Iranian coup d'état of 1953: US motive for CIA Operation Ajax

This article has been split due to the large amount of material:

• Iranian coup d'état of 1953
• Iranian coup d'état of 1953: Background
• Iranian coup d'état of 1953: US motives for CIA's Operation Ajax
• Iranian coup d'état of 1953: Aftermath and international reaction

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, on August 19, 1953 (known as the 28 Mordad coup in Iran), was the overthrow of the government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency and MI6. The coup launched 25 years of dictatorship under Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, who relied heavily on U.S. support to hold on to power until the Shah himself was overthrown in February 1979.

U.S. motives

Historians disagree, but their investigations here focus on two factors: anti-communism and imperialism, largely declaring them to be mutually exclusive.

Middle East historian Ervand Abrahamian identified the coup d'état as "a classic case of nationalism clashing with imperialism in the Third World". He states that Secretary of State Dean Acheson admitted the "'Communist threat' was a smokescreen" in responding to President Eisenhower's claim that the Tudeh party was about to assume power.

Throughout the crisis, the "communist danger" was more of a rhetorical device than a real issue—i.e. it was part of the cold-war discourse ...The Tudeh was no match for the armed tribes and the 129,000-man military. What is more, the British and Americans had enough inside information to be confident that the party had no plans to initiate armed insurrection. At the beginning of the crisis, when the Truman administration was under the impression a compromise was possible, Acheson had stressed the communist danger, and warned if Mosaddegh was not helped, the Tudeh would take over. The (British) Foreign Office had retorted that the Tudeh was no real threat. But, in August 1953, when the Foreign Office echoed the Eisenhower administration's claim that the Tudeh was about to take over, Acheson now retorted that there was no such communist danger. Acheson was honest enough to admit that the issue of the Tudeh was a smokescreen.

Abrahamian states that Iran's oil was the central focus of the coup, for both the British and the Americans, though "much of the discourse at the time linked it to the Cold War". Abrahamian wrote, "If Mosaddegh had succeeded in nationalizing the British oil industry in Iran, that would have set an example and was seen at that time by the Americans as a threat to U.S. oil interests throughout the world, because other countries would do the same." Mosaddegh did not want any compromise solution that allowed a degree of foreign control. Abrahamian said that Mosaddegh "wanted real nationalization, both in theory and practice".

Tirman points out that agricultural land owners were politically dominant in Iran, well into the 1960s and the monarch, Reza Pahlevi's aggressive land expropriation policies—to the benefit of himself and his supporters—resulted in the Iranian government being Iran's largest land owner. "The landlords and oil producers had new backing, moreover, as American interests were for the first time exerted in Iran. The Cold War was starting, and Soviet challenges were seen in every leftist movement. But the reformers were at root nationalists, not communists, and the issue that galvanized them above all others was the control of oil." But this only highlights the definition of nationalists: people with no issue around which to gather other than their own interests, conflating their search to fulfill their own identity in totemization of a flag with a political cause. The belief that oil was the central motivator behind the coup has been echoed in the popular media by authors such as Robert Byrd, Alan Greenspan, and Ted Koppel.

However, Middle East political scientist Wikipedia:Mark Gasiorowski states that while, on the face of it, there is considerable merit to the argument that U.S. policymakers helped U.S. oil companies gain a share in Iranian oil production after the coup, "it seems more plausible to argue that U.S. policymakers were motivated mainly by fears of a communist takeover in Iran, and that the involvement of U.S. companies was sought mainly to prevent this from occurring. The Cold War was at its height in the early 1950s, and the Soviet Union was viewed as an expansionist power seeking world domination. Eisenhower had made the Soviet threat a key issue in the 1952 elections, accusing the Democrats of being soft on communism and of having "lost China." Once in power, the new administration quickly sought to put its views into practice."

Gasiorowski further states "the major U.S. oil companies were not interested in Iran at this time. A glut existed in the world oil market. The U.S. majors had increased their production in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1951 in order to make up for the loss of Iranian production; operating in Iran would force them to cut back production in these countries which would create tensions with Saudi and Kuwaiti leaders. Furthermore, if nationalist sentiments remained high in Iran, production there would be risky. U.S. oil companies had shown no interest in Iran in 1951 and 1952. By late 1952, the Truman administration had come to believe that participation by U.S. companies in the production of Iranian oil was essential to maintain stability in Iran and keep Iran out of Soviet hands. In order to gain the participation of the major U.S. oil companies, Truman offered to scale back a large anti-trust case then being brought against them. The Eisenhower administration shared Truman's views on the participation of U.S. companies in Iran and also agreed to scale back the anti-trust case. Thus, not only did U.S. majors not want to participate in Iran at this time, it took a major effort by U.S. policymakers to persuade them to become involved."

In 2004, Gasiorowski edited a book on the coup arguing that "the climate of intense cold war rivalry between the superpowers, together with Iran's strategic vital location between the Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf oil fields, led U.S. officials to believe that they had to take whatever steps were necessary to prevent Iran from falling into Soviet hands." While "these concerns seem vastly overblown today" the pattern of "the 1945–46 Azerbaijan crisis, the consolidation of Soviet control in Eastern Europe, the communist triumph in China, and the Korean War—and with the Red Scare at its height in the United States" would not allow U.S. officials to risk allowing the Tudeh Party to gain power in Iran. Furthermore, "U.S. officials believed that resolving the oil dispute was essential for restoring stability in Iran, and after March 1953 it appeared that the dispute could be resolved only at the expense either of Britain or of Mosaddeq." He concludes "it was geostrategic considerations, rather than a desire to destroy Mosaddeq's movement, to establish a dictatorship in Iran or to gain control over Iran's oil, that persuaded U.S. officials to undertake the coup."

Faced with choosing between British interests and Iran, the U.S. chose Britain, Gasiorowski said. "Britain was the closest ally of the United States, and the two countries were working as partners on a wide range of vitally important matters throughout the world at this time. Preserving this close relationship was more important to U.S. officials than saving Mosaddeq's tottering regime." A year earilier, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill used Britain's support for the U.S. in the Cold War to insist the United States not undermine his campaign to isolate Mosaddegh. "Britain was supporting the Americans in Korea, he reminded Harry S. Truman, and had a right to expect `Anglo-American unity` on Iran."

The two main winners of World War II who had been Allies during the war became superpowers and competitors as soon as the war ended, each with their own spheres of influence and client states. After the 1953 coup, Iran became one of the client states of the United States. In his earlier book, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran Gasiorowski identifies the client states of the United States and of the Soviet Union between 1954–1977. Gasiorowski identified Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Cambodia, Iran, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, South Korea, South Vietnam, Taiwan as strong client states of the United States and identified those that were moderately important to the U.S. as Greece, Turkey, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Liberia, Zaire, Israel, Jordan, Tunisia, Pakistan and Thailand. He identified Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ethiopia and Japan as "weak" client states of the United States.

Gasiorowski identified Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Cuba, Mongolia and North Vietnam as "strong client states" of the Soviet Union, and he identified Guinea, Somalia, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and North Korea as moderately important client states. Mali and South Yemen were classified as weak client states of the Soviet Union.

According to Kinzer, for most Americans, the crisis in Iran became just part of the conflict between Communism and "the Free world." "A great sense of fear, particularly the fear of encirclement, shaped American consciousness during this period. ... Soviet power had already subdued Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Communist governments were imposed on Bulgaria and Romania in 1946, Hungary and Poland in 1947, and Czechoslovakia in 1948. Albania and Yugoslavia also turned to communism. Greek communists made a violent bid for power. Soviet soldiers blocked land routes to Berlin for sixteen months. In 1949 the Soviet Union successfully tested a nuclear weapon. That same year, pro-Western forces in China lost their civil war to communists led by Mao Zedong. From Washington, it seemed that enemies were on the march everywhere." Consequently, "the United States, challenged by what most Americans saw as a relentless communist advance, slowly ceased to view Iran as a country with a unique history that faced a unique political challenge." Some historians including Douglas Little, Abbas Milani and George Lenczowski have echoed the view that fears of a communist takeover or Soviet influence motivated the U.S. to intervene.

Thus, as so often happens, scholarly debate has settled into camps determined that a single factor was alone responsible for a phenomena. In this case, it revolves around the fact that fighting communism and oil consumption are still acceptable in capitalist countries, while greed for oil profits is not. To planned economy communists, for example, it all seems quite absurd to be arguing that Eisenhower was ok for being anti-communist, and the oil companies were evil for not bothering to get the oil all for America when the US had enough already.

Another factor: the love of and protection for capitalism, which love is greed at its most narcissistic. Anti-communist rhetoric requires of communism that it be anti-capitalist; one reason given, absurdly, that it destroys capital (absurdly when communism is another type of control of said capital). Anti-communists took the Iranian nationalization to be the very destruction of capitalism of which they had warned, and so both communist and anti-capitalist. Vindication, then, is their ultimate anti-communist perception of this event; they felt it was proof of what they had said all along.

See Also and References

See Iranian coup d'état of 1953

• Iranian Oil Bourse