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Half a century ago, the United States overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, whose "crime" was nationalizing the country's oil industry. In a cloak-and-dagger story of spies, saboteurs, and secret agents, Kinzer reveals the involvement of Eisenhower, Churchill, Kermit Roosevelt, and the CIA in Operation Ajax, which restored Mohammad Reza Shah to power. Reza imposed a tyranny that ultimately sparked the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which, in turn, inspired fundamentalists throughout the Muslim world, including the Taliban and terrorists who thrived under its protection."It is not far-fetched," Kinzer asserts, "to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York.".… (more)
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Kinzer concludes that the immediate result - a stable and anti-communist Iran under the Shah - was beneficial to the United States but the long-term results were disastrous. The Shah's tyrannical rule in Iran, and the knowledge that the US supported him, turned most Iranians virulently against the United States. When revolutionary Iranians took hostages at the US embassy in 1979 it was because the embassy had been a base of covert activity in 1953. Finally, it set a pattern of CIA-sponsored activities in other parts of the world that havecontributed to the loss of the USA's image as a standard-bearer of freedom.
Kinzer interweaves three main topics to construct his narrative: the coup itself, the history of British and American interest and activity in Iran, and the stories of the two main characters in the historical drama: Kermit Roosevelt Jr., the CIA agent in charge of staging the coup, and Mossadegh himself. Indeed, a nearly complete (though brief) biography of Mossadegh is given over the course of the book, while many other important actors (including the Shah) receive relatively little attention.
Kinzer's historical overview focuses largely on Britain's oil interests in Iran and how the Eisenhower administration's fear of Communist expansion eventually led to Americans taking a leading role in the coup. Even more interesting were Kinzer's brief looks at some of the effects of the coup. First among these, of course, is the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which overthrew the Shah the 1953 coup restored to power. Perhaps even more important was the enthusiastic response the coup received among leading American politicians and intelligence officers, who were eager to test out similar strategies in other uncooperative countries. Kinzer presents the initial success of the 1953 Iranian coup as a main cause of the disastrous CIA-organized overthrow of the (democratically-elected) government of Guatemala one year later. Although Kinzer does not mention the topic, I couldn't help but notice many similarities between his description of the Iranian coup and recent events in Venezuela, where the United States has also shown itself eager to get rid of a controversial but democratically-elected leader.
I feel I should emphasize that Kinzer does not actually present the 1953 coup as the "Roots of Middle East Terror". I suspect this unfortunately exaggerated subtitle was added by the publisher in order to increase sales. However, it cannot be denied that the coup was a very important event nonetheless. It derailed one of the Middle East's most promising democracies, set the stage for the 1979 Revolution, and helped shape America's disastrous Cold War policy of overthrowing potentially uncooperative governments and installing more accommodating dictators in their place.
A book as short as "All the Shah's Men" obviously cannot be complete in its coverage and is certainly not the last word on the 1953 coup and its effects. However, it is a wonderful introduction to the topic, engaging and illuminating although brief. Strongly recommended for those with any interest in Iran, the Middle East in general, or American foreign policy during the Cold War.
Kinzer sets up the coup d’état story by first briefly relating Great Britain’s sordid history in Iran. The British treated Iran as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later to be known as British Petroleum or BP for short). Nationalist movements were afoot across the globe after WW II and Iran was no exception. In 1951, Mossadegh’s government nationalized Anglo-Iranian but that achieved less than Iran had hoped and it led to a protracted struggle with the British government for control of Iranian oil.
As Kinzer relates, Great Britain, especially after Churchill's return to power in 1951, refused to recognize that the sun had indeed set on the British Empire and wanted to turn the clock back by regain its prior degree of control over Iran and its oil. Failing that Churchill tried to get the US government to intervene and put a stop to nationalization before the colonial world was completely `lost'. They did not find Truman particularly receptive to the notion that saving British colonies was a vital US interest. Changing their tune, they instead trumpeted fears of a Soviet takeover. When Eisenhower won election in 1952, the Brits immediately began plotting. They found particularly responsive ears in the Dulles brothers who headed the State Department and the CIA.
Kinzer closely describes the CIA efforts to turn the people against Mossadegh by creating instability and chaos - or at least making Tehran seem so. Operation Ajax was the plan hatched and implemented by Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (TR's grandson) to discredit Mossadegh through black propaganda, mob actions, and bribery. The plot to remove Mossadegh and replace him with a general acceptable to the US and Greta Britain initially failed. Roosevelt was about to leave at the strong suggestion of his CIA bosses in Washington, but then decided to stay and try again the following days (The Shah meanwhile fled at the first sign of danger.).
The coup of course succeeded on the second try. The Shah returned and soon became the real power in the Iranian government. The Shah obligingly signed very favorable terms to split oil revenue with the US and Great Britain. Mossadegh was imprisoned for three years and then kept under house arrest for the remainder of his life. One of the book's highlights is Kinzer's poignant report of his post-revolution trip he managed to make to this house in a village outside of Tehran.
Kinzer's reporting is excellent and his story would be a highly enjoyable thriller except that it relates actual events and the lost possibilities. One can only wonder how the world would be different if the US had adhered more to Truman's line than Eisenhower's in its relations to the former colonial empires. A very fine book and highly recommended, especially to anyone to young to remember the revelations in the 1970s of the US government's direct role in numerous post-WW II coups around the world that began with Iran.
The book probably merits five stars if evaluated solely as straight reporting and perhaps it is unfair to downgrade the book a little for not pursuing the analysis of how this coup helped set the course of US history in the Middle East. Kinzer spends only a few pages connecting the dots between the 1953 coup and the 1979 Islamic revolution and one wishes that he would have said more because he obviously had more to say.
Kinzer has written a new book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, that relates fourteen such episodes beginning in Hawaii in 1893 and continuing to the Iraq war (and one does not doubt that history will require a sequel).
The book is well-written, driven less by polished political theorizing and more by the way in which Kinzer fleshes out the primary actors in the coup. His journalism is even-handed; the actions of Kermit Roosevelt, who took the lead in CIA work in Iran, may be either lauded or criticized. Similarly, Mohammad Mossadegh, the favored Iranian leader prior to the US's involvement, emerges as neither a hero nor a villain, but simply a man facing foreign adversity that must be dealt with. Kinzer merely reports the political story as cleanly as possible, and readers learn the larger-than-life personas who were involved on all sides.
The book wraps up with a reflection: was the American coup ultimately a good thing or a bad thing? Truly, without knowing the other routes that history may have taken, it's impossible to say. If Russia had seized control instead (as the West was terrified they would), their control of the oil and physical location of Iran would have had a large impact on the outcome of the Cold War. On the other hand, the US coup incited such vehement dislike for Western power that one may pinpoint the beginning of present day Islamic anti-Western terrorism at the meddling of the US in 1953. However one approaches it, though, the 1953 coup stands as a critical turning point in twentieth century politics, whose impact is so far-reaching that our present understanding probably does not fully encompass it.
Most importantly, Kinzer draws a direct line between the CIA's secret (at the time) 1953 coup to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and the strained relationship between the U.S. and Iran that has followed the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Prior to the coup, the U.S. was seen as an ally in the region, a protector of national interests and resources -- or least more fair than the traditional imperialist attitude still portrayed by Great Britain. By displacing Mosaddegh, a secularist, the nationalist and Islamist movements converged against a common enemy -- the Shah and his neo-imperalist supporters, Great Britain and the U.S.
As Kinzer described the Dulles brothers' strategy to persuade President Eisenhower that the coup was necessary, I had the sense of viewing a horror movie heroine poised to open a door that the audience knows conceals the movie's villain. If only we had shown more restraint in 1953, we may have prevented Iran's transformation from a budding democracy into a hostile and theocratic state.
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955.053 |