On this day in 1953, the U.S. and British governments initiated a coup d’état against the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had been preparing to nationalize Iran’s British-owned oil fields.
Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), later re-named British Petroleum, and to limit the company’s control over Iranian oil reserves. When the AIOC refused to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament voted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.
In response, the British began a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically and engaged in subterfuge to undermine Mosaddegh’s government.
After considering military action, Britain opted for a coup d’état. President Harry Truman rejected the idea, but when Dwight Eisenhower took over the White House, he ordered the CIA to embark on one of its first covert operations against a foreign government.
The coup was led by an agent named Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. The CIA leaned on a young, insecure Shah to issue a decree dismissing Mossadegh as prime minister. Kermit Roosevelt had help from Norman Schwarzkopf’s father: Norman Schwarzkopf.
The CIA and the British helped to undermine Mossadegh’s government through bribery, libel, and orchestrated riots. Agents posing as communists threatened religious leaders, while the US ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American nationals.
Some 300 people died in firefights in the streets of Tehran.
Mossadegh was overthrown, sentenced to three years in prison followed by house arrest for life.
The crushing of Iran’s first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms. The anti-American backlash that toppled the Shah in 1979 shook the whole region and helped spread Islamic militancy.
After the 1979 revolution President Jimmy Carter allowed the deposed Shah into the U.S. Fearing the Shah would be sent back to take over Iran as he had been in 1953, Iranian militants took over the U.S. embassy–where the 1953 coup was staged–and held hundreds hostage.
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I admire the anarchist ground game and they’re more in line with my view of social mores/culture, but I feel like only tightly coordinated socialist economics stand a chance at mitigating and someday possibly even reversing some of the effects of climate crisis. I also want to be able to let my guard down a little so a state ran blunt instrument against the forces of reaction and conservatism would be ideal
Also, Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution is good as hell
Climate change is going to require a global-scale reallocation of food. It’s also going to end the brief departure from fare acquisition-dominated life. A hyper coordinated, low waste, steady state ( or declining state) global system that understands that people need not die, not starve, because productivity loss will cascade, that cooperation is the best strategy, etc. It will also require many cultures to shift local dramatic relations to each other.
A feat in global coordination, to say the least. Not something I’d be comfortable leaving up to chance and goodwill. If those were all it took, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.