Dear God this article is a complete farce.
Some reading material for the class
http://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/0470580410
Gee, thanks for that advertisement. I saw no mention of the Tudeh party and Soviet influence. I guess Marxists are always welcome liberators and the West are always meddling coup-plotters.
Yes, the book you recommended, according to Amazon, was "Selected as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Economist..." High praise! /s
Agreed. But self-congratulatory ignorance is so much more fun.
The author of All the Shah’s Men has a career interest in outing American imperialism (something we are better served to face up to than pretend away), but he portrays the events and personalities rather well. I read it a good while ago, but I remember wanting greater attention to things that would render motives for the coup more understandable than simple greed or imperialist exploitation:
1) The Cold War and European context, wherein the US was struggling to keep Britain and most of Europe from collapsing economically and drifting into the Soviet sphere(much of the US relationship in the Middle East, and influence in Europe, was built to serve a policy of guaranteeing “cheap” energy supplies to European allies);
2) The difficulties the US had in pushing the Soviet Union out of northern Iran after WWII, and the history of Soviet attempts to “Bolshevize” Iran, all the way back to the early 1920’s (and Russian imperial adventures before that). What would a Soviet Iran have been like for its people?
3) Mossadegh’s overtures to Soviet oil interests. I suspect that Mossadegh meant to merely play on US fears of Soviet entry, and to make a point about that Iran would make decisions about Iran’s natural resources. But in the Cold War atmosphere, and given his mercurial nature, was the US prepared to gamble that M. could “handle” the Soviets once they got their foot in the door? Perhaps I give the CIA too much credit, but I have always wanted to hear much more about the substance of M’s dealings with the Soviets.