The 1953 Iranian coup d’état (codenamed Operation Ajax by the CIA) deposed the democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq.[1][2][3]
Several years earlier, Mossaddeq, backed by his nationalist supporters in the Iranian parliament, had angered Britain with his argument that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves instead of allowing profits to continue to flow to Britain through its control of Iran's oil industry. In 1951, Mossaddeq nationalised Iran's oil industry which had been controlled exclusively by the British government-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company,[4][5] the UK's largest single investment overseas.[6] The ejection of the British staff of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company from the Iranian refineries triggered the Abadan Crisis and nearly caused a war. Britain accused Mosaddeq of violating the legal rights of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and mobilized a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that plunged Iran into financial crisis. The British government tried to enlist the United States in planning a coup, but President Harry S. Truman refused. However, his successor Dwight D. Eisenhower allowed the CIA to embark on its first covert operation against a foreign government.[7]
The British and U.S. spy agencies replaced the government of the popular Prime Minister Mosaddeq with an all-powerful monarch, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi who ruled for the next 26 years until he was overthrown in 1979.[8] The coup first appeared to fail when on the night of August 15-16 when a main leader of the coup were arrested , and Shah fled the country. Three days later, however, a royalist mob marched on Mosaddeq's residence, which was also attacked by a tank column led by retired General Fazlollah Zahedi.
The economic and political crisis in Iran that began in early 1952 with the British-organized world-wide boycott of Iranian oil, ended with the signing of the Consortium Agreement of 1954. Pahlevi signed the agreement with the result that, for the first time, United States oil companies shared in the profits of Iranian oil, with the U.S. and UK evenly splitting 80% and the remainder divided between French and Dutch interests.[9] From Iran's perspective, the Consortium Agreement of 1954 was much more unfavorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint 'Winston Churchill-Dwight D. Eisenhower' proposal to Mosaddegh.[10][11][12] The Consortium Agreement of 1954 ended the crisis that led to the coup, and stayed in effect until it was modified in 1973 and then ended in 1979 when the Iranian Revolution deposed the monarch. For the 25 years it was in effect, the 1954 Consortium Agreement had determined which oil companies controlled Iranian oil and profited from it.
US support and funding continued after the coup, with the CIA training the Shah's feared and hated secret police, SAVAK. Originally, the Eisenhower Administration considered Operation Ajax a successful secret war, but, given its blowback, it is now considered a failure, because of its "haunting and terrible legacy".[13] The anti-democratic coup d’état was a "a critical event in post-war world history" that replaced Iran’s post-monarchic, native, and secular parliamentary democracy with a dictatorship.[14] The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which deposed the Shah and replaced the pro-Western monarchy with the anti-Western Islamic Republic of Iran.[15]
The coup was the first covert operation by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against a foreign government.[16] The British and U.S. spy agencies, in Operation Ajax, persuaded Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to order Mosaddeq's dismissal, while paying and organizing anti-Mosaddeq royalists and Iranian army officers. The coup first appeared to fail when on the night of August 15-16 Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri was arrested while attempted to arrest Mosaddeq, and the Shah fled the country. Three days later, however, a royalist mob marched on Mosaddeq's residence, which was also attacked by a tank column led by retired General Fazlollah Zahedi. The prime minister fled when his defenders were overwhelmed.[17]
In the wake of the coup Zahedi became prime minister and the Shah returned to Iran where he ruled as an autocrat for the next 26 years until being overthrown in 1979.[18] the Iranian-controled national oil company was replaced by a consortium of international oil companies which shared profits 50-50 with Iran but did not to open their "books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors." [19]
In America, the coup was originally considered a triumph of covert action but now is considered by many to have left "a haunting and terrible legacy." [20] In 2000, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, called it a "setback for democratic government" in Iran.[21] }}
References
edit- ^ O'Reilly, Kevin (2007). Decision Making in US History. The Cold War & the 1950s. Social Studies. p. 108. ISBN 1560042931.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ Mohammed Amjad. "Iran: From Royal Dictatorship to Theocracy". Greenwood Press, 1989. p. 62 "the United States had decided to save the 'free world' by overthrowing the democratically elected government of Mossadegh."
- ^ Iran by Andrew Burke, Mark Elliott - Page 37
- ^ From Anglo-Persian Oil to BP Amoco Aug. 11, 1998 BBC
- ^ The Guardian.
- ^ "The Company File-- From Anglo-Persian Oil to BP Amoco"
- ^ "The spectre of Operation Ajax: Britain and the US crushed Iran's first democratic government. They didn't learn from that mistake" The Guardian August 20, 2003
- ^ Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, John Wiley and Sons, 2003.
- ^ British Petroleum history according to the BBC
- ^ http://www.petropars.com/tabid/307/Default.aspx History of Iranian oil as told by Petropars, the Iranian oil & gas development company.]
- ^ http://www.ghaffaris.com/graphics/August_6.doc Report ofThe Consortium Agreement of 1954 ny the Associated Press]
- ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=o0MX3tf5QR4C&pg=PA317&lpg=PA317&dq=The+Consortium+Agreement+of+1954&source=bl&ots=fDYYMyM6QI&sig=2mtAMkbYPOJRtu4llJKHJIpicw0&hl=en&ei=mb49StXLHZLWsgORo5HkCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4 Article 41b of the Iran Consortium Agreement of 1954 precluded Iran from making any administrative or legislative changes to oil company operations without the consent of the foreign oil companies. The Legal Regime of Foreign Private Investment in Sudan and Saudi Arabia By Fath el Rahman Abdalla El Sheikh Cambridge University Press. 200d ISBN 978-0521817721]
- ^ Stephen Kinzer: "All the Shah's Men. An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror", John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.215
- ^ The Lessons of History: "All The Shah's Men"
- ^ International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19, 1987, p.261
- ^ "The spectre of Operation Ajax: Britain and the US crushed Iran's first democratic government. They didn't learn from that mistake" The Guardian August 20, 2003
- ^ Abrahamian, 1982, p.280
- ^ Kinzer, 2003, 202.
- ^ Kinzer, 2003, p.195-6
- ^ Kinzer, 2003, p.215
- ^ "U.S. Comes Clean About The Coup In Iran", CNN, 04-19-2000.