[HN Gopher] 'Coup 53' tells the story of 1953 campaign by MI6 an...
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'Coup 53' tells the story of 1953 campaign by MI6 and CIA to oust
Iran's leader
Author : AndrewBissell
Score : 199 points
Date : 2020-08-19 16:50 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| ajtulloch wrote:
| It's not explicitly mentioned in the article, but the documentary
| has been released for streaming today at https://coup53.com/.
| lefrenchy wrote:
| For a longer read on the history here, "All the Shah's Men" is a
| great read.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| The CIA/MI5 coup is fascinating not only because it overthrow a
| democratically elected government of a Middle Eastern country in
| 1953 (!) but also because of its consequences. There is not a
| single democratic government in the ME sans Israel. No, tiny
| Tunisia does not count, it is in the Maghreb (N. Africa).
|
| What would the middle east look like if the Mosaddegh government
| had continued? No revolution, No Ayatollah, no Iran-Iraq war, no
| Hezbollah? Instead we got the Shah who forced his people to
| modernize, secret police pulling veils off women was common and
| generally unleashed a reign that was anathema to most of the
| conservative population outside Tehran. Most of the anger you see
| is towards the US is from that reign rather than the coup.
|
| The Iranians who are Persians, and not Arabs, have a
| civilizational history going back 1000s of years. Expat Persians
| have achieved great success in the US and UK. Going further back,
| the Zoroastrians, who fled the Islamic conquest and arrived in
| India more than a millennia ago are the richest, most educated
| and economically successful minority group by an order of
| magnitude, or two.
|
| The Shah's reign lasted 25 years. A generation that grew up under
| the Shah's tyranny led the revolution in 1979. The Islamic
| revolution is now 40 years old. There have been almost two
| generations that grew up under the Islamic govt's misrule and
| grandiose projects of power projection. Hopefully they can take
| charge and lead Iran back to civilizational greatness. Iran, the
| middle east and the world needs it.
|
| And I would really like to visit the gardens of Shiraz or the
| markets of Isfahan which have been around for 1000s of years ;)
|
| Edit: As pointed out in the comments, instead of Arab world, I
| should have used Arab speaking. There are Arab speakers who are
| Arab and there are Arab speakers who are not Arab.
| quercusgrisea wrote:
| >There is not a single democratic govt in the ME sans Israel
|
| The millions of Palestinians unable to vote for the government
| that controls their movement, trade, and lives in general would
| probably disagree with your characterization of Israel as a
| democracy.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| Wrong. Try again.
|
| There are 450~ million Arabs and you chose to focus on the
| 4.5 million Palestinians who voted in elections in 2006.
| These elections bought Hamas to power in in Gaza and PLO in
| the West Bank. Gaza is autonomous in terms of governance and
| has chosen to not hold elections since the last one in 2006.
| Neither has the PLO. They both plead unable to hold elections
| because they want to hang on to power though the
| international community wants them to.
|
| Edit: Getting down voted for stating facts.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| No, you're getting downvoted for ignoring the Israeli
| treatment of Palestinians, something akin to the holocaust
| that was inflicted on the Jews by the Nazis is being
| repeated now on the Palestinians, who are technically their
| distant cousins.
|
| You are being downvoted because you ignore history
| conveniently to support an apartheid state like Israel.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| Everything I said about the Palestinian elections is from
| Wikipedia and their direct words. You also ignore the
| fact that Arabs in Israel are the only Arabs (other than
| the Tunisian, occasionally) who can vote and have their
| own parties.
|
| Palestinians Arabs have had one national election and
| Israeli Arabs vote as often as Israel has elections which
| seems to be happening every year.
|
| Criticize Israel's conduct all you want but please come
| with facts.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Palestine
| [deleted]
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Palestinians are a distinct ethnic group that happens to
| speak Arabic
| mmrezaie wrote:
| I searched and I cannot see how you found 450 mil for
| population of arabs in te world. I even counted Turkey,
| Iran, and Pakistan and none of these are arbs.
|
| Also, I talked to a palistinian friend and she thinks
| palistinians did not vote for Hamas becasue that was the
| choise. The other ones were just so corrupt. Any way your
| sentimate is just too reductive for a very complicated
| region.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| Did you count Egypt and Morocco and the rest of N.
| Africa? I might be off by 10% and most of these countries
| don't exactly hold a census.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| Algerian here. While there are certainly Arabs in the
| Maghreb, we're not all Arabs and don't generally identify
| as Arab. My family identifies as Amazigh. Most Algerians
| will tell you they're Algerian, not Arab. Many friends
| from other parts of the Maghreb identify similarly.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| Having been to the Maghreb, I completely agree with you.
| There are Tuaregs and Amazigh and even the locals who are
| "Arabs" are a mixture. I should have used the term Arab-
| speaking world instead of Arab. There is no ethnic notion
| of Arabs as a race and I understand that. Shukran :)
| Despegar wrote:
| Palestinians are an occupied people living under Israeli
| apartheid.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Israel is not a democratic country because it supports the
| Saudi monarchy, a completely unprincipled, and despotic
| regime. Basically a Middle Eastern North Korea.
|
| A political regime supporting an inherently antidemocratic
| system is not democractic by the definition.
|
| They are also very fond of the Egyptian Sisi, an another
| tinpot despot.
|
| And am not joking here. People need to finally stop
| thinking of it as a some kind of tinfoil thing. The Israel
| --Saudi--Egyptian axis is 100% real. It sounds bizarre, but
| its true, been documentary verified, and supported by
| accounts of many diplomats of 3rd countries, US included.
| The open source investigatory journalists, among other
| things, established the fact of regular visits of their top
| officials to each other's countries.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=israel+saudi+axis
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42094105
| haltingproblem wrote:
| So does the US, UK, France, Germany. By your definition
| there are no democracies in the world.
|
| I was talking about the glories of Persian civilization
| and its glories and you had to drag in the "evil US-Saud-
| Egyptian" axis. You got an axe to grind.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| Surely the Persian civilization was glorious and it could
| still shine. The problem was you mentioning Israel and
| denigrating the Palestinians. I urge you to take a second
| look at this issue, Israel is a terrible oppressor of
| these people.
| chishaku wrote:
| > I was talking about the glories of Persian civilization
|
| No.
|
| What you were actually talking about and what people
| might be taking issue with:
|
| - an implied claim that Palestinians currently enjoy
| rights to self-determination
|
| - comparing 4.5 million to 450 million people as if the
| welfare of those 4.5 million are not worthy of discussion
| haltingproblem wrote:
| They do. They voted for their government in 2006. Then
| the ones who they elected decided to not hold elections
| again. Its good to virtue signal for Palestinians but
| atleast get the facts right.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Palestine
| chishaku wrote:
| > good to virtue signal for Palestinians
|
| It's clear who has the axe to grind.
|
| > get the facts right
|
| You're demonstrating that anyone can pick any facts to
| tell any story.
|
| According to 'haltingproblem, self determination is being
| able to vote in an election in an occupied territory
| where there is no freedom of movement and a large portion
| of the population are dependent on humanitarian aid.
|
| Since this is all so simple and clear to you, can you
| please arrange your facts to explain what the 982 UN
| resolutions on the "Question of Palestine" are about?
|
| https://www.un.org/unispal/data-collection/general-
| assembly/
| baybal2 wrote:
| Out of these three, I think one one goes as far as do so
| boldly, loudly, and on the record.
|
| > the "evil US-Saud-Egyptian" axis. You got an axe to
| grind.
|
| Of course I do. For as long as I have a dime of moral
| judgement, and integrity, I will. Spawning Laden, Qaeda,
| other tinpot outfits, funding rogue dictatorships of
| Bashirs, Sisis, Gaddafis, committing the unspeakable
| barbarity of 9.11 attack, and effectively breaking the
| world as it is, for the last 20 years. What out of this
| is not worth the outrage???
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >Edit: Getting down voted for stating facts.
|
| No, you're getting downvoted for stating falsehoods. Israel
| economically and militarily controls the occupied
| territories. Holding phony elections for "leaders" that are
| powerless to do anything because they wield no state power
| is not democracy. This would be true even if Gaza wasn't
| under an illegal blockade which prevents residents of Gaza
| from leaving without Israeli permission and prevents those
| from other countries from visiting or engaging in commerce
| with Gaza without Israeli permission.
|
| Reasonable people can disagree over what the way forward is
| in Israel, but people who deny reality in order to push
| their agenda are not reasonable.
| The_suffocated wrote:
| > For years, I thought the CIA was the prime mover of the coup,
| but I was wrong.
|
| I think the CIA was indeed the prime mover of the coup, at least
| according to the CIA's official history. Derbyshire, the person
| who was in charge of SIS's Iran branch, came up with the idea of
| a coup, but the Brits had not the capacity to pull it off and so
| they asked the CIA for help. The whole operation was very well
| documented by the declassified report entitled "CIA Clandestine
| Service History, Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran, November
| 1952-August 1953", which is downloadable from
|
| https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/
| saghm wrote:
| I think you might have a different understanding of the phrase
| "prime mover" than the author. Aristotle used the term[1] to
| refer to the source of all motion, the idea being that motion
| had to begin with some entity moving without having been moved
| from something else, and then all other motion flowed from it.
| According to the history you give, Derbyshire would fit the
| definition of the prime mover here; he had the idea without it
| having come from another source, and so the CIA's action only
| came about as a result of that initial idea.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover
| jsjjsjshsh wrote:
| And yet Trump is doing basically same thing. Toppling our
| government, this time with sanctions.
|
| 50 years later when Iranian did see US as enemy, don't act
| surprised. This is what Trump sows.
| plandis wrote:
| We will have to agree to disagree.
|
| I'm American and all I've ever seen from Iran is people
| chanting for my death and the death of the people I love. I was
| born in the 90s and had no bearing on foreign policy.
|
| If sanctions prevents Iran from accomplishing those goals then
| I personally will consider that a good thing.
| boudin wrote:
| First, not all Iranian people are chanting your death. This
| is the propaganda from both sides that says that.
|
| Sanctions currently have the effect at making people in Iran
| even more dependant of the government, and plays well into
| the Iranian government propaganda.
| plandis wrote:
| > First, not all Iranian people are chanting your death.
|
| Yeah I have no problem with your average Iranian. But the
| Iranian government routinely organizes protests where
| people are _literally_ calling for the death of Americans.
|
| Sanctions also have the benefit of preventing the Iranian
| government and their terrorist revolutionary guard from
| harming Americans as well as they could without sanctions.
| Udik wrote:
| > the Iranian government routinely organizes protests
| where people are literally calling for the death of
| Americans.
|
| _Literally_ is the keyword here, because the translation
| "death to something" is just the literal mistranslation
| of the Iranian idiom meaning "down with something". As if
| someone believed that when you say "I'd die for a beer"
| you really meant it.
| detaro wrote:
| That's probably about as accurate as someone from Iran
| claiming that all they ever see from the US is Fox talking
| heads arguing for nuking the Middle East.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I mean the USA shot down an Iranian passenger plane killing
| all the civilians inside it. The USA sanctioned medical
| supplies from a country battling a pandemic. The USA armed
| Saddam Hussein to invade and fight a decade long war with
| Iran.
|
| The US has been consistently trying to destroy the nation of
| Iran. Iran holds demonstrations calling for the destruction
| of America but they never fought the US in any kind of war.
| When 9/11 happened, they were one of the only countries in
| the Middle East to have nationwide moments of silence and
| prayers for victims in America.
|
| Iran also has been one of the biggest fighters of ISIS in
| Iraq. They are able to mobilize civilian volunteers in Iraq
| in a way any other organization would envy.
|
| It's really crazy how much reality you have to ignore to
| believe there is any justification for US sanctions on Iran
| or to justify why you think Iranians should not be angry at
| the US
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Nobody in Iran knows or cares that you are alive. They're
| expressing opposition to the USA as a political entity, much
| as you are expressing hostility to Iran rather than trying to
| ruin the lives of individual Iranian people.
| plandis wrote:
| There are government organized protests literally chanting
| for the deaths of Americans.
|
| Here is one such instance from the recent past:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-
| embassy/iranians...
| wz1000 wrote:
| Here is what Iranians see from major American presidential
| candidates considered to be "highly respected on both sides
| of the aisle": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg
| techer wrote:
| Chanting for your death? Source please..
| plandis wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-
| embassy/iranians...
|
| Just do a google search there are many many instances.
| sschueller wrote:
| As a non US person I don't see anything different between the
| current administration and the last. Just this one isn't
| polished behind good speaches and fooling the world that their
| foreign policy is any different. No one was held accountable,
| secret prisons continue and drone usegae was normalized. The
| wars continue and new ones are started.
| totalZero wrote:
| > The wars continue and new ones are started.
|
| What new wars have been started under the current
| administration?
| Zenst wrote:
| > What new wars have been started under the current
| administration?
|
| Many an internet flame-war, that's for sure.
|
| But then - how do you define war. The stage of official
| declaration all to arms type wars seem to be less clear-
| cut. Economics has and always will be the biggest weapon of
| wars these days.
| totalZero wrote:
| I'd probably refer to Obama's actions in Syria as an
| engagement of war. (I'm not saying he was right or wrong
| to go there, because I don't know all the facts about the
| Syria conflict.)
|
| I probably wouldn't refer to Trump's twitter commentary
| as warfare, inflammatory and counterproductive though it
| may be.
| dbtc wrote:
| I think maybe there aren't new or old wars anymore, just a
| single continuous amorphous conflict, against terrorism or
| whatever.
| totalZero wrote:
| To my knowledge Trump hasn't stepped outside the
| conflicts engaged by his predecessor. According to
| Bolton's book, Trump called off a strike on Iranian
| military facilities after a US drone was downed by Iran,
| because he didn't believe that the US should kill
| Iranians over the loss of a robot.
|
| Even the killing of Soleimani took place in Baghdad,
| where Soleimani (himself a commander of insurgent forces)
| was meeting with an Iraqi commander of insurgent forces.
| Hard to argue that this act fell outside the confines of
| the Congressionally authorized war in Iraq.
| dbtc wrote:
| Are Yemen and Somalia part of the congressionally
| authorized war in Iraq?
|
| It's not Trump's endless war, it's America's.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Hard to argue that this act fell outside the confines
| of the Congressionally authorized war in Iraq.
|
| Congress didn't authorize war "in Iraq", but to protect
| against threats from Iraq (in context of the resolution,
| pretty clearly the _State_ not the _geographical area_.)
| post_below wrote:
| As a US person I appreciate the clear view that US foreign
| policy has been evil even under popular administrations, and
| every one of them were complicit in that evil.
|
| But tread lightly when comparing this administration to any
| other in the history of western democracy. It's a horror show
| up close.
| boudin wrote:
| I'm not sure people in Iran will agree... The economical
| crisis caused by trump's government and the impossibility of
| any other country to invest in the country anymore is a big
| shift.
| minimuffins wrote:
| That certainly did not start in the Trump administration.
| boudin wrote:
| Sanctions as they are now are quite different from what
| they were with the nuclear deal. That didn't start with
| trump yes, but saying there's no difference is insulting
| to all the people who are actually paying the price.
| justicezyx wrote:
| That's what China and Russia and many great powers in history
| did to their sphere of influence as well.
|
| They all come and go. Some learned their lessons, and some are
| yet to experience the bitter revenge from those they harm and
| molested.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Many Americans are very apolitical, and either don't know or
| don't care about what the US government does if it doesn't
| affect them or their friends and families.
|
| When they do care about politics, it's mostly about domestic
| politics, and Americans tend to have a massive ignorance about
| what's going on in the rest of the world or the history of any
| other country.
|
| Civic education and history are not a high priority in the US.
| American schools tend to be more interested in pumping out
| people with STEM degrees and business people than about
| teaching them anything to do with the humanities.
|
| On top of that Americans are constantly lied to and manipulated
| by their media and politicians, and politicians often act in
| ways that the American people don't approve of or are not
| informed of.
|
| So I wouldn't blame the American people for Trump's actions.
| More and half of those Americans who voted (who aren't nearly
| all Americans old enough to vote), most voted against electing
| Trump to be President, and many of them despise him.
|
| That said, Hillary Clinton was a hawk, so even had she become
| President it's not clear how favorable US government policy
| would have been towards Iran.
|
| But I wouldn't blame the American people for that either, as
| America's policy towards Iran was never a major issue in the
| election (if it was an issue at all), and Americans don't tend
| to even elect people on policies or issues (which they rarely
| pay attention to unless it affects them) but on the candidate's
| image and personality.
|
| Anyway, most Americans have no clue what the US foreign policy
| towards Iran is, couldn't find Iran on the map, and don't have
| even have the faintest idea about its history or the history of
| Iranian-American relations. And for those who know something
| about it, what they do know (or think they know) probably comes
| from an occasional 2 minute segment on TV news.
|
| People (all over the world) generally just want to live their
| lives and be left alone. They don't deserve to be branded
| enemies for the actions of their governments.
| as300 wrote:
| Once again, behind a bad geopolitical situation is a Brit.
| History is unduly kind to the U.K., ignoring all of the
| atrocities of their colonialism for the sole reason that they
| suffered and overcame in WW2. Israel Palestine, India Pakistan,
| and Iran are all direct results of their racism and chicanery.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic
| flamewar. This is a step in the generic direction, which we
| don't want on HN, and especially not on flamewar topics:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang&da...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Shivetya wrote:
| well let us not focus just on them, European colonialism as a
| whole did not end until the 1960s and by then the damage was
| done. The Arabian peninsula and surrounding areas were pretty
| much divided up with borders created to respect European
| influence and not consider much of the existing structure,
| hence the strife that goes on to this day. The US and USSR
| meddling while extensive came at a much later date and involved
| states created prior to their involvement with very little
| changes to borders.
|
| Remember, France wasn't thrown out of Vietnam until the 1954
| and had to be thrown out of Algeria a decade later.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism
| qserasera wrote:
| > not consider much of the existing structure
|
| Could you provide examples of such structures?
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| A tactic that most of the colonial powers used was to
| divide local ethnic/religious groups and set them up in
| opposition to each other, the concept being if they fight
| each other they won't fight us. This meant that areas that
| were a united people under the Ottomans found themselves
| suddenly split into fractions with borders between the
| colonial powers imposed on them. Think of it as the
| colonial version of gerrymandering.
| aupaysdelor wrote:
| > united under the Ottomans
|
| The Ottoman empire was every bit as colonial and
| extractive as any Western power - the same favoring of
| local ethnic groups over others, the same subjugation of
| native cultures.
| greedo wrote:
| Countries were "created" based on geographical criteria,
| leading to various tribes being in both new countries.
| chishaku wrote:
| https://wcfia.harvard.edu/files/wcfia/files/alesina_artific
| i...
|
| > Artificial states are those in which political borders do
| not coincide with a division of nationalities desired by
| the people on the ground. We propose and compute for all
| countries in the world two new measures how artificial
| states are. One is based on measuring how borders split
| ethnic groups into two separate adjacent countries. The
| other one measures how straight land borders are, under the
| assumption the straight land borders are more likely to be
| artificial. We then show that these two measures seem to be
| highly correlated with several measures of political and
| economic success.
|
| > Eighty per cent of African borders follow latitudinal and
| longitudinal lines and many scholars believe that such
| artificial (unnatural) borders which create ethnically
| fragmented countries or, conversely, separate into
| bordering countries the same people, are at the roots of
| Africa's economic tragedy.
|
| > Under the Skyles-Picot agreement between British and
| French during WWI, Northern Palestine would go to the
| French, Southern Palestine to the British, and Central
| Palestine including Jerusalem would be an allied
| Condominium shared by the two. After the war, the French
| agreed to give up any claims to Palestine in return fo
| rcontrol over Syria. The British abandoned their protegee
| (Faisal) in Syria and offered him Iraq, cobbling together
| three different Ottoman provinces containing Kurds, Shiites
| and Sunnis. This set the stage for instability and the
| military coups that lead to Saddam Hussein. In Lebanon, the
| French added Tripoli, Beirut and Sidon to the traditional
| Moronite area around Mount Lebanon, giving their Maronite
| Christian allies control to what were originally Muslim
| areas.
|
| > Latin America is a lesser known (and much earlier)
| example of artificial borders drawn by a colonial power, in
| this case Spain.
|
| > The partition of India and Pakistan is [a] famous example
| of artificial borders
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India
|
| > The partition displaced between 10-12 million people
| along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises
| in the newly constituted dominions. There was large-scale
| violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or
| preceding the partition disputed and varying between
| several hundred thousand and two million.[1][c] The violent
| nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility
| and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues their
| relationship to the present.
| 0x262d wrote:
| The British have a horrible history of imperialism, but just to
| be clear, this was mostly carried out the by US, who also have
| a horrible history of imperialism.
| as300 wrote:
| Agreed, but I'd argue that the US's imperialism is fairly
| well-known. The British managed to avoid that via shrewd and
| destructive campaigns of divide-and-conquer that stacked the
| odds against future democracies.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| ? I don't know if you've lived in any British colony, but
| tons of people despise the British Empire to this day
| nmstoker wrote:
| It would be good to get some specifics applied here rather
| than vague generalisations like "X were horrible". Scope,
| proportion of British / US involved, level of "horrible"
| activities seem like they would help avoid this becoming a
| stereotype. After all it wouldn't be acceptable to make
| stereotypes about Persians or others in a similar position.
| chishaku wrote:
| I'm not sure "stereotype" is the right word here.
|
| Parent is not making stereotypes about people from the UK
| or US. They are describing the reputation of those two
| political entities.
|
| As for specifics, I'd refer the unfamiliar to Wikipedia
| which itself refers to a very limited subset of about
| hundred or so books on the topic.
|
| Perhaps you'll find some particular aspect or angle of
| British or US imperialism particularly enlightening and
| will want to research further.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism
| nmstoker wrote:
| Thanks. I agree on further consideration that stereotype
| isn't quite the right word. It seemed that vague terms
| like "horrible" were not likely to mean the same thing to
| different readers, in contrast to the way that more
| tangible accusations might stand up and be more
| universally understood.
| DanBC wrote:
| People may be interested to read a history of Iran-UK
| relations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93United_
| Kingdom_re...
|
| tl;dr Britain has a long history of causing harm to other
| countries.
| booboolayla wrote:
| Can't blame the UK for playing the game against yet another
| colonialist player Iran (or Persian Empire.)
|
| This naive view of the world has been pushed by Marxists in the
| West for decades, and the only real goal was always to weaken
| the Western Empire so that a Marxist Empire could take over and
| do everything they accused the West of.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| > they suffered and overcame in WW2
|
| Were they the only ones who suffered?
| as300 wrote:
| Absolutely not. Tens of thousands of Indians fought and died
| (not counting the Bengal famine which killed millions, but
| may or may not have been a result of malfeasance. Resource
| extraction from the colonies helped them fight as well.
| totalZero wrote:
| I am unsure if you are suggesting otherwise, but to be clear:
| Iran was never a British colony.
| techer wrote:
| It basically was...
|
| >The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company
| founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field
| in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. The British government purchased
| 51% of the company in 1914,[1] gaining a controlling number
| of shares, effectively nationalizing the company. It was the
| first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC
| was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) when Reza
| Shah Pahlavi formally asked foreign countries to refer to
| Persia by its endonym Iran.
| ginko wrote:
| I don't see how having a large British-owned company in
| your country makes it a colony.
| [deleted]
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| How about client state?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24070495
|
| "Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favour of his son,
| the heir to the throne? We have a high opinion of him and
| will ensure his position. But His Highness should not
| think there is any other solution."
| [deleted]
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| There was a documentary about the coup shown on Channel 4 in the
| UK in 1985: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhCgJElpQEQ
|
| Just before it was shown, the role of Norman Darbyshire, the MI6
| officer involved in the coup, was leaked to the Observer:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/02/mi6-the-coup-i...
|
| The Observer received a D-notice which prevented its publication.
|
| The makers of Coup 53 made use of the unpublished Observer
| material.
|
| Briefly, the UK Government wanted Mosaddegh overthrown because he
| wanted to nationalize a British oil company (Anglo-Iranian). It
| tried to get the CIA involved but Truman opposed American
| involvement. This changed when Eisenhower was elected president.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| > How that happens is the heart of the film, which paints a
| fascinatingly detailed picture of how, in practical terms, you go
| about toppling a popular foreign leader. It all starts with
| spreading around money and maybe arranging a couple of
| assassinations.
|
| "The Jakarta Method" by Vincent Bevins delves into how the CIA
| adapted and shifted course to address some of the weaknesses of
| its in-plain-sight coup approach in Iran and Guatemala in the
| 1950s. The ideal is always to preserve as much as possible the
| impression that the change in regimes is driven by local,
| endogenous political forces. The recent coup in Bolivia is a good
| demonstration of how this can be pulled off while almost entirely
| avoiding accusations of U.S. involvement.
| chishaku wrote:
| Other recent attempts in "America's backyard"
|
| - Venezuela 2019
|
| - Ecuador 2010
|
| - Honduras 2009
| pmoriarty wrote:
| To anyone interested in this, I'd highly recommend Stephen
| Kinzer's _Overthrow_.[1]
|
| It covers not just this incident, but many others throughout
| history when the US has overthrown foreign governments.
|
| [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-
| Cha...
| x87678r wrote:
| Fascinating how demographics change. Back then the UK population
| was bigger than Iran/Iraq/Syria/Israel/Palestine/SaudiArabia
| combined and much wealthier and powerful. Now those countries
| combine to hundreds of millions of people.
| YinLuck- wrote:
| When you give women rights, the inevitable result is
| civilizational extinction.
| WrongThinkerNo5 wrote:
| I would just like to note that this coup against Iran was also
| considered a "conspiracy theory", a term that was popularized in
| this very time period, arguably to cover up popular realization
| of what was going on in this very case.
|
| People have to realize this was right after WWII and the US war
| propaganda machine was in full swing and the men of war were
| still buzzing with war and looking for their next fight.
| euix wrote:
| Americans are winners as were the Brits before them. History will
| always favor the winner. The only practical lesson out of this
| sad story and countless others through history is: learn to be
| strong and so you can be a winner.
| croes wrote:
| Learn from history. Every empire falls.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| The Roman, Pandyan and Byzantine Empires had pretty good
| runs.
| croes wrote:
| Still fallen
| euix wrote:
| True, but we live relative to the lifespan of an empire. A
| person born in 1842 in China would have lived only known a
| falling empire his whole life. A person born in 1945 in
| America will only know an ascendant one.
|
| The "long run" of our lives are much shorter, we don't wait
| around to get satisfaction that empires fall or "justice"
| gets done, however you define that. If we live in the era of
| one victor over another then that's reality for us.
| lehi wrote:
| There was an interactive graphic novel of these events for
| iPad/iPhone: http://www.cognitocomics.com/project-ajax.html
|
| The free apps are still present in the App Store, but are now
| incompatible with recent iOS versions.
| post_below wrote:
| I love this. Our decades of oil wars still don't seem to be
| common knowledge. All of the wars have of course been sold to the
| public as something else and it's a pretty important thing to
| understand about modern western power.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Much is clarified once it is understood that Germany lost WWII
| due to lack of oil:
|
| https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/How-Oil-Defeated-The-N...
|
| https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/oil-denial-p...
| bleepblorp wrote:
| There's more than enough oil in the US, Canada, and Mexico to
| support not only US military needs but the entire North
| American civilian economy indefinitely. There is no risk of
| the US ever losing a war due to an oil shortage.
|
| When the US 'goes to war for oil' in the Middle East, it's
| going to war not to protect its oil supply but rather to make
| sure the profits of oil accrue to US companies and to ensure
| that oil remains priced in US dollars, which is vital for the
| US Dollar to continue to be the world's reserve currency.
| dsl wrote:
| You can't value oil under your own soil the same as
| imported oil, and it has nothing to do with profit.
|
| Oil demand is never going away (we need it for plastic,
| lubricants for wind turbines, etc) but the supply is. When
| you are talking about macroeconomic nation state scales of
| oil, the only logical decision is to acquire foreign oil.
| Not only are you helping to speed the depletion of their
| reservers, you are holding yours.
|
| The last barrel of oil on earth will be worth more than all
| the barrels that came before it.
|
| Edit: I did some math. As of 2018 there were 43.8 billion
| discovered barrels of oil in the US, in 2019 we consumed
| 20.46 million barrels a day domestically. So we are self
| sufficient for a little less than 6 years.
| jandrese wrote:
| This assumes you don't discover alternatives to fossil
| fuels before running out of them. Historically this is a
| bad bet. As the price increases people search harder and
| harder for alternatives. It seems impossible now because
| cheap oil means there's no demand for alternatives, but
| people are clever and if there's demand they'll usually
| find a solution.
| dsl wrote:
| To understand the economics of oil you have to think of
| it as a raw ingredient rather than a fuel source.
|
| Even if you stop burning it (which I think is a terrible
| idea), you can't live without oil. Antiseptics, rubbing
| alcohol, paint, aspirin, toothpaste, shoes, pens, bike
| tires, computers, etc. require it for modern production.
|
| Heck, a standard solar panel plopped on top of your home
| requires just shy of a full barrel of oil to produce.
| andybak wrote:
| > Even if you stop burning it (which I think is a
| terrible idea)
|
| It's possible to interpret this sentence to mean two
| opposite things.
| lostlogin wrote:
| It lost due to a lot more than that. Britain and her colonies
| (excluding India) out produced the Germany economy. Once you
| add in the US and USSR it's more a question of how Germany
| lasted so long.
|
| This book covers the illusion of 'the plucky underdog' who
| stood 'alone' quite nicely. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.
| theguardian.com/books/2011/...
| jhallenworld wrote:
| It's an oversimplification for sure, but there was
| definitely no way Germany was going to win without oil and
| explains why (the one sane reason) they invaded the Soviet
| Union.
|
| https://www.joelhayward.org/Too-Little-Too-Late.2.pdf
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's possibly the only advantage they gained by having a
| mostly horse powered military.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I agree, adding that the beginning of the war also had
| something to do with (ersatz) oil.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23612474
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Daniel Yergin's The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money &
| Power is a pretty good start, there's a TV series. Current to
| 1990s or so.
| rbecker wrote:
| > Our decades of oil wars still don't seem to be common
| knowledge.
|
| Nor are common knowledge the names of the oil company
| executives and shareholders who benefited from these wars,
| while dumping the expense and blame on their host countries.
| coldtea wrote:
| Now imagine for a second another country overthrowing the US
| elected government and installing their own dictator.
|
| How exactly would Americans feel for that country later? (even
| just from that incident alone, let's ignore half a century of
| later meddling).
|
| When Americans consider other countries' reactions towards them,
| they seldom consider the impact of their own actions, as if the
| toppling some sovereign country's government (the worse thing you
| can do) is no big deal, and others should just sit and take it...
| throwawaytrump2 wrote:
| We don't have to imagine very hard. Did you read the Senate
| report (bipartisan) that shows the level of effort Russia put
| into helping install a President who's policies show an
| inclination of wanting to be a dictator? That's supported by a
| party that takes as many steps as possible to deny citizens the
| right to vote?
|
| "The Russian gove[rn]ment directed extensive activity,
| beginning in at least 2014 and carrying into at least 2017,
| against U.S. election infrastructure' at the state and local
| level."
|
| "The Committee found that no single group of Americans was
| targeted by IRA information operatives more than African-
| Americans. By far, race and related issues were the preferred
| target of the information warfare campaign designed to divide
| the country in 2016."
|
| "One former employee's description of his work at the IRA is
| notable:
|
| _I arrived there, and I immediately felt like a character in
| the book '1984' by George Orwell-a place where you have to
| write that white is black and black is white. Your first
| feeling, when you ended up there, was that you were in some
| kind of factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an
| industrial assembly line. The volumes were colossal-there were
| huge numbers of people, 300 to 400, and they were all writing
| absolute untruths. It was like being in Orwell's world._"
|
| vol. 1:
| https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
|
| vol. 2:
| https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
| Natsu wrote:
| I wonder if they'll add an addendum to discuss Clinesmith's
| guilty plea (not yet entered, there's only a Criminal
| Information from last Friday), the info Steele sourced from
| Igor Danchenko, or Warner's contact with Oleg Deripaksa via
| Adam Waldman?
|
| Update: The guilty plea got entered -
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/fbi-attorney-admits-
| alter...
| vkou wrote:
| > We don't have to imagine very hard. Did you read the Senate
| report (bipartisan) that shows the level of effort Russia put
| into helping install a President who's policies show an
| inclination of wanting to be a dictator? That's supported by
| a party that takes as many steps as possible to deny citizens
| the right to vote?
|
| What level of effort? $100,000 in Facebook ad spend, a paid
| troll farm[1], and airing some of the DNC's dirty laundry?
| That was all that it took for half the country to go ahead
| and elect a monster?
|
| You're severely downplaying the scope, abilities, and
| observable impact of our domestic propaganda organs, that
| range from mainstream publications (Like Fox) to insane-
| bonkers fringe crap (Like Alex Jones).
|
| > I arrived there, and I immediately felt like a character in
| the book '1984' by George Orwell-a place where you have to
| write that white is black and black is white. Your first
| feeling, when you ended up there, was that you were in some
| kind of factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an
| industrial assembly line.
|
| We have plenty of domestic organizations who engage in this
| exact same bloody thing, for similarly cynical political
| ends. The difference is, they are funded by folks like Rupert
| Murdoch, who, of course, always has the best interests of
| America in his heart.
|
| [1] Never mind that useful idiots on reddit and 4chan are
| more then happy to troll the, uh, libs, for free.
| [deleted]
| mullingitover wrote:
| > and airing some of the DNC's dirty laundry?
|
| Fun fact, the GOP was also hacked, but their blackmail
| material was held in reserve and not published.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| It's too bad that didn't get released, but I'm just not
| sure what would have been in the RNC's emails which would
| have damaged Trump. Have to imagine it was mostly old
| hands panicking over how well he was doing in the
| primaries and trying to find ways to sabotage him.
| YarickR2 wrote:
| It seems America doesn't like a tastr of it's own medicine it
| prescribed as recently as mid-90s (Russia) or 2013-2014
| (Ukraine)
| [deleted]
| christophilus wrote:
| > When Americans consider other countries' reactions towards
| them, they seldom consider the impact of their own actions
|
| Source? I'm an American. I consider it, as do most people I
| know.
| sorokod wrote:
| Americans as represented by their democratically elected
| goverments perhaps.
| coldtea wrote:
| Most Americans can't place Iran (heck, or even France or
| Germany) on the map, much less consider the history of
| interactions between the two countries (and even less so the
| history, goals, rights, culture of the country in context of
| its region, history, etc).
|
| What they "know" is a high level view of what mass media
| feeds them about the enemy du jour (based on the country's
| current geopolitical interests and goals) and even that at a
| very crude level.
|
| Heck, Hollywood/TV series/pop culture/etc depictions of the
| country have even more stronghold in their minds than even
| the above.
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/can-you-even-locate-
| iran-o...
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/11/geography-
| su...
|
| Go talk to 100 random people and ask them who Mosaddegh was
| and see what you come up with... Heck, ask them to name you
| current leaders for that matter.
|
| Even their own vice president of 3+ years would be a little
| difficult for tens of millions...
|
| https://theweek.com/speedreads/821701/more-
| than-30-million-a...
| [deleted]
| PJDK wrote:
| It wasn't very many years earlier that Germany waged total war
| against the US but a grudge hasn't held out there...
| croes wrote:
| Ask the Chinese about Japan. It's more astonishing how russia
| acts to germany after the losses of WWII. The US had never an
| attack on home soil like the UK.
| coldtea wrote:
| Germany hardly waged war against the US, toppled their
| governmnent, occupied it, bombed it, etc.
|
| Japan did a few of those, though after much provocation to
| achieve exactly that and give an excuse to the US to sell the
| war to its public.
|
| The US intervened in the European war (and not even decidely
| so, that's another myth), to ensure their improved role in
| the post-war environment, as the old European colonial powers
| were weakened by the war.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_declaration_of_war_a
| g...
| the_af wrote:
| What exactly do you mean? It's just a description of
| Hitler's declaration of war on the US. It did not result
| in _total war_ being waged on US soil, and it was mostly
| a strategic blunder on Hitler 's part.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| The Nazis had numerous attempted sabotage operations in
| the continental US. They also sunk many ships off the
| eastern coast.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Theater_(World_W
| ar_...
|
| Their lack of 'total war' on the US is mostly the
| consequence of a lack of resources / more pressing
| concerns.
| the_af wrote:
| Let's see, as per your link:
|
| > _20,000 Killed, 45,000 Wounded, 100 Captured_
|
| Note the count includes actions by Japan against the US.
| Compare it to the European theatre of war.
|
| > _Their lack of 'total war' on the US is mostly the
| consequence of a lack of resources / more pressing
| concerns._
|
| But this is irrelevant for this discussion. The fact
| remains that the US didn't suffer total war waged by
| Germany on their soil during WW2, and this might explain
| the comment which sparked this thread:
|
| > _It wasn 't very many years earlier that Germany waged
| total war against the US but a grudge hasn't held out
| there..._
|
| It's easier to hold a grudge with millions dead, bombing
| campaigns destroying your cities, etc, don't you think?
| Arguing formalities such as whether Germany and the US
| were at war seems pointless in this context, doesn't it?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| No, I think you are vastly underplaying the extent to
| which Germany was America's enemy. Don't forget that Jews
| had escaped Germany to the US, especially prominent
| scientists like Einstein. The US didn't 'hold a grudge'
| because the Cold War power struggles didn't allow for it.
| West Germany needed to be an ally.
| the_af wrote:
| > _West Germany needed to be an ally_
|
| Oh, I definitely agree with this! This attitude also
| helped shape the narrative of WW2, especially of the
| Eastern Front [1], by former Wehrmacht officers in the
| employ of the US Army Historical Division. The Cold War
| made friends of former enemies, and let them tell their
| story in an unprecedented way -- an instance of history
| being told by the _losers_.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Eastern
| _Front
| dmkolobov wrote:
| That war that was fought on European soil, and left the
| United States with their government intact, and moreover,
| squarely at the top of the world order.
|
| edit: * primarily, on European soil.
| the_af wrote:
| Did Germany aim to topple the government of the US? Was this
| total war waged on American soil?
| PJDK wrote:
| Perhaps France - Germany is a better analogy. The point
| being that events from nearly 70 years ago don't need to
| automatically taint relationships.
| dsl wrote:
| > How exactly would Americans feel for that country later?
|
| 30% of our country doesn't see Russia as a threat, with some
| going as far as wearing "I'd rather be a Russian than a
| Democrat" t-shirts in public.
| coldtea wrote:
| That's partly because Russia didn't do anything much - and
| nothing compared to toppling a government.
|
| The democratic party latched on that story to exlain their
| failure, using as an excuse the same kind of internet ops the
| US (and tons of others) do all the time all over the world,
| and which in Russia's case were insignificant anyway...
|
| As if the US is some poor little country manipulated by the
| mighty Russia...
| mullingitover wrote:
| > That's partly because Russia didn't do anything much -
| and nothing compared to toppling a government.
|
| Russia wasn't trying to topple the US. It just wanted to
| weaken its international coalitions (check), eliminate its
| diplomatic soft power (check) and eliminate the aggressive
| posture the US had toward Russian expansion (check).
| YarickR2 wrote:
| Well, what did US do to Russia during late 90s-early
| noughts ? Check, check, check .
| croes wrote:
| Russia didn't have to do anything. The GOP weakend the
| coalitions and the diplomatic softpower by threatening
| their partners. And the last time I checked the sanctions
| against russia are still in place.
| TallGuyShort wrote:
| Is it so hard to accept that the Democrats have been
| nominating some weak-ass candidates that don't have the broad
| appeal they think they do?
| MrZongle2 wrote:
| Certainly it can't be that. It _has_ to be external forces
| at work!
| jamroom wrote:
| Donald Trump lost the popular vote, so as a candidate was
| "weaker" than Hillary Clinton.
| throwawaytrump2 wrote:
| Voting in the US has never been fully democratized.
|
| Apologies, dang. You're right of course. No good excuse-
| it's been hot.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't use HN for partisan flamewar. It's
| exceedingly predictable, therefore tedious, therefore off
| topic here.
|
| Please don't create accounts to break HN's guidelines
| with.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rat9988 wrote:
| From the same guidelines:
|
| >Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine.
|
| This is not the first time I see you needlessly accusing
| a point of view you disagree with of flamewar.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Is it so hard to accept that the Democrats have been
| nominating some weak-ass candidates that don't have the
| broad appeal they think they do?
|
| I think the party running weak-ass candidates without broad
| support is the one that lost the popular vote in every
| election in the last 30 years except 2004.
| president wrote:
| Depends if life became better for the citizens after the
| takeover.
| WrongThinkerNo5 wrote:
| There are some very deeply informed people who realize that
| essentially what you are describing and what has also been done
| all around the world, was also done to the USA a long time ago
| now.
|
| People latch onto the most obvious examples where the USA (or
| soviet union for that matter) just blatantly installed and
| backed blatant puppet leaders, but reality is that these types
| of things are not only not new, but the far more sophisticated
| and advanced forms of puppet systems have also been installed
| in many advanced countries, including Germany and Italy.
|
| You have to understand, the ruling class/aristocracy, those who
| wield power, wield it with abandon and the assumption that
| their power protect them through offense as well as defense. It
| is, e.g., how our ruling class/aristocracy also not only
| inconsequentially just invades and takes over Syrian oil and
| violates sovereignty, but also that no one else in the
| "international community" anywhere says anything about it,
| regardless of how self-righteous they are.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| By "Iran's Leader", surely they mean "Iran's dictator", right?
|
| Mossadegh convinced the government to give him 6 months of
| "emergency powers", ostensibly to fix the financial problems of
| Iran. In reality, he did a little of that, but also used his
| powers to further entrench himself by diminishing the power of
| the Shah. And then he got another 12 months emergency powers, and
| used it to redistribute land to the poor. Unfortunately at that
| time, Iran was also incredibly insolvent (due to the British
| boycott), and so the poor were not happy.
|
| You might argue that Mossadegh would have succeeded if not for
| the British boycott.. sure, maybe he would have. But what do you
| expect to happen when you forcibly take all of the British
| resources? Should they just have said "Oh fine, have them, let's
| keep doing business together"?
|
| The clerics, at this point, were already the proverbial
| kingmakers in Iran. They backed Mossadegh when he was expedient,
| and they backed the Shah when Mossadegh failed them. There's no
| reason to believe that Iran would have continued under Mossadegh
| into some kind of Socialist paradise - he probably would have
| just been deposed by the religious nuts a few years later
| regardless, just as happened with the Shah.
| mmrezaie wrote:
| I agree on your second point though. Clercs were having so much
| hidden power at the time. Consdiering for 250 years since the
| inception of various religious taxes (5th of salary) and
| donations they were accumulating a wast amount of wealth.
| mmrezaie wrote:
| Yes and no. I do not think in that time frame that was being
| considered dictatorship. It was for the lack of legitimacy of
| Shah's case Mossadegh needed more power specially since
| parlemant was not that functional either.
|
| You take Mossadegh's actions by the measures of the time. When
| I was reading about the history of the time, I fail to imagine
| what I could have done.
|
| All in all, Iran's liberal movement by this coup might have
| been distroyed in a way it never did recover yet.
| wz1000 wrote:
| > But what do you expect to happen when you forcibly take all
| of the British resources?
|
| Very strange how oil underneath the Iranian soil can be
| considered a "British resource".
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| Not strange at all when you consider the Iranians had
| absolutely no means of extracting it themselves.
|
| They gave willing access to their natural resources in
| exchange for a relatively massive revenue windfall then
| seized the sizable British capital investments with no
| compensation.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Yes, let's destroy a country's sovereignty because a few
| oil rigs were lost. The imperialism in your comment is
| disgusting.
| as300 wrote:
| Right, so if BP drills for oil in South Texas that means
| that the Texas oil reserves should be under their control?
| This viewpoint reeks of racism and Anglo-Saxon
| exceptionalism.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Those investments were made in a country which was unstable
| so I don't see how these companies are owed anything back.
| totalZero wrote:
| It is a fair statement because ownership was granted via
| concession to the British, originally by the Qajar dynasty.
| Moreover, a company is allowed to own resources and
| infrastructure outside of its country of domicile, just the
| same as Royal Dutch Shell is allowed to own resources and
| infrastructure in the USA.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Arcy_Concession
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Persian_Oil_Company
|
| I often see on HN that, when the topic of Iran comes up,
| people who don't know much about the history of the country
| try to interpret its facts through a modern lens that is
| tinged with a hint of leftism. The reality is that the
| development of the global petroleum market was a fiercely
| capitalistic and competitive phenomenon that yielded immense
| wealth for major oil companies and host governments alike.
| That context cannot be amputated when discussing topics like
| Mosaddegh and the British sphere of influence in Iran during
| the first half of the 20th century.
| wz1000 wrote:
| Why should a concession made by a monarch pre-
| constitutional revolution be expected to be upheld by a
| democratically elected leader operating after significant
| changes in the form and nature of government?
|
| I have noticed all such principled defenses of "property
| rights" and "capitalism" are built upon a very specific and
| convenient view of what exactly counts as "legitimate
| property". Was the oil even the Shah's to give away in the
| first place?
| totalZero wrote:
| Why should a treaty signed by Obama be expected to be
| upheld by Trump?
|
| Continuity of governance, honoring good-faith agreements,
| maintaining confidence of foreign investors...the list
| goes on.
|
| Are you suggesting that all governmental responsibilities
| ought to be thrown out the window every time power
| changes hands? This is not a realistic perspective in
| most of the third world, where power changes hands
| frequently and change of government is often established
| via change of regime.
|
| Ultimately Iran made a killing on the oil business, and
| that would never have happened without petroleum
| concessions. In the parlance of the oil business, a
| "concession" is a deal where the host government allows
| oil rights in return for profit share, ownership, or some
| other financial benefit. It is an asymmetrical but
| symbiotic contract, and the term doesn't carry the same
| pejorative connotation as it would in standard parlance.
|
| Not to mention that the monarch in question was also the
| one who ratified the Persian Constitution of 1906.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I think that people would question whether the agreement
| was in fact good-faith. The British company had agreed to
| various obligations to improve the working conditions of
| Iranian workers, train more Iranians to work in
| administrative roles, and generally contribute to the
| development of infrastructure in the country. It had done
| none of those things in the decades since signing the
| deal.
|
| Under that light, it's not really a case of buyer's
| remorse, where Iran signed a fair deal, and unjustly
| decided to renege on it. It's a case of the British
| company acting exploitatively, violating their agreement,
| refusing to renegotiate, and the Iranians declaring the
| agreement void as a result.
| totalZero wrote:
| Are we talking about the D'Arcy Concession? I ask because
| none of what you are describing is found in the text of
| that agreement.
|
| It's immediately obvious upon observation of modern
| Iran's highly developed petroleum industry that
| concessions sparked the development of infrastructure on
| a massive scale.
|
| > Under that light, it's not really a case of buyer's
| remorse, where Iran signed a fair deal, and unjustly
| decided to renege on it.
|
| I think it's precisely a case of buyer's remorse. In Iran
| prior to the development of infrastructure, 16% share in
| profits generated by AIOC with no initial capital
| commitment from the Qajars sounds like a great deal. In
| Iran after the wells are pumping, 16% share in profits
| sounds like a pittance. I reject your framing of the
| issue as an exploitation by British interests. That may
| be a palatable narrative for the times we live in today,
| but it's a distorted perception of the actual facts.
| Petroleum production was the single greatest driver of
| wealth and development in 20th century Iran. If not for
| foreign investment, the industry could not have boomed as
| it did.
|
| D'Arcy took massive personal risk and even took the
| British government as an investor, but he failed several
| times in the process of exploring for oil before he was
| ultimately successful. Risk is the nature of the
| wildcatting business.
|
| If you study the process of oil rights and
| nationalization in the Middle East, you will see that it
| is a topic marked by extremely brutish behavior from
| local parties as well as faraway beneficiaries like the
| US and the UK. Even OPEC is full of deception about
| production numbers as it sets production amongst member
| nations.
|
| For that reason as well as others beyond the scope of the
| current conversation, there aren't many clean hands in
| the oil production business. Look at the massive
| corruption and cronyism taking place in Venezuela's
| PDVSA. Iran has the same kind of problem, where the
| country's dictators finance their corrupt practices using
| petroleum income.
| wz1000 wrote:
| > Are we talking about the D'Arcy Concession? I ask
| because none of what you are describing is found in the
| text of that agreement.
|
| The agreement was re-negotiated in 1933, according to
| terms that the grandparent pointed out. At this point I
| have to wonder if you are being disingenuous on purpose.
| The rest of your comment is a moral appeal making a case
| for why D'Arcy "deserved" the profits. You have to pick a
| lane, are you arguing on the basis of who "deserves" a
| countries natural resources, or from the point of view of
| adherence to contracts and agreements?
| totalZero wrote:
| The financial risk of the initial investor is a
| reasonable justification for his profits. This applies to
| D'Arcy as well as AIOC. Their cut of the concession deal
| was reflective of their risk premium.
|
| Iran didn't take the risk -- or the cost outlay -- of
| building rigs, importing engineers, etc. The idea that
| the British were somehow exploitative by resisting
| renegotiation is ignorant of this fact. Both the 1901
| agreement and the 1933 agreement laid out
| responsibilities for the
|
| Article 16 of the 1933 agreement covered the introduction
| of more Iranian nationals into the petroleum business,
| which AIOC did in fact carry out. Article 17 talks about
| sanitary and public health facilities for workmen, which
| sounds like bathrooms and medical tents/clinics to handle
| workmen's injuries and treat their families.
|
| However, I see nothing in the 1901 agreement nor the 1933
| agreement that says AIOC will invest in the general
| infrastructure of Iran. That is what the grandparent said
| ("generally contribute to the development of
| infrastructure in the country"). That idea is at best a
| false pretext for breaking the deal, and at worst just a
| blind restatement of something on Wikipedia. Actually,
| the text of the 1933 agreement says that AIOC would
| require Iran's consent to improve AIOC's infrastructure
| (including aviation and telephone).
|
| If I'm wrong, find it in the text of the agreement (https
| ://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-3-658-00093-..
| .) and paste it into a reply for all to see. If I'm
| right, stop calling me disingenuous.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I would consider the construction of housing, sanitation
| and public health to be "general infrastructure", but if
| you prefer a different description, I won't argue. It
| strikes me as a bit of a moot point anyway, because the
| obligations to improve its workers' living conditions are
| clear and those obligations were not met. It doesn't
| matter whether you want to call them "infrastructure" or
| not.
| wz1000 wrote:
| Fortunately, the specific violations have been compiled
| by the world bank, as pointed out in a sibling comment.
|
| I just have one part I found incredibly funny
|
| > The idea that the British were somehow exploitative by
| resisting renegotiation is ignorant of this fact
|
| If overthrowing a democratically elected government is
| not exploitative, I don't know what is. "Resisting
| renegotiation" is a very Orwellian way of phrasing such.
| I'm guessing something along the lines of "we will topple
| your government and hand over absolute power to a brutal
| dictator if the terms are violated" was also part of the
| the agreement?
|
| What about all the other Iranians, the ones that had
| nothing to do with APOC or oil or the government. Did
| they also "deserve" their fate?
| baybal2 wrote:
| Strange analogy you take. One thing is a commercial
| dispute, another is an act of war.
|
| Commercial disputes should be not solved by waging wars.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I'm talking about the 1933 renegotiation. However, the
| original D'Arcy Concession terms were also regularly
| violated by the British.
|
| This document from 1952 has an excellent summary: http://
| documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/74019146804407210...
|
| See Section II (D) beginning on page 4, for violations of
| the original concession, and Section III (D) beginning on
| page 16 for violations of the 1933 agreement.
|
| I'm not simply casting the British behavior as
| exploitative in some hand-waving appeal to the evils of
| imperialism. I'm talking about real, substantive, and
| specific violations of their own agreement.
| totalZero wrote:
| That document highlights Iran's government's objections
| to AIOC, and we have to contextualize those objections
| within the backdrop that Iran had already nationalized
| AIOC a year prior, and needed to justify its actions
| internationally in order to keep selling oil abroad.
| World Bank member nations and other buyers also needed to
| know they would not invite grievances with the UK by
| continuing to buy from a nationalized company.
|
| The author of the document you cite says that prior to
| the 1933 agreement, AIOC withheld royalties under guise
| of covering damages but really to squeeze Iran into
| accepting the new agreement; the problem with this logic
| is that damage to a pipeline also causes revenue loss, so
| you can't indemnify the company by simply paying them for
| the repair costs. The 1901 agreement says that Iran will
| protect the infrastructure, which it failed to do. In any
| case, those payments were addressed in Article 23 of the
| new agreement.
|
| It does not appear to me that Section II (D) demonstrates
| that the contractual stipulations you mentioned
| (training/hiring of locals and establishment of medical
| facilities at AIOC sites) were violated. That part of the
| document also says nothing about infrastructure
| investment. Maybe I am missing something but I have read
| it three times now to make sure.
| Imnimo wrote:
| I don't see how Section II (D) could be any clearer. The
| agreement stipulates a reduction of foreign staff in
| Article 16 (III), and the document shows a substantial
| increase. The agreement stipulates the development of
| sanitation, health services, and housing meeting the most
| modern standards found throughout Iran in Article 17, and
| the document shows that workers live in unsanitary tent
| cities.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Wait a moment, you're equating a change of
| _administration_ (Obama - Trump or any preceding transfer
| of power in the US) with a change of _governance_ , as in
| a structural change in the system of governance (which is
| explicitly spelled out in the comment you were replying
| to).
|
| It's particularly odd that you make this argument given
| Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the P5+1 agreement as
| well as many other bi- and multilateral arrangements. If
| we're just going to rely on _realpolitik_ , why not
| accept that the oil companies also made bank out of Iran
| for a while and hey, nothing lasts forever?
| totalZero wrote:
| > Wait a moment, you're equating a change of
| administration ... with a change of governance
|
| In the context of a monarchy, that's the appropriate way
| to consider it. When Reza Shah Pahlavi took power from
| the Qajars, the deals with the British remained. There is
| a level of continuity of governance that exists in the
| developed West but doesn't exist in the Third World.
| Ecuador for example was until recently an OPEC nation,
| but it has had twenty constitutions. However, it is in
| the nation's best interests, economically speaking, to
| ensure a peaceful transition of operation across those
| political perturbations. (I am reminded of software
| revisions that do not alter the API, so that the software
| can be treated like a black box and mated to applications
| without a rewrite of API calls every time revisions are
| made.)
|
| A current example would be Argentina, where the return of
| Cristina Kirchner to the country's executive branch has
| spooked foreign investors (including miners and petroleum
| companies) because she froze the dollar during her
| presidency about a decade ago. Ultimately this has a very
| damaging effect on the country's economy and its people's
| ability to eat.
|
| In present-day Argentina, we see economic investment
| chilled by a new administration that operates under the
| same constitution but endangers foreign investors. In
| early-20th-century Iran, we saw economic activity boosted
| by continuity of international agreements across several
| different monarchical administrations within two separate
| dynasties.
|
| Please choose the correct lens when you are evaluating a
| third-world country's economy. What we all learned in
| social studies class about the differences between
| regimes, governments, etc.....well it is not necessarily
| applicable to developing nations where change of
| administration is frequently carried out by coup or the
| establishment of a new constitution that is as ephemeral
| as the previous one.
|
| I tried to communicate this succinctly in my earlier
| post, quoted here:
|
| > Are you suggesting that all governmental
| responsibilities ought to be thrown out the window every
| time power changes hands? This is not a realistic
| perspective in most of the third world, where power
| changes hands frequently and change of government is
| often established via change of regime.
| wz1000 wrote:
| You are conflating not investing in a country with
| _overthrowing a democratically elected government_. Are
| you really arguing that it was OK for the US and UK to
| overthrow Iran 's government because otherwise foreigners
| might not have invested in Iran, or otherwise threatened
| their investments? Truly, this is what they call
| "capitalism with a human face".
| the_af wrote:
| Your extraneous mentions of Argentina are jarring. First,
| please don't attempt to sell yours as the unanimous view
| of what's happening to Argentina, who damaged it and who
| attempts to recover from the damage, and the dollar
| reserves/policy. Second, we do have a more or less stable
| constitution (the latest interruption to our democracy,
| via coup d'etat, was backed by the US in the 70s, by the
| way). Comparing our democracy to Iran's government is
| bizarre.
| wz1000 wrote:
| I expect you to be cheering when Iran assassinates Trump
| for reneging on the nuclear deal and killing a high level
| general (among a laundry list of aggressive actions) and
| installs its own puppet.
|
| > Are you suggesting that all governmental
| responsibilities ought to be thrown out the window every
| time power changes hands?
|
| Governments have responsibilities to their own citizens,
| not foreign corporations. In the end the person with the
| biggest stick wins, but lets not pretend like
| overthrowing democratically elected governments for
| access to natural resources from their land is a moral
| imperative.
| totalZero wrote:
| > I expect you to be cheering when Iran assassinates
| Trump
|
| I understand that the HN zeitgeist is not circumspect
| about topics like Iran and petroleum because there is a
| strong distaste for anything that seems imperialistic
| here, but that's not a reason to make uninformed
| arguments and accuse me of cheering the idea of someone's
| death. I'm making some fairly informative and
| historically accurate comments. If you disagree with the
| substance then please do so without accusing me of being
| inhumane.
|
| > Governments have responsibilities to their own
| citizens, not foreign corporations.
|
| Governments ensure citizens' prosperity by protecting
| economy and trade via foreign-facing agreements. The
| beneficiaries of smart foreign trade are the citizens
| themselves. Iran is an example of this; its government's
| budget has been funded almost entirely by petroleum
| revenue for decades.
| wz1000 wrote:
| > If you disagree with the substance then please do so
| without accusing me of being inhumane.
|
| I'm not accusing you of being inhumane. I'm wondering if
| you would apply similar moral standards when the shoe is
| on the other foot, or if you are a hypocrite.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| > I expect you to be cheering when Iran assassinates
| Trump for reneging
|
| Trump pulled a lever that was explicitly listed and
| offered in the treaty. It was not "reneging" on the deal
| any more than using a backout clause is reneging on a
| home purchase. Yes, it is rarely used, and yes, you may
| piss off the counter party who was really hoping for
| their payday, but the fact remains that the possibility
| is explicitly listed in the contract.
| wz1000 wrote:
| Assassinating Soleimani was definitely not explicitly
| listed on any treaty.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The oil rigs, refineries, and pipelines were the British
| resource, not the oil.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Then surely all the British were asking for was a fair
| market price for the nationalized equipment, right?
| totalZero wrote:
| British companies would not have purchased/built that
| equipment without the resource access that had been
| established via contractual agreements with the Iranian
| government.
| rshnotsecure wrote:
| I see this story often, and it is basically true.
|
| I would like to remind everyone though that for every regime
| change the US engineered, the KGB was responsible for many times
| more.
|
| Part of the USSR's philosophy after all was worldwide revolution
| that was to be exported to all countries.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| The thing that's interesting to me about USSR and USA is that
| they were always playing the same games, tit for tat. Poison
| cigars, the space race, funneling money to rebel groups to
| instigate riots... and then regime change and disinformation
| campaigns. You know I remember reading 10 years ago about how
| US Army was developing the tech to generate sock-puppet
| accounts across social media channels to influence public
| opinion and distribute propaganda. Did we really think it
| wouldn't be used against us?
|
| Here it is, 2011
| https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110318/02153313534/us-mi...
|
| "Apparently a company called Ntrepid has scored the contract
| and the US military is getting ready to roll out these "sock
| puppet" online personas. Of course, it insists that all of this
| is targeting foreign individuals, not anyone in the US."
|
| HBGary, Palantir, Berico, anything they build will be seen and
| copied by foreign intelligence. So we're still stuck playing
| tit for tat.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The USSR's philosophy was that under Lenin, under Stalin all
| hopes of worldwide revolution were abandoned and the philosophy
| shifted to "Socialism in one country".
|
| More relevant to your point:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_involvement_in_regime_c...
| (This includes the overthrow of Nazi and Imperial Japanese
| invasion governments, and a good third were post-USSR)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
| (This includes only Nazi overthrows)
|
| As you can see, the second is significantly longer despite not
| including regime change attempts against Imperial Japanese
| governments.
|
| If you remove WW2 and WW1, the US list is over twice as long.
| antiutopian wrote:
| Did you mean "unlike under Lenin"?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I meant that under Lenin, the philosophy was to export
| revolution worldwide so that the Soviet Union would
| integrate into a worldwide, international socialism.
|
| Under Stalin, the policy of "Socialism in one country" was
| implemented, and foreign intervention was no longer a
| priority nor a philosophical goal. Which is why, under
| Stalin, the USSR attempted to ally with capitalist nations.
| antiutopian wrote:
| I agree, I just think you said it wrong in your original
| post!
| mhh__ wrote:
| I'm sure about more regime chances but the KGB definitely did
| more volume of things like this. The mitrokhin archive is but a
| fraction of the history of the KGB and it details huge programs
| around the world.
|
| The USSR was a prison for 300 million and it was run as such.
| 0x262d wrote:
| Please substantiate your claim with a source. I'm pretty sure
| the US is responsible for more, although I don't have the
| numbers at hand. It is a much longer-lasting empire that used
| the Soviet Union as an excuse to knock over any neocolonial
| country, such as Iran, that even thought about taking money
| from the profits of international companies and spending it on
| its own citizens.
| booboolayla wrote:
| Don't come arguing on a topic you lack basic understanding
| of. Asking "for a source" on whether Comintern was exporting
| revolutions around the world is simply arguing in bad faith.
| neutrinoq wrote:
| There's a web comic version of this story being developed:
| http://alpha.operationajax.com/
| dimator wrote:
| There's a good graphic novel as well:
|
| https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/operation-ajax-mike-de-seve...
|
| which is based on the book:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Shah%27s_Men
| the_af wrote:
| Marjane Satrapi's awesome autobiographical comic "Persepolis"
| [1] also addresses this as the setup to the chain of events
| that would lead to Iran's current theocracy.
|
| I recommend this comic as well as the movie based on it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(comics)
| nagarjun wrote:
| This deserves more attention that it is getting in this thread
| pirocks wrote:
| Apparently my browser(firefox) is unsupported. Seems to work
| fine when I change user agent to chrome.
| phatfish wrote:
| I could use Firefox by just clicking the arrow or "continue"
| i think. But there was a warning.
|
| The audio skips and doesn't loop properly for me on Firefox
| though. Didn't try any other browser.
|
| Seems well done, extra marks when Firefox is supported ;)
| _el wrote:
| A great book on this topic is "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen
| Kinzer.
| 0x262d wrote:
| Yes, I second this. That was an absolutely critical read for
| me.
|
| As an aside, All The King's Men and All The President's Men are
| books I recommend too.
| oxymoron wrote:
| I liked it a lot, although I've later found the depiction of
| the Eisenhower administration a bit simplistic. Another good
| and fun read on that is Evans' _Ike's bluff_, which paints a
| more detailed picture on John Foster Dulles in particular.
| teh_klev wrote:
| Yes, can confirm this too. It was quite an eye opener when I
| read it and goes a long way to explaining Iran's relationship
| with the US and the west.
| devenblake wrote:
| The most fascinating part of Americanism to me is that America
| regularly compromises and helps compromise any country that
| doesn't share the same interests, and America's citizens (mostly)
| think it's fine. The society lives in fear of its government, its
| representatives live in fear of its military, and the military is
| controlled by higher-ups who probably shouldn't have been given
| power. Often people accuse the leaders of these compromised
| nations of being dictators as if America doesn't have a track
| record of instilling even more evil leaders (for example,
| Pinochet[1]).
|
| Why can't America just leave other countries alone and tend to
| its own sorry affairs? America tries to make other countries
| "more free" and then treats Blacks, Asians, Native Americans,
| Mexicans, other people of color, women, transgenders and other
| gender-nonconformists, homosexuals and anyone else that isn't
| heterosexual, Communists, Socialists, and anyone who isn't their
| form of "normal" as second-rate citizens in their own country.
| America (rightfully) accuses other countries of tampering in
| their election and then tampers in others' elections.[0] Their
| actions often contradict the values they claim to purvey.
|
| I hear often that if another country was doing as poorly as
| America is right now, America would have "liberated" it already.
|
| [0]: I found a source here: https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-
| interfered-in-elections-of-... for my claims, however it's
| questionable due to accusations of spreading propaganda. Here's a
| relevant article from a more trustworthy source:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/the-us-has...
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet#U.S._backing_...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Power is a hell of a drug.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Due to the structure of the power, also a drug that's hard to
| taper: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24071721 (where
| "the Gulf" refers to the Gulf of Mexico, not the Persian)
|
| JFK, seeking an exit from that Catch-22, tried to promote
| international institutions[1] in order to approach a world
| "where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace
| preserved"[2] ... but he got cancelled.
|
| [1] compare late Ezra Pound for 1940's rants almost suitable
| for the 2020's: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208047
|
| [2] https://nationalcenter.org/KennedyInaugural.html
| pessimizer wrote:
| JFK also planned to help topple democratic government in
| Brazil and install the dictatorship. "Operation Brother
| Sam" was actually executed by LBJ, post-cancellation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27%C3%A
| 9...
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