the Truman policy course on Iran. In what would come to be a prototype for clandestine American interventionist policies worldwide, the justification provided to Eisenhower by his Secretary of State and Director of Central Intelligence was cast in terms of opposition to the threat of the ascendancy of Soviet-inspired Communist movements in the oil-rich Middle East. Once convinced that the achievement of this objective was necessarily linked to the elimination of Mossadegh and a viable National Front movement in Iran, the green light was given to Kermit Roosevelt to launch Operation Ajax in August of 1953, on the basis of the Wilber (CIA)-Darbyshire (MI6) blueprint for the coup.
...more...

History has a long memory even if we don't! If we're still paying for the overthrow of Mossadegh, imagine the blowback our children will suffer for Iraq.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

1. one of the best books i've read this year "All The Shahs Men" by Kinsley

all americans should blush with shame for what was done in our name.....and tremble with fear for our children

[Lisa]

2. an excellent book ...

I lent my copy to an Iranian immigrant (who is actually a distant relation of PM Mossadegh) -- he says it was a very good description of what was going on in the country at the time.

He had been despairing of people outside of Iran ever learning about the terrible consequences of that coup -- but thanks to people like Kinzer and Michael Moore, he's become more hopeful now.

p.s. I don't like Sir Winston Churchill nearly as much as I used to! A British friend of mine said she became physically ill when she learned about the things British Petroleum did in the Middle East -- and Churchill encouraged it!