GreenEarthAl
02-24-2008, 08:30 PM
I'm starting off with Kermit Roosevelt, not so much because it is so central to what's going on in the Middle East today (though it is), but rather because it is an example of the perpetual tactic of delay reporting of the truth until it is no longer relevant. Very few people knew about Kermit Roosevelt in the 1950s, and those who did had a snowball's chance in hell of knowing the salient facts about him, and forget about trying to actually tell anyone about him; you would have been denounced as the cookiest of the cooks for even suggesting that the U.S. of A. would be mixed up what was going on over in Iran.
What was going on in Iran in the 1950s was an Iran that was trying to throw off the post WWII British as many other former colonies had done. The United Kingdom had been leveled and saw the writing on the wall and knew that it had to figure out which of it's colonies the Empire needed to keep and which ones needed to be set free (because they no longer had the military to keep them subjugated).
As could be expected, the colonies that were to be kept wanted the same liberation as the colonies to be released and so famously India began fighting to gain it's liberation, but also, right next door Iran wanted it's economic freedom as well.
At the time, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (a company that has today become the multinational corporation known as BP (British Petroleum or Beyond Petroleum or whatever else they call themselves now)) was trying to prop up the U.K. economy back up, and oil was a big part of their plans. When they had come-a-colonizing they had told Iran "All you oils belong to us!1" and basically their deal was "80% for us, 20% for you. Fair? Fair!"
Iran had 2,000 years of continuous civilization and relative modernity, but Iranians could see themselves slipping into poverty and at the same time see British foreigners living the high life in segregated communities. There began to be unrest; people demanding change, anger in the streets and the like.
Mohammed Mosaddeq was a popular Iranian politician and a rising star who promised the Iranian people that he would seize the oil fields and nationalize them and begin using the profits from Iranian oil for Iranians. Not a popular notion among the British. Pretty popular among Iranians. The Iranians elected him to higher and higher office and eventually he was the Prime Minister of Iran and he did in fact nationalize the oil fields.
Mother England got royally pissed off and decided to embargo Iran and blockade the strait of Hormuz and forbid Iran to sell any oil. Iran went from poor to Holy Crap we're POOR! The British wanted to just starve em out (like any "civilized" nation would do), but Mosaddeq somehow just remained popular and the Iranians continued to support him and want the profits from Iranian oil to benefit Iranians.
England looked to the United States, like "What are WE gonna do about this." The Truman administration decided they weren't going to do anything, but the new Republicans and Eisenhower heard that there were reds in Iran and so they were going to swoop into action. Joe McCarthy was screaming about the reds under your bed and so any possibility of soviet reds anywhere had to be dealt with right away.
There were, in fact, reds in Iran. There were reds all over the world really. And somehow Mosaddeq had been able to unify a wide spectrum of Iranians from the reds all the way to the Islamic fundamentalists (not easily accomplished), but they all pretty much agreed that they want Iran's resources for Iranians and gave him their support. Until Kermit Roosevelt showed up.
Kermit Roosevelt was the grandson of president Theodore Roosevelt and a senior officer in the newly formed CIA's newly formed Middle Eastern division. He was tapped to head "opperation Ajax" which was the code name for 'get rid of Mosaddeq however you have to do it'. Eisenhower's administration sent him to Iran with what amounted to virtually a blank check at the time. So he arrived on the scene and started driving wedges between the prime minister and the shah, the people and the prime minister, the reds and the religious fanatics and just anywhere a wedge would fit he drove one there.
Finally a coup was attempted to depose Mosaddeq but the coup failed and the shah ended up fleeing and pro Mosaddeq supporters lined the streets. Kermit Roosevelt was reportedly ordered to return to the U.S. But he apparently said never mind all that and instead rounded up collections of the disenfranchised and paid supporters and had a second go at a coup and managed to install a puppet government who's first action was to sentence Mosaddeq to death (Out of the goodness of their hearts they later reduced his sentence to life inprisonment under house arrest.)
The new puppet government was totalitarian and dictatorial and abused the people of Iran, but Hey, at least they gave all of Iran's oil money back to the U.K. and life continued on as normal. The installed Iranian government was able to jail and disappear everyone who objected to loudly and everyone learned how to shut up and be quiet. Until 1979 when they got mad as hell and weren't going to take it any more and had a Islamic uprising and threw Westerners out of Iran and started a theocracy that would at least abuse them less than the wests puppet governments. Or even if it didn't abuse them less, they just seemed to prefer being abused by themselves over being abused by foreigners. Go figure. No pleasing some people.
So these days most of this is a matter of historical record and you can read books about it and look it up on the Wikipedia and what not; but if you talked about it back then you were a conspiracy nut to even suggest that kind of thing was going on. And even though you can look it up these days, precious few Americans can even tell you where Iran is on a map --forget about any other details. It is pretty much forgotten to history. Except in Iran. Oddly enough Iranians still remember it. They're even still mad about it. Talk about holding a grudge.
What was going on in Iran in the 1950s was an Iran that was trying to throw off the post WWII British as many other former colonies had done. The United Kingdom had been leveled and saw the writing on the wall and knew that it had to figure out which of it's colonies the Empire needed to keep and which ones needed to be set free (because they no longer had the military to keep them subjugated).
As could be expected, the colonies that were to be kept wanted the same liberation as the colonies to be released and so famously India began fighting to gain it's liberation, but also, right next door Iran wanted it's economic freedom as well.
At the time, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (a company that has today become the multinational corporation known as BP (British Petroleum or Beyond Petroleum or whatever else they call themselves now)) was trying to prop up the U.K. economy back up, and oil was a big part of their plans. When they had come-a-colonizing they had told Iran "All you oils belong to us!1" and basically their deal was "80% for us, 20% for you. Fair? Fair!"
Iran had 2,000 years of continuous civilization and relative modernity, but Iranians could see themselves slipping into poverty and at the same time see British foreigners living the high life in segregated communities. There began to be unrest; people demanding change, anger in the streets and the like.
Mohammed Mosaddeq was a popular Iranian politician and a rising star who promised the Iranian people that he would seize the oil fields and nationalize them and begin using the profits from Iranian oil for Iranians. Not a popular notion among the British. Pretty popular among Iranians. The Iranians elected him to higher and higher office and eventually he was the Prime Minister of Iran and he did in fact nationalize the oil fields.
Mother England got royally pissed off and decided to embargo Iran and blockade the strait of Hormuz and forbid Iran to sell any oil. Iran went from poor to Holy Crap we're POOR! The British wanted to just starve em out (like any "civilized" nation would do), but Mosaddeq somehow just remained popular and the Iranians continued to support him and want the profits from Iranian oil to benefit Iranians.
England looked to the United States, like "What are WE gonna do about this." The Truman administration decided they weren't going to do anything, but the new Republicans and Eisenhower heard that there were reds in Iran and so they were going to swoop into action. Joe McCarthy was screaming about the reds under your bed and so any possibility of soviet reds anywhere had to be dealt with right away.
There were, in fact, reds in Iran. There were reds all over the world really. And somehow Mosaddeq had been able to unify a wide spectrum of Iranians from the reds all the way to the Islamic fundamentalists (not easily accomplished), but they all pretty much agreed that they want Iran's resources for Iranians and gave him their support. Until Kermit Roosevelt showed up.
Kermit Roosevelt was the grandson of president Theodore Roosevelt and a senior officer in the newly formed CIA's newly formed Middle Eastern division. He was tapped to head "opperation Ajax" which was the code name for 'get rid of Mosaddeq however you have to do it'. Eisenhower's administration sent him to Iran with what amounted to virtually a blank check at the time. So he arrived on the scene and started driving wedges between the prime minister and the shah, the people and the prime minister, the reds and the religious fanatics and just anywhere a wedge would fit he drove one there.
Finally a coup was attempted to depose Mosaddeq but the coup failed and the shah ended up fleeing and pro Mosaddeq supporters lined the streets. Kermit Roosevelt was reportedly ordered to return to the U.S. But he apparently said never mind all that and instead rounded up collections of the disenfranchised and paid supporters and had a second go at a coup and managed to install a puppet government who's first action was to sentence Mosaddeq to death (Out of the goodness of their hearts they later reduced his sentence to life inprisonment under house arrest.)
The new puppet government was totalitarian and dictatorial and abused the people of Iran, but Hey, at least they gave all of Iran's oil money back to the U.K. and life continued on as normal. The installed Iranian government was able to jail and disappear everyone who objected to loudly and everyone learned how to shut up and be quiet. Until 1979 when they got mad as hell and weren't going to take it any more and had a Islamic uprising and threw Westerners out of Iran and started a theocracy that would at least abuse them less than the wests puppet governments. Or even if it didn't abuse them less, they just seemed to prefer being abused by themselves over being abused by foreigners. Go figure. No pleasing some people.
So these days most of this is a matter of historical record and you can read books about it and look it up on the Wikipedia and what not; but if you talked about it back then you were a conspiracy nut to even suggest that kind of thing was going on. And even though you can look it up these days, precious few Americans can even tell you where Iran is on a map --forget about any other details. It is pretty much forgotten to history. Except in Iran. Oddly enough Iranians still remember it. They're even still mad about it. Talk about holding a grudge.