Mohammad Mosaddegh

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Mohammad Mosaddegh bigraphy, stories - Prime Minister of Iran

Mohammad Mosaddegh : biography

16-6-1882 – 05-03-1967

Mohammad Mosaddegh or Mosaddeq ( ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967), was the democratically electedAndrew Burke, Mark Elliott & Kamin Mohammadi, Iran (Lonely Planet, 2004; ISBN 1740594258), p. 34.Cold War and the 1950s (Social Studies School Service, 2007: ISBN 1560042931), p. 108.Loretta Capeheart and Dragan Milovanovic, Social Justice: Theories, Issues, and Movements (Rutgers University Press, 2007; ISBN 0813540380), p. 186. Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 when his government was overthrown in a coup d’état orchestrated by the British MI6 and the American CIA.

An author, administrator, lawyer, prominent parliamentarian, he became the prime minister of Iran in 1951. His administration introduced a wide range of progressive social and political reforms such as social security, rent control, and land reforms. His government’s most notable policy, however, was the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC / ) (later British Petroleum or BP).Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power (ISBN 9781439110126).

After a rigged referendum dissolving parliament, Mosaddegh was removed from power in a coup on 19 August 1953, organised and carried out by the CIA at the request of the British MI6 which chose Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Mosaddegh.

While the coup is commonly referred to as Operation Ajax after its CIA cryptonym, in Iran it is referred to as the 28 Mordad 1332 coup, after its date on the Iranian calendar. Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years, then put under house arrest until his death.

Overthrow of Mosaddegh

Plot to depose Mosaddegh

The British government had grown increasingly distressed over Mosaddegh’s policies and were especially bitter over the loss of their control of the Iranian oil industry. Repeated attempts to reach a settlement had failed, and, in October 1952, Mosaddegh declared Britain an enemy and cut all diplomatic relations.. Tehran Times. 10 April 2009

Engulfed in a whole range of problems following World War II, Britain was unable to resolve the issue single-handedly and looked towards the United States to settle the issue. Initially, America had opposed British policies. After U.S. mediation had failed several times to bring about a settlement, American Secretary of State Dean Acheson concluded that the British were "destructive, and determined on a rule-or-ruin policy in Iran."Saikal, Amin, The Rise and Fall of the Shah, Princeton University Press, 1980, p. 42.

The American position shifted in late 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower had been elected U.S. President. In November and December, British intelligence officials suggested to American intelligence that the prime minister should be ousted. British prime minister Winston Churchill suggested to the incoming Eisenhower administration that Mossadegh, despite his open disgust with socialism, was, or would become, dependent on the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party, resulting in Iran "increasingly turning towards communism" and towards the Soviet sphere at a time of high Cold War fears.Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne Mohammad Mosaddegh and the 1953 Coup in Iran, Syracuse University Press, May 2004. ISBN 0-8156-3018-2, p. 125. Statement of policy proposed by the National Security Council After the Eisenhower administration had entered office in early 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to work together toward Mosaddegh’s removal and began to publicly denounce Mosaddegh’s policies for Iran as harmful to the country. In the meantime, the already precarious alliance between Mosaddegh and Kashani was severed in January 1953, when Kashani opposed Mosaddegh’s demand that his increased powers be extended for a period of one year.

Operation Ajax

Mosaddegh at the [[Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.]]

In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mosaddegh. On 4 April 1953, Allen Dulles approved US$1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh". Soon the CIA’s Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh. Finally, according to The New York Times, in early June, American and British intelligence officials met again, this time in Beirut, and put the finishing touches on the strategy. Soon afterward, according to his later published accounts, the chief of the CIA’s Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, arrived in Tehran to direct it. In 2000, The New York Times made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled Clandestine Service History – Overthrow of Premier Mosaddegh of Iran – November 1952-August 1953. This document describes the point-by-point planning of the coup by agent Donald Wilber, and execution conducted by the American and British governments. The New York Times published this critical document with the names omitted. The New York Times also limited its publication to scanned image (bitmap) format, rather than machine-readable text. This document was eventually published properly – in text form, and fully unexpurgated. The word blowback in the context of covert operations appeared for the very first time in this document.