Who Was Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh?

Mohammed Mossadegh

Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh (May 19, 1882 - March 5, 1967) was the democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953.

(until Operation Ajax by USA & Uk overthrew this democratic leader  in 1953 by a US-organized coup in retaliation for nationalizing oil resources previously controlled by the British.)

I would love to hear the views of Iranians on this subject

Background: Beginning in the 19th Century, Iran becomes subject to interference and land grabs by Britain and Russia. Local dissatisfaction with Iran's weak and corruption prone royal regime grows and becomes increasingly vocal until in August 1906 Shah (King) Muzaffar ad Din is forced to issue a decree promising the introduction of a new constitution. The constitution that is subsequently drafted places strict limitations on royal power and establishes a representative parliament, or Majlis.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/mossadegh.html

In April Mossadegh is named prime minister. His first act after selecting his Cabinet is to enforce the Oil Nationalisation Bill. Soon after, Iran takes control of the AIOC's refinery at Abadan, which at the time is the largest in the world, supplying 43% of Europe's petroleum requirements.

Britain responds to the nationalisation by placing a worldwide embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil and pressuring its allies to do the same. In September Britain freezes Iran's sterling assets and bans export of goods to Iran.

In the US the administration refuses to lend Iran funds until the dispute is resolved, and works to ensure the oil embargo is enforced.

http://www.angelfire.com/home/iran/

The Iranian people could never forgive the Shah and Pro-Shah activists (Saltanat-Talabs) for the 1953 bloody coup d'état against the Iranian national hero, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the Prime Minister of Iran who was elected by the parliament, the Iranian legend who enforced the Oil Nationalization Bill to terminate the British ownership and influence on the Iran's oil industry in 1951. The 1953 coup d'état was designed by the CIA and fulfilled by the Shah’s military forces and supported by a large number of bribed uneducated hooligans headed by Shaban Jaffari also known as the Shaban-bi-Mokh (the brainless Shaban), organized by the traitors, the pro Shah activists, the Shah’s hand kissers (the Saltanat Talabs) . Thereafter, the Iranian people deeply suffered under the Shah's dictatorship, corruption, phony elections, heavy censorship, torture and execution of thousands of dissenters until the 1979 Revolution.

Dr. Mossadegh remains a figure of tremendous stature in the history of modern Iran. As an individual he had a reputation for honesty, integrity, and sincerity. He strongly opposed British and, later, American influence in Iran. He was an eloquent, impassioned orator, and his speeches are still widely read in Iran.
During Dr. Mossadegh's trial in the Shah's military court, he publicized the secrets of two military coup d'état attempts against his government. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment; thereafter he was transferred to his country house in Ahmad-Abad at the age of 74 and lived there under house arrest until his death. On March 4, 1967, Dr. Mossadegh died of cancer at the age of 84. His body was buried in one of the rooms of his residence.

Today, very few Americans have ever heard of Mohammad Mossadegh, but that wasn’t the case in 1953. At that time, Mossadegh was one of the most famous figures in the world. Here’s the way veteran New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer decribes him in his book All the Shah’s Men:

In his time, Mohammad Mossadegh was a titanic figure. He shook an empire and changed the world. People everywhere knew his name. World leaders sought to influence him and later to depose him. No one was surprised when Time magazine chose him over Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Winston Churchill as its Man of the Year for 1951.

(Kinzer’s book, published in 2003, is an excellent account of the CIA coup; much of this article is based on his book.)

There were two major problems with Mossadegh, however, as far as both the British and American governments were concerned. First, as an ardent nationalist he was a driving force behind an Iranian attempt to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British company that had held a monopoly on the production and sale of Iranian oil since the early part of the 20th century. Second, fiercely independent, Mossadegh refused to do the bidding of the U.S. government, which by this time had become fearful that Mossadegh might align Iran with America’s World War II ally and post–World War II enemy, the Soviet Union.

In a speech delivered in March 2000 by Madeleine Albright (then secretary of state ), the U.S. government finally acknowledged what it had done to the Iranian people and to democracy in Iraq:

In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons, but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs. Moreover, during the next quarter century, the United States and the West gave sustained backing to the Shah’s regime. Although it did much to develop the country economically, the Shah’s government also brutally repressed political dissent. As President Clinton has said, the United States must bear its fair share of responsibility for the problems that have arisen in U.S.-Iranian relations.

Not surprisingly, Albright’s “apology” fell on many deaf ears in Iran. While Iranians certainly have not forgotten the U.S. government’s support of Saddam Hussein and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War during the 1980s, including its furnishing Saddam with weapons of mass destruction to use against the Iranian people, the root of Iranian anger lies with the anti-democracy foreign policy of the U.S. government, by which U.S. officials ousted the Iranian people’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, from office in 1953.

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0501i.asp

How the United States Destroyed Democracy in Iran in 1953

http://www.hirhome.com/iraniraq/iran-coup.htm

The overthrow of the nationalist Mosaddeq regime in August 1953 by an American- and British-supported coup changed postwar Iran’s situation in several basic ways, most of which remained important for the quarter century of ensuing dictatorial rule. First, the United States, ...[which already] dominated in military and governmental advice and support, now became the dominant power in Iran. This was reflected in the United States taking a 40 percent share in the oil consortium in 1954.”[5]

So after the 1953 CIA coup, Iranian oil belonged to Britain and the US, not just to Britain. But it still didn’t belong to Iran.

reading list

• A short account of 1953 Coup in Iran
  http://www.iranchamber.com/history/coup53/coup53p1 ...
• An alternative view by Ardeshir Zahedi
  http://www.ardeshirzahedi.org/cia-iran.pdf
• Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran
  http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB126/inde ...
• In Memory of August 19, 1953
  http://www.counterpunch.org/sasan08192003.html
• nytimes.com
  http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/08065 ...
• 50 Years After the CIA’s First Overthrow of a Democratically Elected Foreign Government
  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/2 ...
• The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup - U.S. National Security Archive
  http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28
• Mossadegh's photo album
  http://www.iranian.com/Pictory/mos.html
• nytimes.com
  http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/04160 ...
• How to Overthrow A Government: The 1953 U.S. Coup in Iran
  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/0 ...
• Notes on Donald N. Wilber
  http://www.spongobongo.com/her9886.htm
• How the United States Destroyed Democracy in Iran in 1953
  http://www.hirhome.com/iraniraq/iran-coup.htm
• James Risen: Secrets of History: The C.I.A. in Iran -- A special report.; How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79)
  http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/04160 ...
• telegraph.co.uk
  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ...