1) Mohammed did a great service to his times and lands by moving the local alphas from capricious to ruled by covenant ( the Koran)
2) that unleashed a lot of social energy for the lands of scarcity for many centuries
3) the local alpha is often the mullah
4) Mullahs are involved in resource allocation decisions from strong to weak and to expand the pie at the water hole they lead.
5) In a complex society resource allocation decisions are hard and rewards delayed and not local. All the issues Iran faces ( water, food, electrical, oil, gas) require allocation effectiveness.
6) I believe this weakness in Irans core is one reason they overthrew Mosedegh and constantly revolt and it will hold their entry into the modern world back for a long time
gotta go now
The only critique I'd add here is that expecting a response in the Â
in the users section if you want to see if he's been here.
That works if he is signed in. Lurking while not signed in does not show up. However as Greg noted it did lead this vtime to b the Taylor Swift thread.
many have noted that Iran has many people not in tune with the clerics and the clerics seem to span a wide range from fundamentalist and fierce to moderate and more inclined to let the state be the state and they tend to the faith of the believers.
There is a reason for that and it is both interesting and important:
Irans conversion to Islam was for many centuries one of the most lukewarm for most of Iran self identified as Persian and unlike the desert people of Arabia...they had a great culture. As a result for example, Islam was not the national religion until the 16th century
What happened in the 16th Century
The Safavids.
The Safavid dynasty was not Iranian, they were from Lebanon. The Safavids were radical Shia, and upon their occupation they imported a group of Shia clerics, olima, from Lebanon -- hence the connection of Iranian Shia establishment with the Hizb’allah -- including the author of the rule of Jurisprudents, meaning the god-given rule of clerics, that Khomeini adopted 300 years later and implemented in Iran again in 1979.
The imported Shiite establishment overrode the Iranian culture and civilization of human rights, equal rights of women, freedom of worship and respect for all, dismissing it as pagan and enforcing a new culture of Islamic Sharia laws written by Madjlesi.
Half of the Shia Clerical establishment never considered themselves Iranian, as they are rooted in Lebanon and have kept the ties by intermarriage. In 1979, when asked Ayatollah Khomeini about his feelings going back to Iran after all these years, Khomeini responded that Iran is not important, it is only a source and a base to establish his Islamic foundation to spread in the region.
What did the mullahs of this branch of Islam from Lebanon believe in?
Broadening their focus to economic life. Tightly focusing on the complete education and health and charity of the poorest people and insuring their complete loyalty, forming guards, gangs or militia and aggression.
Hezbollah is a direct follower of these tenents. as Is half of the clerical population of Iran. Lebanon influenced Iranian fundamentalism not the other way around. Hezbollah is not new. It is 500 years old.
and the use of inner city poor fused into weapons when economic freedom and a voice over resources of the mullahs is threatened by the state is a tenant of this Lebanese branch of Islams development.
The next contextual subjects we need to visit to understand is Iran as a colony. And how the radical branch of mullahs handled disputes over economics and disputes with the state...far far before Mosedegh or 1979. Or the years since
RE: its unclear to me why BBI swollows Bill2's unreferenced and Â
But in winning this round, he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's a cowardly troll. People like radar besmirch the character of their betters because they possess none themselves.
Also when I am done there are pieces to footnote as they are singular sources ( meaning if you don't know where to look it's not like you will find it confirmed multiple places. This to me is always the weakest part of controversial recent history. Spin has been around since the dawn of humankind but it's an art form recently. I raced though the safavids for iran's many beliefs are also sourced in the challenges of being a colony and the challenge of modernity
your last point is worthy - chris is not worthy of a response on any level -- better to ignore him and thereby treat him as totally irrelevant -- because that is what he is
never-the-less -- I thoroughly enjoyed reading your eviseration of him -- it was AweSomE!!!!!
Also when I am done there are pieces to footnote as they are singular sources ( meaning if you don't know where to look it's not like you will find it confirmed multiple places. This to me is always the weakest part of controversial recent history. Spin has been around since the dawn of humankind but it's an art form recently. I raced though the safavids for iran's many beliefs are also sourced in the challenges of being a colony and the challenge of modernity
Many of us remember 1979. All of us remember the rhetoric. nothing the military industrial complex likes or the Israeli lobby or the Sunni lobby or the oil lobby likes more than scowling dark faces of the hyper fierce Iranian leaders.
Actually their track record is worse than France. Since the 12th century:
Genghis Khan went all out Genghis on Iran....sending night terrors down through the ages. Iran was the nation that was available when he got really irritable. iran tried to sue for peace but the Khan killed every diplomat on every mission and sent the heads back. He no longer gave cities a choice of living if they surrendered on day one.
then the Ottomans kicked butt despite sending a much smaller Army
then the Russians shrunk Iranian lands four times in four wars. each time Iran paid more to placate them. The last two they paid Russias cost to whip them
in between an Afghan warlord marched west and took over for a few years.
then Russia came from the north and the Brits came from the south and established two slave colonies.
Saddam with 25% of the population fought them to a standstill.
We dropped in to the left and the right for a few years. while owning their shipping channel. Meanwhile Russia took some of their Caspian sea fields and the way to ship the oil north.
Remember 300 Greeks stopped these guys. Alexander whipped them in battle after battle when he was 30% of their size.
They don't remember winning. So part of their fierce paranoia and attachment to defending themselves via a bomb is from national shame.
And of all the nations with colonies...the Brits usually leave the most administrative systems and practices and an education system and generally were the most enlightened of the colonial powers. With one exception....Iran.
Now lets turn to a post about how the mullahs handled the growing challenge of modernity in the 19th and 20th Century...
The Shah the Brits held in place in the 1880-1995 period was forced to almost literally auction off the nation to Brit businessmen in embarrassing licenses, allowances, permissions and out right sales. The Brits bought roads, telegraph lines, food concessions and on and on.
The Iranian were helpless to stop the public humiliation of foreigners buying up place after place...until the Shah at the time sold the tobacco concession...throwing 200,000 workers into turmoil. ( and many mullahs who had "investments" in the tobacco farms, transport, production and selling).
to cut to the chase, the local mullahs, working poor and merchants slowly escalated the street protests and expanded the protestors to include students. eventually the Grand Ayatollah issued a fatwa against smoking. Which the nation heeded. The Brits and Shah were forced to backtrack.
It was the first victory against any outsiders and the Shah in centuries.
And the lessons it taught the people is that only the mullahs stood up. And the mullahs learned that street protests by ruffians and students and the younger mullahs worked. And they learned that they alone amongst the previously wealthy could use religion and the inner city poor they tended to win concessions and gain economic power.
Hmm...1891....a pattern emerges?
The next crisis was far larger...the Constitutional Crisis of 1907
the Mullahs, the bazarr workers and some young radicals wanted a constitution to have a say in the wholesale looting of the British companies in general but especially in Oil.
I will let anyone who wishes to read this part of Iranian history on their own.
Note two things....the street gangs, the mullahs, the students, the fatwas.
and note the names of the Ayatollahs and more prominent mullahs. those name you will hear again as the sons fought Mosadegh and the grandsons the 1979 Revolution.
If you read the lives of some of the prominent Mullahs you will read many had parents or grandparents killed or publically executed by the powers than be and you will see plenty of children and grandchildren who are now in charge of significant money making opportunities and also in the loose collection called a "government"
Kashani, Behbanni, Khomeni. All lost fathers to the shah of that time. Some lost children once they were grown emerging mullahs.
Blood feuds and honor, screams about the Vig. Sound familiar?
Next we will finally fast forward to Mosadegh.
Btw, mullahs are fierce, willfull, passionate and many are mad bad and dangerous to know.
Btw, many Persian women are fierce, willful, passionate and many are mad bad and dangerous to know.
But I won't cite how I would know that...
Bill, your thoughts are reasonable and informative Â
There was a range of mullah reactions to the Constitution and post Constitutional revolution. The idea of curbing the feudal system, the foreign looting of the country and the Shah of the Qafar dynasty was a desired goal. But the inheritors of the Safvids school of fundamentalism were starting to promote the idea that the real solution was return to sharia law and rule by the mullahs.
A steady diet of taxes and protests and fights between the police of the feudals and Shah and the mullahs and their followers continued. Into the fray came the trade unionists and then in the 1920’s the communists.
By the 1950’s many mullahs have grandfathers and fathers who were murdered or executed. As you will see, the major players in 1953 and 1979 were children when their fathers were killed for pursuing what the mullahs thought was Allahs work.
In 1921, a mullah was dragged out of his house and killed in front of his son by the officials of the Shah. Don Cicci got the father. He got Paulo. He got the wife. He missed 9 year old Vito Andolini. The Shahs troops left the sobbing family…and the 9 year old named Ruhollah.
As in Ruhollah Khomeini.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Game on.
In 1922, a scion of a feudal family, General Reza Khan Pahlevi, made a deal with the Russian Cossacks and armed with that division of Cossacks, staged a coup and had himself named Prime Minister.
At last the old Shah of the Qafars was gone and the new Shah seemed interested in some form of constitutional process. He made five big mistakes:
1) He built a major railroad and turned over construction to the Russians and the Brits with incredible sweetheart deals.
2) He financed it by taxes on sugar, tobacco and alcohol. You know…the industries that fed the mullahs and their followers.
3) He thought the mullahs with their old beliefs and anti modern backwardness and money from grubby low profit businesses and no army were impotent.
That’s a mistake that the Russians, feudals, monarchists, constitutional moderates, Communists, Russians and Brits all made as well.
4)He became close to the Germans. Theoretically not the Russians or the Brits. Technologically advanced. Eager to “help” He decided to stay neutral when the war started.
5)WWII started and the Russians simply walked over their border and the Brits landed by sea.
In 1941 he was forced to turn over the throne to his son and go into exile.
The war ends. Oil becomes even more important. The Brits withdraw their troops as do the Russians but the Brit oil interests and the new Shah start all over as the feudal players had since 1880.
By now the communists are the worlds largest communist Party…the Tudeh.
But the mullahs did not weaken or fade away. They now started to play tougher.
The two main Ayatollahs were Ayatollah Behabanni and Ayatollah Kashani.
In the next tier down were two younger mullahs. Rulhollah Khomeini and Navab Safavi.
Safavi clearly was the leader of the fundamentalist activist arm of the movement ( the Fadayan) but he and Khomeini were side by side and the degree of Khomeini’s active involvement in the actual assassinations to follow is unclear. What is clear is that he issued the fatwas and edicts that sanctioned the assassinations squads that furthered the mullahs causes over the next ten years…including the ones key to the destruction of Mossadeghs attempts to rule as a constitutional elected nationalist
its out of the timeline but hard to cover interwoven into the story...yet it is important:
There were many assassinations of lower level representatives, journalists on the wrong side, Tudah officials and foreigners. The overall effect was great fear amongst the feudal families and those who tried to be constitutionalists. Meanwhile some Ayatollahs played footsie with the Shah and some with the constitutionalists. It was hard to know where the mullahs really stood. They switched side at the slightest mistake to their interests and they bore grudges. For a long time.
But the first major disruptive assassination was of a nationalist, anti-clerical author named Ahmad Kasravi, who was shot and killed in 1946. Kasravi was definitely a target of Khomeini. He left letters and the fatwa he issued around and the Shahs people brought him in for questioning.
Hussein Emami, the assassin and a founding member of the Fadayan, was promptly arrested and sentenced to death for the crime. Kashani and Khomeini and many of the Shia clergy pressured the Shah to give Emami a pardon, taking advantage of the Shah's political difficulties — such as the occupation of Azerbaijan province by Soviet troops — at that time.
In 1949, the group killed court minister (and former prime minister) Abdolhossein Hazhir.
On 7 March 1951, the Prime Minister Haj-Ali Razmara was assassinated, in retaliation for his advice against nationalizing the oil industry.
Three weeks later the Education and Culture Minister Ahmad Zangeneh was assassinated by the group.
Later in 1951, the Fadayan made an attempt on the life of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Although the Fadayan strongly supported the nationalization of Iran's foreign-owned oil industry, they turned against the leader of the nationalization movement, Mohammad Mossadeq, when he became prime minister, because of his refusal to implement the sharia law and appoint strict Islamists to high positions.
Another assassination attempt on 15 February 1952 badly wounded Hossein Fatemi, Mosaddeq's foreign minister.
In 1955, Navab Safavi was finally executed. The group continued on.
Next they assassinated Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour in 1965.
Mansour is reported to have been "tried" by a secret Islamic court made up of Khomeini followers Morteza Motahhari and Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti and sentenced to death "on a charge of `warring on Allah”.
Remember those names….they were prominent before and after the revolution of 1979.
During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Fadayan members served as foot soldiers for Khomeini.
Many of its members went on to serve in the Islamic Republic regime.
Lets clear up all the remaining major strands that allow us to put the pieces together on the overthrow of Mosedegh,
once again, imho, understanding the what why and how of the 1953 plot is essential to beginning to understand Iran.
What we need to do to finish covering the Fedayan is to note that they published a lot of journals and newspapers. Why is that important?
As far back as 1946, they blamed the US or British spys and agents for the assassinations they themselves committed.
Why? Because the Brits were slowly turning their relations with the feudal families over to the Americans. When the coup took place the stories that the US was behind it came from Fedayan publications.
Why? To cover the tracks of the mullahs in case the coup failed and from the Shah in case it succeeded. Its easily verified as a source. Get chris r on the case. I first heard it from Iranian exiles but it turned out to be valid.
Another important piece of the puzzle is provided by looking at the life and times and role of the Tehran based Ayatollah. As you can see now going back to the 1891 revolts about tobacco, the Ayatollah in Tehran was vital to the mullah playbook for he was emeshed in and economically central to the bazzar merchants, the street gangs and much of Tehran University and the students there.
For several centuries that role was often played by the Bebahanni family of mullahs. Often famous scholars but some generations were more street focused. They came from the line of fundamentalists who first came from Lebanon in 1500Ad.
Behbahani assisted his father in his political activities during the Constitutional Revolution. When his father was assassinated in July 1910, he inherited his great influence in the capital.
After WWII he emerged as one of the most influential politically involved mullahs. At first, he expresed his support for the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry brought about by Moá¹£adeqh. But in early 1953, he adopted an increasingly hostile stance. He opposed plans for calling a referendum which would vest emergency powers in Mosadegh and threatened to mobilize against him.
In August 1953 displaced Behbahani pulled out the clerical students and the bazzar workers and the street gangs Using Mullah playbook 101 ( Omaha, Omaha).
He was the one who distributed money to the gangs and bazzar merchants on behalf of the plotters, money received from Kermit Roosevelt and known around town as “Behbahani dollars”. We know this from Iranian publications, letters and CIA reports by Roosevelt.
Behbahanî also facilitated the coup by ordering via fatwa his followers into the Tehran streets at the time of its occurrence. Faced with a choice between the continuation of Moá¹£adeqh’s premiership and the return of the shah from his exile, Behbahanî clearly preferred the latter alternative from fear that Moá¹£adeqh’s administration would soon yield to rule by the Tudeh Party.
Almost predictably, Behbahani’s relations with the Pahlevi regime began to sour in 1959. The major issue that turned Behbahani against the government was the planned redistribution of land. Behbahani published an open letter denouncing the limitation of landed holdings as contrary to Islamic law. Thereafter his relations with the government continually declined, to the point that in early 1962 he sent a letter to the shah denouncing the repression of Bebahani’s own call for Tehran demonstrations in support of free elections to overthrow the Shah.
Just so you get a flavor for how life works…post 1979, Behbahani’s two sons now run the import export licensing agency.
So ironically with the lifting of the sanctions….once again America provides “Behabanni Dollars”.
Tomorrow, we will run into the other important right out of central casting Ayatollah at the time of the coup….Ayatollah Kashani.
During WWII, the Tudeh, aided by the Russians grew tremendously and were the unions in just about every industry especially the labor part of the Oil Industry. The degree the mullahs were threatened as a power base on the everyday economic ground and in the halls of power shrunk tremendously during the war. And the consent of the governed freedom to manuever that the feudals enjoyed prior to the war shrunk.
But as we have seen the feudals were extremely tone deaf especially when it came to striking deals with foreigners. Into this mix came four relevant facts anyone trying to understand 1953 should know:
1) The Americans showed up during WWII. And after WWII without any pressure they kept their WWII promises and left as they had promised. This amazed almost all factions in Iran.
2) The Russians did not. The Brits did not.
3) The Shah and many but not all of the 16 post war Prime Ministers up to 1953 went right back to striking deals with the ex colonial powers. Yes I said 16 Prime Ministers from 1943 to 1953.
4)Those who had a nationalist streak in the ME noticed one thing more than any other….The way American companies and the American nation did business at a time no other colonial power ever did…not the Russians, the French, the Spanish, the Italians or the Germans or the Dutch or the Belgians.
Lets look at this when it comes to oil. The Saudi King controlled the rights to drill. And drilling was expensive and costly and guess work. It was risky. And getting to the surface and to markets from place like the Saudi desert was a monumental task to consider. To get away from the Europeans the House of Saud had reached out to meet a legend they heard of…one John D Rockefeller.
They formed a company as partners. This was unheard of to the ME. They bore the costs for exploration so the percent of the oil if found was high for Standard Oil. But lower than any other nations deal from any other power. Notice the company not the US nation made a deal. By terms of the deal the Americans started to train actual Saudis in the industry rather then keep them out of it as if it was a secret. And they kept their word. That was in 1937, the war delayed progress. But by 1950 the extent of Saudi oil was legendary. And you know what the Americans did? When asked the first time they cut a breakthrough deal …a fifty fifty deal to share people, knowledge, expenses and profits. That stood the test of time and was the leading best deal any nation ever got until 1988.
The other ME nations were stunned and mad that any of them would grant any less to any foreigner.
In the early 1950s Iran actually looked up to the Americans. I repeat, we were idealized by most factions of Iran and that grew when Truman pressured the soviets to leave (of course that was about our fears of communist takeover) Iran.
Sentiment for nationalization of Iran's oil industry grew. From all factions of the nation except the royalists and feudals, In November 1950, the committee concerned with oil matters, headed by Mosaddeq, rejected a draft agreement from the Brits which offered the government slightly improved terms. These terms did not include the fifty-fifty profit-sharing provision that the Americans had given the Saudis.
Subsequent negotiations were unsuccessful because the Shah and the feudal families failed to persuade the oil company of the strength of nationalist feeling in the country.
When finally offered fifty-fifty profit-sharing in February 1951, sentiment for nationalization of the oil industry had become too widespread.
The Prime Minister at the time, Razmara, advised against nationalization on technical grounds.
He was assassinated by the Fadayan arm of the mullahs on March 1st 1951. On March 15, the parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry.
In April the Shah yielded to demonstrations in the Tehran streets by the bazzar and street gangs of Bebahanni and Kashani by naming Mosaddeq prime minister. This was important because the Ayaollahs and mullahs expected reciprocation on their issues from Mosedegh.
Instead, Mosadegh got closer to and named more Tudeh to his cabinet and into Parliment because he needed offsets to the feudals and did not like the mullahs or religion in the affairs of state. That move was a big problem to the Dulles brothers and the USA overall.
And it illustrates a huge weakness of Mosadegh. He was more tone deaf than the feudals. He was like Jimmy Carter. Moralistic and rigid. Even if he did not like them on principal...the mullahs had proven to be the force of consequence at turning points and crisis since 1880. And being tone deaf to buying off the “moderate mullahs” ( meaning the more concerned with their vig) via concessions to their economic interests left the fundamentalist wing issues free to find common ground in the ire of the moderate mullahs and Ayatollahs.
The final stages of all around stupid human not listening to the other guy was set in motion. by the time its done we will conclude than no one played smart or long or wise. even the US. Except for one faction....the Mullahs. They never pretended to listen. By this time the majority of mullahs had one objective, short term tactics evolve but to them, the results were obvious...only a return to a mullah led world would work. and in the universities growing new mullahs at Qom and Najaf....that conclusion began to develop a new generation of baby boomer mullahs who would arrive into shoulder against the wheel in ....oh about 1980
There is a guy name Mao who threw out the old world order in 1949 and sent troops into Korea to defeat us.
There is the McCarthy thing wreaking havoc on cabinet and military morale.
Some Shah guy is weak and not in control as his country rots and the brits showing the second tier talent drain post WWI is still haunting progress as there are simply to many Montgomerys. Their withdrawl from colonialism is proving a problem in Eygpt, India, this new thing called Pakistan and all over Africa and the ME and this place called Iran which is a direct southern shot for the Soviets for their long desired warm water port.
Reluctantly, we have to do something to bolster this iran place...way too many more important priorities. I mean I no sooner hear out the CIA on Iran and next on m meeting schedule is an update on problems in Cuba? when will it end?
So if you go look at the record pre mid year 1953, we have a weak Shah and his useless impotent feudal families on one side and a possible ally in the army and also the mullahs who have followers amongst the ordinary people and who also hate the communists. Those are our only allies and this Prime Minister giving the Brits derived fits seems to be a pro communist sympathizer.
So yeah Kermit go talk to the Shah and this Army guy. they have already indicated they are willing to move so we at least have some allies willing to start the change. And take the money you need to pay people who come forward. All these places are so corrupt. Its like when we needed cooperation in Naples and Sicily and had to pay shits like Luciano the pimp to make the right introductions
Kermit goes over there and just concentrates on meeting Zahedi and Shahboy as they requested. Their seconds tell him they hope to do it by decree but just in case have reached out when the time comes if it ever gets to that and a coup or fight against the communists. So we have a few army units and some preachers who will tell the faithful to be pro Army. Yeah the priests over their got newspapers and they slime us and blame us for things they actually do....but that's to escape retribution. They are killing off Tudeh on a weekly basis so what do we care who they use to deflect investigation?
Its reading the pre 1953 CIA material not the post 1953 claiming credit for a role larger than we played that is most convincing as to whom is zooming who before and during the coup.
To me the coup is a final act in a long running play. Mosedegh was a dead man walking since 1951. Only the timing and the pretext remains unknown. Guy is probably lasting this long cause he has the Brits to demonize to the domestic audience.
All the best Kermit...don't do anything rash...just make it easier for them to do what they are going to do anyway. Sooner we help it happen before the Communists and Soviets get stronger from this bumbling the better. I don't want to be on TV at some senate hearing asking "who lost Iran?"
Well someone poked the bear ... and then the bear gave us a treatise in 3 acts on the subject.
It's too damn humid in NYC today to sit inside and read all of this, but I will bookmark for my next flight.
Hope you are well Bill and thanks for laying this all out, a subject I've long been interested in but too overwhelming to bite into. This is an outstanding starting point, as always.
the next time someone says to you that we overthrew Mossedegh and changed the course of ME history for which the Iranians rightfully hate us....remember the following quote:
"Mossadegh was not a Muslim and I said he will be slapped and it was not long after that he was slapped in the 1953 coup. and if he had lasted he would have slapped Islam"
...Ayatollah Khomeni.
"Yesterday, Tehran shook under the feet of anti foreign Muslims. Mossedegh, the bloodthirsty old ghoul, resigned under the blows from the Muslims. All government centers were seized by the Muslims and the Army of Islam"
...Newspaper of the Fedayan the day after Mossdegh resigned.
Sure sounds like a bunch of people mad we took away their beloved Mossedegh. Sure sounds like something we did that really hurt them deeply
Ayatollah Kashani was the son of an Ayatollah that was killed by the British in 1870.
Even though Kashani publicly supported Mosadegh their relations were problematic from the very beginning. As early as November 1951, the British Embassy reported that Kashani was so disgruntled with Mosadegh that he had put out "feelers" in many directions, including the U.S. Embassy. His main thesis is the danger of communism and the need for immediate American aid.
Kashani's opposition came into the open by mid-1953 once Mosadegh sent a referendum to dissolve Parliament, drafted an electoral bill enfranchising women, tended to favor state enterprises over the bazaar, refused to ban alcohol, and declined amnesty to assassins from the Fedayan.
The awarding of government contracts, also played a role. Kashani's two sons had set up a lucrative business buying and selling import licenses for prohibited goods using their father's threats.
By mid-1953, before Kermit got even sent to Iran, Kashani was urging the bazaars to support General Zahedi, the nominal leader of the prospective coup. He also praised the shah for being "young," "kindhearted," and highly "popular." Kashani's closest mullahs support in Parliament denounced Mosadegh as a dictator worse than Hitler and a Socialist more extreme than Stalin.
On the shah's triumphant return the Fedayan newspaper hailed the coup as a "holy uprising," and praised the shah as the world's Muslim hero. Not surprisingly, Navab Safavi, their leader, was promptly released from prison and permitted to go on a world tour.
Notice the only people in this narrative who understand you cant let Vito live are the mullahs?
In retaliation and to gain leverage in the talks, Britain imposed a worldwide embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil and froze Iran's sterling assets and banned export of goods to Iran. But under American pressure, the Brits improved its offer to Iran. But once again it was too little and too late and freedom to maneuver inside Iran was lost. By the time a decent offer arrived, anti-British feeling, agitation by radical mullah elements, over promising by Mosadegh, the storm of even lower level assassinations and intimidations meant that only Iran's maximum demands were acceptable.
The economy began to suffer from the loss of foreign exchange and oil revenues. Meanwhile, Mosadegh's stacking the parliament with Tudah and his intransigence on the oil issue were creating friction between the prime minister and the shah. In the summer of 1952, the shah refused the prime minister's demand for the power to appoint the minister of war (and, by implication, to control the armed forces).
Mosadegh resigned. Hoping for concessions from Mosedagh if he returned to power ….three days of rioting organized by the mullahs followed, and the shah was forced to reappoint Mosadeqh to head the government.
But Ayatollah Kashani and Bebahanni did not get any thanks, concessions or respect from Mosedegh and they turned on him completely and began to take the Tudeh threat to them even more seriously. As domestic conditions deteriorated Mosadeqh grew more inflexible. He demanded full powers in all affairs of government for a six-month period. He also obtained approval for a law to reduce, from six years to two years, the term of the Senate ( sort of like the House of Lords in England) and thus brought about the dissolution of that body.
Mosaddeq's support in the lower house of the Parliament ( traditionally a bastion of mullah allies and mullahs) was dwindling so the prime minister proposed to dissolve Parliament entirely and then claimed a secretly counted massive vote in favor of the proposal, and dissolved the legislative body. By this time the treats of assassination by the Fedayan were so strong that he and his team was a virtual prisoner in his own family compound.
Initially pro Mossedegh, now the United States began to conclude that no reasonable compromise with Mosadegh was possible and that, by working with the Toudeh, Mosadegh was increasing the chances of a communist-inspired takeover. In June 1953, the Eisenhower administration approved a plan to allow Kermit Roosevelt to Iran to coordinate plans with the shah, the mullahs and the Iranian military.
In accord with the plan, on August 13 the shah appointed Zahedi prime minister to replace Mosadegh. Who refused to step down and arrested the emissary from the Shahs office. The shah fled the country, and Zahedi went into hiding.
But that caused the mullahs to go into all out overdrive. After four days of non stop rioting, army units, students and street crowds defeated Mosadeghs Tudeh led street forces. The shah returned to the country. Hundreds of Tudeh Party officers and political activists were arrested and sentenced to death.
So now lets step back and in the next post examine the beyond wrongheaded and simplistic claim that we overthrew a popular Prime Minister against popular will so we could get oil and the canard which follows….our involvement is what caused the 1979 Revolution.
Maybe before we do that we should spend time on the leading Ayatollah of the time…Kashani. That lets view all of the actions of all the major players….and by extension how small a role we played. Like idiots, we gave out some small amount of dollars that they spread to their own street gangs called “Bebahanni Dollars”
Like a clown, the dumb ass americans spent on what was going to happen anyway….and served as the patsy covering the mullahs tracks…in the mullahs own propaganda newspapers.
We did not kill anyone. We sent no weapons. We spoke to the Shah and told him we wanted him to rule? Duh…So did he? We told an Army General who was already appointed Prime Minister but fled before we got there that…we liked him? We met mullahs and asked how can we spend and they told us? Pretty leading edge CIA mojo working on this case.
This is leading a coup? Uh…or is this is us in the way back seats riding the train others loaded, filled, steered and drove? And telling fish tales back home on Capitol Hill to justify more budget?
In the years which followed the mullahs protested and Kashani, Bebhanni and Khomeini were exiled or under house arrest. Mullahs feeding Tudeh to SAVAK was a multi decade sport until they were wiped out. No Don Cicci mistakes….all of them and often their families…one of the biggest losses of life and defeats the Communist movement ever suffered.
Lets wrap up in a few more posts tomorrow. No reason BBI has to be repeating age old propaganda they asked us to swallow as if we fell off the turnip truck yesterday.
It is true that we had American companies in iran and iranian oil during the post Mossadegh Shah era. Gas was 35 cents a gallon and global production easily exceeded demand until the late 1990s. Speculation on price barely affected or added to the price. American oil companies were there at global standard contracts for the time and largely because the Britt were anathema in iran after 1953.
So we did not play a part because of oil. We played a part because of the Soviets and the communists.
We played the tiniest and stupidest of roles and late and comedic in 1953.
Iran had a very short intro into the Industrial Revolution. Times of change challenge all factions in a society.
Iranian and Shia mullahs are not priests or preachers or rabbis. They are one of the alphas of their world. It is often the family business. Many mullahs are quite commercial. Many serve. Some are scholars. Some are mild.
But starting in 1880 there was a steel cage match of one hundred years duration. Feudal lords, nationalists, merchants, poor people, communists, royalists, old shah dynasty, new shah dynasty, military leaders, Germany England and Russia and America all entered the ring.
So did the mullahs. At the end of the 99th year the mullahs won by knockout.
The tactics in a crisis never ever varied. The tactics to instruct in between never varied.
The goal never varied.
So when the students protested the Shah in 1979 the media idiots and most Americans were sympathetic to anyone who told truth to power and assumed like we often do that the result of the process would be a more moderate and open society.
Later the poor people took to the streets.
We never understood it was an old play book and foreigners were always a rallying cry.
Of all the players the mullahs get credit in their land for standing up for Iran free of outsiders. When time does forget and their version of the greatest generation no longer gets credit and their failings become a bigger part of the way they are judged...we shall see...Meanwhile no one in Iran knows a different way.
That's who they are. They are not going to be allies of anyone outside iran. Some will be pan Shia but thats some. it's an impulse of some and not the nation. Meanwhile the nation has huge internal problems. But defending themselves from outsiders? The mullahs did that and while Russia sits north and America spent a decade to the left and right and south....no one dared come into the heartland and if it takes the mullahs 99 years...they will have a bomb to defend themselves.
Unknowing self flagellation that we caused it is beyond making the narrative of the world about us. ..it's made up.
what would typically get from a sports site, thank you.
When you find some time, if you want to do a thing on Yemen, which is another inexplicable area to most of us, I am sure it would be well received.
I, like most of us, fail to understand the whole Iran/Yemen tie in, and the 'who does what' right now there is also really a mystery as to - what, if anything, our (USA) role is or should be.
Thanks Don. Not a place that looks like its going to change anytime soon and not a place we can do much....imho.
savant....don't know much about Yemen...never thought there was much to know.
Reminds me of the Kiowa, Comanche, Pawnees, Apache, and Southern Cheyene all packed in west of the Mississippi and pushed down from the good land where the buffalo roam by the more powerful Sauds...I mean Souix.
Saudis make sure it stays weak....the old Great Game Brit used to play with India, Pakistan, Afghan and Russia. Shia makes sure they don't fade away. its a six top family game and some outlaws in a godforsaken place. imho
the Sioux were numerically superior to the Comanche Â
But I thought none of the other tribes were very successful against them in war, at least from the point when the Comanche developed their peerless horsemanship that far surpassed anything the other Plains tribes were capable of.
basically saying that it is so complex over there, everyone hedging, everyone 'saying A, hedging B and doing C' (or something) implying that even the friggin Saudis may be hedging a tad with their arch enemies the Iranian Mullahs.
However, the thread has me thinking that I had underestimated the Shiite Iranian/Lebanese Mullahs in their endurance and their never ending duplicity.
Of course, as an American, my (naïve?) instinct is that such duplicity is ultimately self defeating, I mean, how lovely can the end resulting culture ever be in such a world?
However, I do feel somewhat sharper on the subject now having read this.
in the history of the western hemisphere before the invention of the revolver and the repeating rifle. They were probably the equal of the Mongols in this regard, though not in any others.
Btw, add me to the list of thank you's for your contribution to this thread. I haven't read it all yet, but I copied and pasted it to a doc on my hard drive and will be referring to it repeatedly in future discussions about Iran.
1) Mohammed did a great service to his times and lands by moving the local alphas from capricious to ruled by covenant ( the Koran)
2) that unleashed a lot of social energy for the lands of scarcity for many centuries
3) the local alpha is often the mullah
4) Mullahs are involved in resource allocation decisions from strong to weak and to expand the pie at the water hole they lead.
5) In a complex society resource allocation decisions are hard and rewards delayed and not local. All the issues Iran faces ( water, food, electrical, oil, gas) require allocation effectiveness.
6) I believe this weakness in Irans core is one reason they overthrew Mosedegh and constantly revolt and it will hold their entry into the modern world back for a long time
gotta go now
Otherwise, this was entertaining on many levels.
Otherwise, this was entertaining on many levels.
Fair enough, but he's been here this morning. I know, he's researching.
Quote:
wee hours of the morning is probably unrealistic -- radar was likely sleeping after another of his hit and run posts.
Otherwise, this was entertaining on many levels.
Fair enough, but he's been here this morning. I know, he's researching.
Agreed, once the sun came back up, it then becomes realistic to expect some kind of response.
Quote:
wee hours of the morning is probably unrealistic -- radar was likely sleeping after another of his hit and run posts.
Otherwise, this was entertaining on many levels.
Fair enough, but he's been here this morning. I know, he's researching.
Bill, you've been a gentleman on this site for so long and an example of how we should treat each other. Everyone is entitled to one of those days.
As for radar, I eagerly await is documented and sourced assessment.
There is a reason for that and it is both interesting and important:
Irans conversion to Islam was for many centuries one of the most lukewarm for most of Iran self identified as Persian and unlike the desert people of Arabia...they had a great culture. As a result for example, Islam was not the national religion until the 16th century
What happened in the 16th Century
The Safavids.
The Safavid dynasty was not Iranian, they were from Lebanon. The Safavids were radical Shia, and upon their occupation they imported a group of Shia clerics, olima, from Lebanon -- hence the connection of Iranian Shia establishment with the Hizb’allah -- including the author of the rule of Jurisprudents, meaning the god-given rule of clerics, that Khomeini adopted 300 years later and implemented in Iran again in 1979.
The imported Shiite establishment overrode the Iranian culture and civilization of human rights, equal rights of women, freedom of worship and respect for all, dismissing it as pagan and enforcing a new culture of Islamic Sharia laws written by Madjlesi.
Half of the Shia Clerical establishment never considered themselves Iranian, as they are rooted in Lebanon and have kept the ties by intermarriage. In 1979, when asked Ayatollah Khomeini about his feelings going back to Iran after all these years, Khomeini responded that Iran is not important, it is only a source and a base to establish his Islamic foundation to spread in the region.
What did the mullahs of this branch of Islam from Lebanon believe in?
Broadening their focus to economic life. Tightly focusing on the complete education and health and charity of the poorest people and insuring their complete loyalty, forming guards, gangs or militia and aggression.
Hezbollah is a direct follower of these tenents. as Is half of the clerical population of Iran. Lebanon influenced Iranian fundamentalism not the other way around. Hezbollah is not new. It is 500 years old.
and the use of inner city poor fused into weapons when economic freedom and a voice over resources of the mullahs is threatened by the state is a tenant of this Lebanese branch of Islams development.
The next contextual subjects we need to visit to understand is Iran as a colony. And how the radical branch of mullahs handled disputes over economics and disputes with the state...far far before Mosedegh or 1979. Or the years since
Less surprisingly, it's very clear why no one buys yours.
But in winning this round, he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's a cowardly troll. People like radar besmirch the character of their betters because they possess none themselves.
Also when I am done there are pieces to footnote as they are singular sources ( meaning if you don't know where to look it's not like you will find it confirmed multiple places. This to me is always the weakest part of controversial recent history. Spin has been around since the dawn of humankind but it's an art form recently. I raced though the safavids for iran's many beliefs are also sourced in the challenges of being a colony and the challenge of modernity
never-the-less -- I thoroughly enjoyed reading your eviseration of him -- it was AweSomE!!!!!
Also when I am done there are pieces to footnote as they are singular sources ( meaning if you don't know where to look it's not like you will find it confirmed multiple places. This to me is always the weakest part of controversial recent history. Spin has been around since the dawn of humankind but it's an art form recently. I raced though the safavids for iran's many beliefs are also sourced in the challenges of being a colony and the challenge of modernity
Actually their track record is worse than France. Since the 12th century:
Genghis Khan went all out Genghis on Iran....sending night terrors down through the ages. Iran was the nation that was available when he got really irritable. iran tried to sue for peace but the Khan killed every diplomat on every mission and sent the heads back. He no longer gave cities a choice of living if they surrendered on day one.
then the Ottomans kicked butt despite sending a much smaller Army
then the Russians shrunk Iranian lands four times in four wars. each time Iran paid more to placate them. The last two they paid Russias cost to whip them
in between an Afghan warlord marched west and took over for a few years.
then Russia came from the north and the Brits came from the south and established two slave colonies.
Saddam with 25% of the population fought them to a standstill.
We dropped in to the left and the right for a few years. while owning their shipping channel. Meanwhile Russia took some of their Caspian sea fields and the way to ship the oil north.
Remember 300 Greeks stopped these guys. Alexander whipped them in battle after battle when he was 30% of their size.
They don't remember winning. So part of their fierce paranoia and attachment to defending themselves via a bomb is from national shame.
And of all the nations with colonies...the Brits usually leave the most administrative systems and practices and an education system and generally were the most enlightened of the colonial powers. With one exception....Iran.
Now lets turn to a post about how the mullahs handled the growing challenge of modernity in the 19th and 20th Century...
The Iranian were helpless to stop the public humiliation of foreigners buying up place after place...until the Shah at the time sold the tobacco concession...throwing 200,000 workers into turmoil. ( and many mullahs who had "investments" in the tobacco farms, transport, production and selling).
to cut to the chase, the local mullahs, working poor and merchants slowly escalated the street protests and expanded the protestors to include students. eventually the Grand Ayatollah issued a fatwa against smoking. Which the nation heeded. The Brits and Shah were forced to backtrack.
It was the first victory against any outsiders and the Shah in centuries.
And the lessons it taught the people is that only the mullahs stood up. And the mullahs learned that street protests by ruffians and students and the younger mullahs worked. And they learned that they alone amongst the previously wealthy could use religion and the inner city poor they tended to win concessions and gain economic power.
Hmm...1891....a pattern emerges?
The next crisis was far larger...the Constitutional Crisis of 1907
I will let anyone who wishes to read this part of Iranian history on their own.
Note two things....the street gangs, the mullahs, the students, the fatwas.
and note the names of the Ayatollahs and more prominent mullahs. those name you will hear again as the sons fought Mosadegh and the grandsons the 1979 Revolution.
If you read the lives of some of the prominent Mullahs you will read many had parents or grandparents killed or publically executed by the powers than be and you will see plenty of children and grandchildren who are now in charge of significant money making opportunities and also in the loose collection called a "government"
Kashani, Behbanni, Khomeni. All lost fathers to the shah of that time. Some lost children once they were grown emerging mullahs.
Blood feuds and honor, screams about the Vig. Sound familiar?
Next we will finally fast forward to Mosadegh.
Btw, mullahs are fierce, willfull, passionate and many are mad bad and dangerous to know.
Btw, many Persian women are fierce, willful, passionate and many are mad bad and dangerous to know.
But I won't cite how I would know that...
Your posts are extremely enjoyable.
There was a range of mullah reactions to the Constitution and post Constitutional revolution. The idea of curbing the feudal system, the foreign looting of the country and the Shah of the Qafar dynasty was a desired goal. But the inheritors of the Safvids school of fundamentalism were starting to promote the idea that the real solution was return to sharia law and rule by the mullahs.
A steady diet of taxes and protests and fights between the police of the feudals and Shah and the mullahs and their followers continued. Into the fray came the trade unionists and then in the 1920’s the communists.
By the 1950’s many mullahs have grandfathers and fathers who were murdered or executed. As you will see, the major players in 1953 and 1979 were children when their fathers were killed for pursuing what the mullahs thought was Allahs work.
In 1921, a mullah was dragged out of his house and killed in front of his son by the officials of the Shah. Don Cicci got the father. He got Paulo. He got the wife. He missed 9 year old Vito Andolini. The Shahs troops left the sobbing family…and the 9 year old named Ruhollah.
As in Ruhollah Khomeini.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Game on.
In 1922, a scion of a feudal family, General Reza Khan Pahlevi, made a deal with the Russian Cossacks and armed with that division of Cossacks, staged a coup and had himself named Prime Minister.
At last the old Shah of the Qafars was gone and the new Shah seemed interested in some form of constitutional process. He made five big mistakes:
1) He built a major railroad and turned over construction to the Russians and the Brits with incredible sweetheart deals.
2) He financed it by taxes on sugar, tobacco and alcohol. You know…the industries that fed the mullahs and their followers.
3) He thought the mullahs with their old beliefs and anti modern backwardness and money from grubby low profit businesses and no army were impotent.
That’s a mistake that the Russians, feudals, monarchists, constitutional moderates, Communists, Russians and Brits all made as well.
4)He became close to the Germans. Theoretically not the Russians or the Brits. Technologically advanced. Eager to “help” He decided to stay neutral when the war started.
5)WWII started and the Russians simply walked over their border and the Brits landed by sea.
In 1941 he was forced to turn over the throne to his son and go into exile.
The war ends. Oil becomes even more important. The Brits withdraw their troops as do the Russians but the Brit oil interests and the new Shah start all over as the feudal players had since 1880.
By now the communists are the worlds largest communist Party…the Tudeh.
But the mullahs did not weaken or fade away. They now started to play tougher.
The two main Ayatollahs were Ayatollah Behabanni and Ayatollah Kashani.
In the next tier down were two younger mullahs. Rulhollah Khomeini and Navab Safavi.
Safavi clearly was the leader of the fundamentalist activist arm of the movement ( the Fadayan) but he and Khomeini were side by side and the degree of Khomeini’s active involvement in the actual assassinations to follow is unclear. What is clear is that he issued the fatwas and edicts that sanctioned the assassinations squads that furthered the mullahs causes over the next ten years…including the ones key to the destruction of Mossadeghs attempts to rule as a constitutional elected nationalist
There were many assassinations of lower level representatives, journalists on the wrong side, Tudah officials and foreigners. The overall effect was great fear amongst the feudal families and those who tried to be constitutionalists. Meanwhile some Ayatollahs played footsie with the Shah and some with the constitutionalists. It was hard to know where the mullahs really stood. They switched side at the slightest mistake to their interests and they bore grudges. For a long time.
But the first major disruptive assassination was of a nationalist, anti-clerical author named Ahmad Kasravi, who was shot and killed in 1946. Kasravi was definitely a target of Khomeini. He left letters and the fatwa he issued around and the Shahs people brought him in for questioning.
Hussein Emami, the assassin and a founding member of the Fadayan, was promptly arrested and sentenced to death for the crime. Kashani and Khomeini and many of the Shia clergy pressured the Shah to give Emami a pardon, taking advantage of the Shah's political difficulties — such as the occupation of Azerbaijan province by Soviet troops — at that time.
In 1949, the group killed court minister (and former prime minister) Abdolhossein Hazhir.
On 7 March 1951, the Prime Minister Haj-Ali Razmara was assassinated, in retaliation for his advice against nationalizing the oil industry.
Three weeks later the Education and Culture Minister Ahmad Zangeneh was assassinated by the group.
Later in 1951, the Fadayan made an attempt on the life of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Although the Fadayan strongly supported the nationalization of Iran's foreign-owned oil industry, they turned against the leader of the nationalization movement, Mohammad Mossadeq, when he became prime minister, because of his refusal to implement the sharia law and appoint strict Islamists to high positions.
Another assassination attempt on 15 February 1952 badly wounded Hossein Fatemi, Mosaddeq's foreign minister.
In 1955, Navab Safavi was finally executed. The group continued on.
Next they assassinated Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour in 1965.
Mansour is reported to have been "tried" by a secret Islamic court made up of Khomeini followers Morteza Motahhari and Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti and sentenced to death "on a charge of `warring on Allah”.
Remember those names….they were prominent before and after the revolution of 1979.
During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Fadayan members served as foot soldiers for Khomeini.
Many of its members went on to serve in the Islamic Republic regime.
They and their sons still “serve” Allah.
once again, imho, understanding the what why and how of the 1953 plot is essential to beginning to understand Iran.
What we need to do to finish covering the Fedayan is to note that they published a lot of journals and newspapers. Why is that important?
As far back as 1946, they blamed the US or British spys and agents for the assassinations they themselves committed.
Why? Because the Brits were slowly turning their relations with the feudal families over to the Americans. When the coup took place the stories that the US was behind it came from Fedayan publications.
Why? To cover the tracks of the mullahs in case the coup failed and from the Shah in case it succeeded. Its easily verified as a source. Get chris r on the case. I first heard it from Iranian exiles but it turned out to be valid.
Another important piece of the puzzle is provided by looking at the life and times and role of the Tehran based Ayatollah. As you can see now going back to the 1891 revolts about tobacco, the Ayatollah in Tehran was vital to the mullah playbook for he was emeshed in and economically central to the bazzar merchants, the street gangs and much of Tehran University and the students there.
For several centuries that role was often played by the Bebahanni family of mullahs. Often famous scholars but some generations were more street focused. They came from the line of fundamentalists who first came from Lebanon in 1500Ad.
Behbahani assisted his father in his political activities during the Constitutional Revolution. When his father was assassinated in July 1910, he inherited his great influence in the capital.
After WWII he emerged as one of the most influential politically involved mullahs. At first, he expresed his support for the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry brought about by Moá¹£adeqh. But in early 1953, he adopted an increasingly hostile stance. He opposed plans for calling a referendum which would vest emergency powers in Mosadegh and threatened to mobilize against him.
In August 1953 displaced Behbahani pulled out the clerical students and the bazzar workers and the street gangs Using Mullah playbook 101 ( Omaha, Omaha).
He was the one who distributed money to the gangs and bazzar merchants on behalf of the plotters, money received from Kermit Roosevelt and known around town as “Behbahani dollars”. We know this from Iranian publications, letters and CIA reports by Roosevelt.
Behbahanî also facilitated the coup by ordering via fatwa his followers into the Tehran streets at the time of its occurrence. Faced with a choice between the continuation of Moá¹£adeqh’s premiership and the return of the shah from his exile, Behbahanî clearly preferred the latter alternative from fear that Moá¹£adeqh’s administration would soon yield to rule by the Tudeh Party.
Almost predictably, Behbahani’s relations with the Pahlevi regime began to sour in 1959. The major issue that turned Behbahani against the government was the planned redistribution of land. Behbahani published an open letter denouncing the limitation of landed holdings as contrary to Islamic law. Thereafter his relations with the government continually declined, to the point that in early 1962 he sent a letter to the shah denouncing the repression of Bebahani’s own call for Tehran demonstrations in support of free elections to overthrow the Shah.
Just so you get a flavor for how life works…post 1979, Behbahani’s two sons now run the import export licensing agency.
So ironically with the lifting of the sanctions….once again America provides “Behabanni Dollars”.
Tomorrow, we will run into the other important right out of central casting Ayatollah at the time of the coup….Ayatollah Kashani.
During WWII, the Tudeh, aided by the Russians grew tremendously and were the unions in just about every industry especially the labor part of the Oil Industry. The degree the mullahs were threatened as a power base on the everyday economic ground and in the halls of power shrunk tremendously during the war. And the consent of the governed freedom to manuever that the feudals enjoyed prior to the war shrunk.
But as we have seen the feudals were extremely tone deaf especially when it came to striking deals with foreigners. Into this mix came four relevant facts anyone trying to understand 1953 should know:
1) The Americans showed up during WWII. And after WWII without any pressure they kept their WWII promises and left as they had promised. This amazed almost all factions in Iran.
2) The Russians did not. The Brits did not.
3) The Shah and many but not all of the 16 post war Prime Ministers up to 1953 went right back to striking deals with the ex colonial powers. Yes I said 16 Prime Ministers from 1943 to 1953.
4)Those who had a nationalist streak in the ME noticed one thing more than any other….The way American companies and the American nation did business at a time no other colonial power ever did…not the Russians, the French, the Spanish, the Italians or the Germans or the Dutch or the Belgians.
Lets look at this when it comes to oil. The Saudi King controlled the rights to drill. And drilling was expensive and costly and guess work. It was risky. And getting to the surface and to markets from place like the Saudi desert was a monumental task to consider. To get away from the Europeans the House of Saud had reached out to meet a legend they heard of…one John D Rockefeller.
They formed a company as partners. This was unheard of to the ME. They bore the costs for exploration so the percent of the oil if found was high for Standard Oil. But lower than any other nations deal from any other power. Notice the company not the US nation made a deal. By terms of the deal the Americans started to train actual Saudis in the industry rather then keep them out of it as if it was a secret. And they kept their word. That was in 1937, the war delayed progress. But by 1950 the extent of Saudi oil was legendary. And you know what the Americans did? When asked the first time they cut a breakthrough deal …a fifty fifty deal to share people, knowledge, expenses and profits. That stood the test of time and was the leading best deal any nation ever got until 1988.
The other ME nations were stunned and mad that any of them would grant any less to any foreigner.
In the early 1950s Iran actually looked up to the Americans. I repeat, we were idealized by most factions of Iran and that grew when Truman pressured the soviets to leave (of course that was about our fears of communist takeover) Iran.
Sentiment for nationalization of Iran's oil industry grew. From all factions of the nation except the royalists and feudals, In November 1950, the committee concerned with oil matters, headed by Mosaddeq, rejected a draft agreement from the Brits which offered the government slightly improved terms. These terms did not include the fifty-fifty profit-sharing provision that the Americans had given the Saudis.
Subsequent negotiations were unsuccessful because the Shah and the feudal families failed to persuade the oil company of the strength of nationalist feeling in the country.
When finally offered fifty-fifty profit-sharing in February 1951, sentiment for nationalization of the oil industry had become too widespread.
The Prime Minister at the time, Razmara, advised against nationalization on technical grounds.
He was assassinated by the Fadayan arm of the mullahs on March 1st 1951. On March 15, the parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry.
In April the Shah yielded to demonstrations in the Tehran streets by the bazzar and street gangs of Bebahanni and Kashani by naming Mosaddeq prime minister. This was important because the Ayaollahs and mullahs expected reciprocation on their issues from Mosedegh.
Instead, Mosadegh got closer to and named more Tudeh to his cabinet and into Parliment because he needed offsets to the feudals and did not like the mullahs or religion in the affairs of state. That move was a big problem to the Dulles brothers and the USA overall.
And it illustrates a huge weakness of Mosadegh. He was more tone deaf than the feudals. He was like Jimmy Carter. Moralistic and rigid. Even if he did not like them on principal...the mullahs had proven to be the force of consequence at turning points and crisis since 1880. And being tone deaf to buying off the “moderate mullahs” ( meaning the more concerned with their vig) via concessions to their economic interests left the fundamentalist wing issues free to find common ground in the ire of the moderate mullahs and Ayatollahs.
The final stages of all around stupid human not listening to the other guy was set in motion. by the time its done we will conclude than no one played smart or long or wise. even the US. Except for one faction....the Mullahs. They never pretended to listen. By this time the majority of mullahs had one objective, short term tactics evolve but to them, the results were obvious...only a return to a mullah led world would work. and in the universities growing new mullahs at Qom and Najaf....that conclusion began to develop a new generation of baby boomer mullahs who would arrive into shoulder against the wheel in ....oh about 1980
Its the early 1950s, you are the President:
There is a Korean thing
There is a Russian nuclear power in late 1949
There is still limping Europe. there is Berlin.
There is a guy name Mao who threw out the old world order in 1949 and sent troops into Korea to defeat us.
There is the McCarthy thing wreaking havoc on cabinet and military morale.
Some Shah guy is weak and not in control as his country rots and the brits showing the second tier talent drain post WWI is still haunting progress as there are simply to many Montgomerys. Their withdrawl from colonialism is proving a problem in Eygpt, India, this new thing called Pakistan and all over Africa and the ME and this place called Iran which is a direct southern shot for the Soviets for their long desired warm water port.
Reluctantly, we have to do something to bolster this iran place...way too many more important priorities. I mean I no sooner hear out the CIA on Iran and next on m meeting schedule is an update on problems in Cuba? when will it end?
So if you go look at the record pre mid year 1953, we have a weak Shah and his useless impotent feudal families on one side and a possible ally in the army and also the mullahs who have followers amongst the ordinary people and who also hate the communists. Those are our only allies and this Prime Minister giving the Brits derived fits seems to be a pro communist sympathizer.
So yeah Kermit go talk to the Shah and this Army guy. they have already indicated they are willing to move so we at least have some allies willing to start the change. And take the money you need to pay people who come forward. All these places are so corrupt. Its like when we needed cooperation in Naples and Sicily and had to pay shits like Luciano the pimp to make the right introductions
Kermit goes over there and just concentrates on meeting Zahedi and Shahboy as they requested. Their seconds tell him they hope to do it by decree but just in case have reached out when the time comes if it ever gets to that and a coup or fight against the communists. So we have a few army units and some preachers who will tell the faithful to be pro Army. Yeah the priests over their got newspapers and they slime us and blame us for things they actually do....but that's to escape retribution. They are killing off Tudeh on a weekly basis so what do we care who they use to deflect investigation?
Its reading the pre 1953 CIA material not the post 1953 claiming credit for a role larger than we played that is most convincing as to whom is zooming who before and during the coup.
To me the coup is a final act in a long running play. Mosedegh was a dead man walking since 1951. Only the timing and the pretext remains unknown. Guy is probably lasting this long cause he has the Brits to demonize to the domestic audience.
All the best Kermit...don't do anything rash...just make it easier for them to do what they are going to do anyway. Sooner we help it happen before the Communists and Soviets get stronger from this bumbling the better. I don't want to be on TV at some senate hearing asking "who lost Iran?"
It's too damn humid in NYC today to sit inside and read all of this, but I will bookmark for my next flight.
Hope you are well Bill and thanks for laying this all out, a subject I've long been interested in but too overwhelming to bite into. This is an outstanding starting point, as always.
"Mossadegh was not a Muslim and I said he will be slapped and it was not long after that he was slapped in the 1953 coup. and if he had lasted he would have slapped Islam"
...Ayatollah Khomeni.
"Yesterday, Tehran shook under the feet of anti foreign Muslims. Mossedegh, the bloodthirsty old ghoul, resigned under the blows from the Muslims. All government centers were seized by the Muslims and the Army of Islam"
...Newspaper of the Fedayan the day after Mossdegh resigned.
Sure sounds like a bunch of people mad we took away their beloved Mossedegh. Sure sounds like something we did that really hurt them deeply
"According to the honorable law of Islam the punishment for betraying Jihad while in position to lead the country is death"
Yep...they sure blamed us
Even though Kashani publicly supported Mosadegh their relations were problematic from the very beginning. As early as November 1951, the British Embassy reported that Kashani was so disgruntled with Mosadegh that he had put out "feelers" in many directions, including the U.S. Embassy. His main thesis is the danger of communism and the need for immediate American aid.
Kashani's opposition came into the open by mid-1953 once Mosadegh sent a referendum to dissolve Parliament, drafted an electoral bill enfranchising women, tended to favor state enterprises over the bazaar, refused to ban alcohol, and declined amnesty to assassins from the Fedayan.
The awarding of government contracts, also played a role. Kashani's two sons had set up a lucrative business buying and selling import licenses for prohibited goods using their father's threats.
By mid-1953, before Kermit got even sent to Iran, Kashani was urging the bazaars to support General Zahedi, the nominal leader of the prospective coup. He also praised the shah for being "young," "kindhearted," and highly "popular." Kashani's closest mullahs support in Parliament denounced Mosadegh as a dictator worse than Hitler and a Socialist more extreme than Stalin.
On the shah's triumphant return the Fedayan newspaper hailed the coup as a "holy uprising," and praised the shah as the world's Muslim hero. Not surprisingly, Navab Safavi, their leader, was promptly released from prison and permitted to go on a world tour.
Notice the only people in this narrative who understand you cant let Vito live are the mullahs?
In retaliation and to gain leverage in the talks, Britain imposed a worldwide embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil and froze Iran's sterling assets and banned export of goods to Iran. But under American pressure, the Brits improved its offer to Iran. But once again it was too little and too late and freedom to maneuver inside Iran was lost. By the time a decent offer arrived, anti-British feeling, agitation by radical mullah elements, over promising by Mosadegh, the storm of even lower level assassinations and intimidations meant that only Iran's maximum demands were acceptable.
The economy began to suffer from the loss of foreign exchange and oil revenues. Meanwhile, Mosadegh's stacking the parliament with Tudah and his intransigence on the oil issue were creating friction between the prime minister and the shah. In the summer of 1952, the shah refused the prime minister's demand for the power to appoint the minister of war (and, by implication, to control the armed forces).
Mosadegh resigned. Hoping for concessions from Mosedagh if he returned to power ….three days of rioting organized by the mullahs followed, and the shah was forced to reappoint Mosadeqh to head the government.
But Ayatollah Kashani and Bebahanni did not get any thanks, concessions or respect from Mosedegh and they turned on him completely and began to take the Tudeh threat to them even more seriously. As domestic conditions deteriorated Mosadeqh grew more inflexible. He demanded full powers in all affairs of government for a six-month period. He also obtained approval for a law to reduce, from six years to two years, the term of the Senate ( sort of like the House of Lords in England) and thus brought about the dissolution of that body.
Mosaddeq's support in the lower house of the Parliament ( traditionally a bastion of mullah allies and mullahs) was dwindling so the prime minister proposed to dissolve Parliament entirely and then claimed a secretly counted massive vote in favor of the proposal, and dissolved the legislative body. By this time the treats of assassination by the Fedayan were so strong that he and his team was a virtual prisoner in his own family compound.
Initially pro Mossedegh, now the United States began to conclude that no reasonable compromise with Mosadegh was possible and that, by working with the Toudeh, Mosadegh was increasing the chances of a communist-inspired takeover. In June 1953, the Eisenhower administration approved a plan to allow Kermit Roosevelt to Iran to coordinate plans with the shah, the mullahs and the Iranian military.
In accord with the plan, on August 13 the shah appointed Zahedi prime minister to replace Mosadegh. Who refused to step down and arrested the emissary from the Shahs office. The shah fled the country, and Zahedi went into hiding.
But that caused the mullahs to go into all out overdrive. After four days of non stop rioting, army units, students and street crowds defeated Mosadeghs Tudeh led street forces. The shah returned to the country. Hundreds of Tudeh Party officers and political activists were arrested and sentenced to death.
So now lets step back and in the next post examine the beyond wrongheaded and simplistic claim that we overthrew a popular Prime Minister against popular will so we could get oil and the canard which follows….our involvement is what caused the 1979 Revolution.
Maybe before we do that we should spend time on the leading Ayatollah of the time…Kashani. That lets view all of the actions of all the major players….and by extension how small a role we played. Like idiots, we gave out some small amount of dollars that they spread to their own street gangs called “Bebahanni Dollars”
Like a clown, the dumb ass americans spent on what was going to happen anyway….and served as the patsy covering the mullahs tracks…in the mullahs own propaganda newspapers.
We did not kill anyone. We sent no weapons. We spoke to the Shah and told him we wanted him to rule? Duh…So did he? We told an Army General who was already appointed Prime Minister but fled before we got there that…we liked him? We met mullahs and asked how can we spend and they told us? Pretty leading edge CIA mojo working on this case.
This is leading a coup? Uh…or is this is us in the way back seats riding the train others loaded, filled, steered and drove? And telling fish tales back home on Capitol Hill to justify more budget?
In the years which followed the mullahs protested and Kashani, Bebhanni and Khomeini were exiled or under house arrest. Mullahs feeding Tudeh to SAVAK was a multi decade sport until they were wiped out. No Don Cicci mistakes….all of them and often their families…one of the biggest losses of life and defeats the Communist movement ever suffered.
Lets wrap up in a few more posts tomorrow. No reason BBI has to be repeating age old propaganda they asked us to swallow as if we fell off the turnip truck yesterday.
It is true that we had American companies in iran and iranian oil during the post Mossadegh Shah era. Gas was 35 cents a gallon and global production easily exceeded demand until the late 1990s. Speculation on price barely affected or added to the price. American oil companies were there at global standard contracts for the time and largely because the Britt were anathema in iran after 1953.
So we did not play a part because of oil. We played a part because of the Soviets and the communists.
We played the tiniest and stupidest of roles and late and comedic in 1953.
Iran had a very short intro into the Industrial Revolution. Times of change challenge all factions in a society.
Iranian and Shia mullahs are not priests or preachers or rabbis. They are one of the alphas of their world. It is often the family business. Many mullahs are quite commercial. Many serve. Some are scholars. Some are mild.
But starting in 1880 there was a steel cage match of one hundred years duration. Feudal lords, nationalists, merchants, poor people, communists, royalists, old shah dynasty, new shah dynasty, military leaders, Germany England and Russia and America all entered the ring.
So did the mullahs. At the end of the 99th year the mullahs won by knockout.
The tactics in a crisis never ever varied. The tactics to instruct in between never varied.
The goal never varied.
So when the students protested the Shah in 1979 the media idiots and most Americans were sympathetic to anyone who told truth to power and assumed like we often do that the result of the process would be a more moderate and open society.
Later the poor people took to the streets.
We never understood it was an old play book and foreigners were always a rallying cry.
Of all the players the mullahs get credit in their land for standing up for Iran free of outsiders. When time does forget and their version of the greatest generation no longer gets credit and their failings become a bigger part of the way they are judged...we shall see...Meanwhile no one in Iran knows a different way.
That's who they are. They are not going to be allies of anyone outside iran. Some will be pan Shia but thats some. it's an impulse of some and not the nation. Meanwhile the nation has huge internal problems. But defending themselves from outsiders? The mullahs did that and while Russia sits north and America spent a decade to the left and right and south....no one dared come into the heartland and if it takes the mullahs 99 years...they will have a bomb to defend themselves.
Unknowing self flagellation that we caused it is beyond making the narrative of the world about us. ..it's made up.
Imho
When you find some time, if you want to do a thing on Yemen, which is another inexplicable area to most of us, I am sure it would be well received.
I, like most of us, fail to understand the whole Iran/Yemen tie in, and the 'who does what' right now there is also really a mystery as to - what, if anything, our (USA) role is or should be.
savant....don't know much about Yemen...never thought there was much to know.
Reminds me of the Kiowa, Comanche, Pawnees, Apache, and Southern Cheyene all packed in west of the Mississippi and pushed down from the good land where the buffalo roam by the more powerful Sauds...I mean Souix.
Saudis make sure it stays weak....the old Great Game Brit used to play with India, Pakistan, Afghan and Russia. Shia makes sure they don't fade away. its a six top family game and some outlaws in a godforsaken place. imho
Much appreciated.
Link - ( New Window )
However, the thread has me thinking that I had underestimated the Shiite Iranian/Lebanese Mullahs in their endurance and their never ending duplicity.
Of course, as an American, my (naïve?) instinct is that such duplicity is ultimately self defeating, I mean, how lovely can the end resulting culture ever be in such a world?
However, I do feel somewhat sharper on the subject now having read this.
Fascinating book on them:
Empire of the Summer Moon - ( New Window )
Again, thanks!