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What caused the Iranian revolution
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The 1953 Iranian coup d’état was the CIA’s first successful overthrow of a foreign government. It was seen as an action to stop a possible Iranian communist takeover led by Mohamed Mossadeq, the Iranian prime minister at the time. But in actuality, the U.S. and Britain were more afraid of the imposing Soviet threat in the region. Because Britain and other western countries issued sanctions on Iran as a consequence to oil nationalization, the Britain and the U.S. feared that Mossadeq would turn to the Soviet Union in an effort to stabilize Iran’s economy. Fearing that Iran would soon be influenced by communism, the U.S. looked at the option of regime change as an answer to the ongoing crisis. In 1953, under the Eisenhower administration, a CIA coup to overthrow Mossadeq was authorized. After three days of CIA organized riots in Iran, Mossadeq surrendered, Fazlollah Zahedi, as chosen by the CIA, succeeded Mossadeq as prime minster of Iran. Now that Mossadeq, once a leader of the democratic movement in Iran, was no longer a political force, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came back to power, now with little political opposition and supported by the United States and Britain. The CIA coup was originally intended as a solution for the Iranian oil crisis, but its occurrence later caused undesirable results in future. Although the real reason for the CIA overthrow of the Iranian government was to protect geopolitical interests from the Soviet threat in the region, the United States, did not foresee the negative, long term effects of coup, some of which are still evident today.
Because of Mossadeq and his contributions to the nationalization of Iranian oil, Britain and the United States felt the need to a quick solution for the dangers that t...
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... ranking officials of Mossadeq administration, such as Hossein Fatemi, the minister of Foreign Affairs and close friend of Mossadeq, were executed and imprisoned also. The shah was back in power and he had the security of two of the most powerful countries in the world as allies; the United States and Britain. The Shah’s cooperation was sessional for the final settlement of the terms of Iranian oil concession. Walter Bedell Smith, Secretary of State during the Eisenhower administration, summarizes the Shah’s mindset at the time; “The Shah is a new man. For the first time he believes in himself because he feels that he is King by his people’s choice and not the arbitrary decision of a foreign powe.”
After the shah backed by west greeted by crowd of cheering people shah says he feels s elected
Immediately following Mossadeq surrender, he was troweled was trees
This completely changed the perception of the United States within Iran. Many Iranians believed that “American influence and power made a mockery of their national autonomy and desecrated their religious beliefs” (Farber, 37). The real struggle came once the Shah sought asylum in the U.S. Iran believed this to be a betrayal and demanded the Shah be released to the revolutionaries. Due to the fact that the United States did not refuse the Shah, the revolutionaries took the embassy in Tehran and all of the people that worked there hostage. One of the hostages wrote back to his parents during the crisis “‘We will not be set free until shah is released and the longer we stay here like this the better is a chance for something terrible to happen’” (Farber, 156). The siege was led by Iranian students who supported the revolution and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader that the revolution had selected to take the place of the
Kinzer tells us that the Iranians celebrated their nationalism in taking control of their oil, but their success was a shock to the British multinational companies in Iran. They did not like the idea of Iran nationalization, so they plan a coup to overthrow the Prime Minister Mossadegh. But this plan failed and the British were disarmed and sent back to their country closing down their embassy in Iran. The British tried to present their case to the United State in a way that the United State would intervene. So they presented a case that Mossaghe is not only nationalizing the Iranians oil, he is also leading Iran into communism. This case stirred the American action and they feared if they assassinate Mossaghe, his seat will be open and communist ...
In All The Shah’s Men there seems to be a very strong hatred for all foreign powers, including the United States, taken by the citizens of Iran. I believe that this ultimately occurred because of the impatience of certain government officials in Washington D.C., and also in Great Britain. If only there could have been better communication between countries, I feel that there would have been a solution reached. The stubbornness of the British for the most part, led to many lives being lost, and a feeling of perpetual disgust being shown towards the United States for their involvement. Although the British were our allies and we did have an extreme fear of communism taking over the free world, this coup was disorganized, forced along too quickly, and put forth without any guidance or strong evidence, which in the end proved to completely defy what the United States was trying to impose on the world, and what Mossadegh was trying to give his people; freedom and democracy.
For decades, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East had depended on a friendly government in Iran. The newly appointed leader, the shah of Iran, began Westernizing the country and taking away power from the Ayatollah, powerful religious leaders. The United States poured millions of dollars into Iran’s economy and the shah’s armed forces, overlooking the rampant corruption in government and well-organized opposition. By early 1979, the Ayatollah had murdered the Shah and taken back power of the government. A group of students who took the American embassy hostage on November 4th, 1979, turned the embassy over to the religious leaders. Carter knew he must take action in order to regain the American embassy and the hostages, but with all of the military cutbacks, the rescue attempt was a complete failure and embarrassment. It took the United States 444 days to rescue the hostages. This was the final straw for many Americans, and enough to push them to the “right” side of the political spectrum, Republican.
America and Iran had tricked the Soviets which left them very angry, and this inevitably led to the Cold War. But less than a decade later, America had done something which caused Iran to change their opinion of them. In 1951, Iran had recently elected a prime minister by the name, Mohammed Mosaddeq, which he nationalized the countryś petroleum industry, long the domain of the British-dominated AIOC. This move, however, pitted the two governments against each other in a bitter political fight. The Truman administration had tried to work between both sides, but Dwight Eisenhower had quickly concluded that Mosaddeq represented the problem rather than the solution to the crisis. They decided that they wanted him out and later he was kicked out and Mohammad Reza Shah took his place for the next twenty-five years. Shah not only gained access to sophisticated American weaponry, but also obtained tacit White House permission to forgo any serious effort at reform. Over the years, the internal resentment against the Shahś political and economic policies was building to a peak, but the depth of the problem escaped the notice of American
I intend to outline the background of the political circumstances that lead to the coup. This will include Guatemala, the US and the world scene at the time, when anti-communism contended with communism as state ideologies. I will contend that the coup was all but inevitable in the prevailing political climate of 1954. But that still doesn't make it right. We have been finding out for nearly half a century how wrong it was. Opinions have always varied with the positions of their adherents, but I believe there is one thing that can no longer be disputed: the CIA catalyzed a turn for the worse, even to the inhuman, for many Latin American governments by its actions in managing the Guatemalan coup. They provided the essential weapon for the modern national security state, the knowledge of how to organize an efficient apparatus of state repression and terror.
The. All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror.
First, the Shah, out-of-touch with what his people wanted, became the catalyst for massive xenophobic and anti-Western feelings to spread throughout the nation. By giving up traditional Islamic ideals and becoming sort of a “puppet” for the U.S. and the Western world, the Shah made a mockery of himself and of those traditional Islamic values, which were paramount in Iran. For many years, Iranians wrote letters to the Shah, voicing their discontent with many aspects of his rule — the spread of the Bahá’í Faith, the collapse of Islamic traditions, and the crumbling economy. The Shah, however, did nothing to fix these issues. Instead, he designed a political reformation movement, hoping to silence his opponents, to introduce personal rights for women, and to establish a sense of fiscal equality. This series of reforms, which appeared to be a blatant attempt to Westernize Iran, became known as the “White
November 4th, 1979 was a normal day for many people across the globe, however in Tehran, Iran a 444 day long journey had just begun for 60 plus Americans. Today this issue is better known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis. This plight started with the United States attempt to westernize Iran. Which resulted in severe backlash from Iran against the United States own citizens. This quickly became a crisis for the United States and a scurry to try and save American lives. Because of attempts to change Iran, the Iranians started to resent the United States for many reasons, which went beyond the 444 day long crisis. The crisis and the events that led up to it, still have lasting effects that create tensions between the two nations today. Through the
In the 1970’s Iran, under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a very centralized military state that maintained a close relationship with the USA. The Shah was notoriously out of touch with working class Iranians as he implemented many controversial economic policies against small business owners that he suspected involved profiteering. Also unrestricted economic expansions in Iran lead to huge government expenditure that became a serious problem when oil prices dropped in the mid 1970’s. This caused many huge government construction projects to halt and the economy to stall after many years of massive profit. Following this was high rates of inflation that affected Iranians buying power and living standards. (Afary, 2012) Under the Shah, political participation was not widely available for all Iranians and it was common for political opposition to be met with harassment, illegal detention, and even torture. These measures were implemented by the Iranian secret police knows as ‘SAVAK’. This totalitarian regime combined with the increasing modernisation of the country paved the way for revolution.
Maghen, Z. (2009, January). Eradicating the "Little Satan": Why Iran Should Be Taken at Its
Throughout the 20th century, the United States tried to control Iran to ensure the exportation of oil to America. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came to power in 1941 and became allies with the United States. However in the 1950s, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh began to gain political power. Unlike the Shah, he was extremely against western influence in Iran. Mossadegh won national elections and he demanded more power. In order to retain influence in Iran, the CIA helped overthrow Mossadegh and bring Pahlavi back to power....
After the deposing of the shah by revolution, the people of Iran elected a democratic l...
finding new ways to drill for oil and also refine it more efficiently to ensure that
Although the Iranian Revolution was caused by combination of political and religious motivations and ideas, the desires of the people supporting the movement were more dominantly religious ideas that were wished to be imposed in society and in a new government. The Shah, or king, of Iran at the time was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who had developed relations with nations in “western” world, specifically with the United States. The United States supported the White Revolution, which was a series of social reformations the Shah made to remove Islamic v...