Saturday, December 26, 2009

Wikipedia's version of the 1953 coup d'etat in Iran

With Iran being all over America's 2009 headlines for production of nuclear material... and current reports of significant civil unrest there... I offer the first of an ongoing piece on the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat that I found on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia clearly notes that this piece has both its neutrality and factual accuracy disputed. Nonetheless, this perspective on history may be useful in understanding US-Iran relations. And I'm doing this as much for my own edification, as for anyone else who may be interested. These posts are not intended to indicate my agreement or disagreement with anything written.

The 1953 Iranian coup d’état deposed the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq.[1][2][3]

The United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overthrew the government of the popular Prime Minister Mosaddeq at the request of, and with support from the British government. In what the CIA called Operation Ajax, the U.S. enabled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to become an authoritarian monarch[4], who went on to rule Iran for 26 years until he was overthrown in 1979.[5]


Tim White

Click thru to the Wikipedia page to see the references.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

which was why Jimmy Carter was such a bozo for pushing the Shah aside in 1979. I think the dork thought we'd redeem ourselves with the Iranian militants for our prior interference. Not.

Had the Shah lasted another decade a more pluralistic middle class would have taken root in Iran; there were that many Iranians studying aboard. Nope, in 1979 it was the Ayatollahs who were gonna run the show. Dumb