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Barack Obama did something yesterday I never thought I’d see from an American president. He spoke openly about America’s role in undermining democracy in the developing world.
Roundly criticized as the “Apology Tour, Pt. 2” (if you’re waiting for the last administration to apologize for its many foreign policy sins, don’t hold your breath), the president acknowledged the CIA’s involvement in the coup that ousted Mohammad Mossadegh.
"In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," Obama told a Cairo audience. "For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us.” Perhaps small concessions to crowds well-versed in the shadow history of this region, but many Americans remain unaware of this “tumultuous history.”
In 1908 the British government, rallying around a major oil find in modern-day Iran, persuaded investors to organize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Five years later, Winston Churchill persuaded the British government to buy 51% of the firm. The Anglo-Persian agreement of 1919 confirmed Persia’s status as a virtual British protectorate: Britain now controlled the Persian army, treasury, transportation system, and communications network.
In 1933, the agreement was slightly modified, the firm’s name was changed to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), but exploitation of Iran’s resources continued. AIOC paid no taxes to Iran—while heavily taxed by the British government—sold oil to the Royal Navy at a fraction of market price, gave more than half of its profits to the British government, and had no Iranian directors on its staff. Amid growing discontent, the Iranian parliament demanded that the Iranian government renegotiate the arrangement. The deputy who wrote that law was Mohammad Mossadegh.
An upper-class Iranian with a reputation for integrity, and sympathy for nationalist politics, Mossadegh became a leader of the growing opposition. After discovering that the AIOC used accounting tricks to hide revenue, the Iranian parliament suggested splitting profits 50/50, just as the Arabian-American Oil Company had done in Saudi Arabia. The British government refused, its foreign secretary calling the conflict “a simple matter of ignorant natives rebelling against the forces of civilization.”
Demonstrations followed, and Iran’s National Front—led by Mossadegh—called for the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry. This bill was signed into law, and on May 6, 1951 Mossadegh took office as Prime Minister. British-orchestrated coups were quickly discovered, diplomatic relations severed, and all British personnel were ordered out of the country. With no footprint left in Iran, any future coup would have to be orchestrated by the United States.
The Truman administration was unsympathetic with Britain’s plight. Determined that Britain should have accepted the 50/50 deal, and convinced that Mossadegh was a bulwark against communist intrigue in the region, the administration saw the consequences of intervention as a potential “disaster to the free world.” Britain took their case to the United Nations, only to be thwarted by Mossadegh’s charm offensive in the United States. Mossadegh was pictured in front the Liberty Bell, and hailed as “the Iranian George Washington” by Time magazine.
The Eisenhower administration proved more accommodating. Pro-shah demonstrations were staged, Iranian newspapers—articles written by CIA agents in Washington—became packed with anti-Mossadegh propaganda, and religious leaders were attacked, mosques were vandalized, purportedly on Mossadegh’s orders. Mossadegh was tried by a kangaroo court and sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life (he died in 1967).
The ensuing era of anti-western feeling is well-known and, if Obama has his way, maybe better understood. Counter-factualism—the “what-if” scenarios of history—is fertile academic ground, and it is interesting to speculate on what the modern Iranian state would look like, had communist paranoia not stunted its development. Terrorism in our era has become what communism was to the last generation—a pretense for intervention on an unimaginable scale. Obama seems determined to shed light into this dark corner of our history and start fresh. Cold Warriors and revisionists beware.