All the Shah′s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

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All the Shah′s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

All the Shah′s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

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a(OCoLC)173499042 |z(OCoLC)987454150 |z(OCoLC)989766545 |z(OCoLC)1043375580 |z(OCoLC)1059406032 |z(OCoLC)1133776180 |z(OCoLC)1283805081 astonishing account...Kinzer, a New York Times correspondent...tells his captivating tale with style and verve". ( Library Journal, June 15, 2003) When Kinzer traces a direct line from the 1953 coup to 9/11, it seems to me that he is drawing over-simplified lines through history. When he says that Islamic terrorism has its roots in 1953, he is visualizing “roots” that might be a bit too short. Stephen Kinzer doesn’t tell anything new and the almost care-free way by which he draws conclusions about the legacy of the coup diminishes the value of the book. To be fair, this is not a historical work and Kinzer has mostly relied on the works of other historians like Elm and Gasiorowski for creating his narrative. The problematic part is his handling of the events surrounding the coup and its aftermath. His depiction of the coup is basically a banal rehashing of the account offered by Kermit Roosevelt, the CIA field-operative who reputedly masterminded the coup and brought it to success, almost single-handedly.

Yet the narrative of exclusive American culpability has become so entrenched that it now shapes the way in which many Americans study and understand the history of U.S.-Iranian relations. It also influences how American leaders think about Iran. Including Obama. Personally, I think heroes exist only in popular narratives, which are typically a fictionalization of reality. But again, this is a fabulous read, that I would recommend to anyone who is curious about this fascinating period of history. Half a century ago, the United States overthrew a Middle Eastern government for the first time. The victim was Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran. Although the coup seemed a success at first, today it serves as a chilling lesson about the dangers of foreign intervention.In this book, veteran New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer gives the first full account of this fateful operation. His account is centered around an hour-by-hour reconstruction of the events of August 1953, and concludes with an assessment of the coup's "haunting and terrible legacy."aUnited States |xRelations |0https://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140497 |zIran. |0https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79039880-781 Wow, such a great book. I had read Kinzer’s “The brothers” a few years ago, about the Dulles brothers, and found it just as engaging, well-written, and well researched. For example, the idea of a coup was also strongly promoted by aggrieved Iranian politicians who believed that Mossadeq’s disastrous course was ill-serving their country. General Fazlullah confirmed the embassy’s view that a nascent anti-Mossadeq coalition already existed and could gain power with very limited American support. Kinzer argued that the consequences of Operation Ajax have reverberated throughout the ensuing decades in the fraught international relationships. I found Chapter 12, in which he wrapped up his thesis, interesting even though I wasn't completely convinced. The author had cited academic research which concluded that many of the geopolitical tensions of the 21st century are the rotten fruit borne of the 1953 coup. I have no doubt that the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran was directly connected with Operation Ajax but I remain skeptical of the longer term repercussions. Given Ayatollah Khomeini's fervency, who is to say that he wouldn't have gained power without the US-led toppling of Mohammad Mossadegh?

Political instability arrived with the 20th century as the populace began agitating for a constitution, the nascent seeds of democracy. Three distinct segments within Iran wrestled for power: the Qajar ruling clan, the Constitutional reformers, and the Islamic clerics. Simultaneously, Britain and the Russian Empire tussled to maintain their economic interests in Iran and in 1907, they accordingly signed a treaty, notably without any input from Iran. As Russia became engulfed by its own civil war and revolution, Britain took decisive steps which resulted in its effective sovereignty over Iran. In the 1920s, Reza, an uneducated but ambitious military leader, toppled the Qajar dynasty and ruled until 1941. His successor was his son, Mohammad Reza Shah. Neither dislodged British business interests nor its military presence. For example, it is hard to see how Eisenhower could take advantage of Mossadeq’s mishaps when he was informed by his intelligence services that the “CIA presently has no group which would be effective in spreading anti-Mossadeq mass propaganda” and the “CIA has no group in Iran which could effectively promote riots demonstrating against Mossadeq.” (from recently declassified CIA documents) a new book about the coup All the Shah′s men...recalls some unwelcome parallels(with the Gulf War)..."( The Guardian, 20 August 2003) Yet it was at the U.N., in October 1953, that one of the greatest dramas of the nascent television age unfolded: The eccentric, hawk–nosed Iranian nationalist leader Mohammed Mossadegh squared off with the aristocratic ambassador of the fading British Empire. At stake was Britain′s claim to own Iran′s oil in perpetuity.Less flattering is portrayal of the Iranian monarchy. But it is the British that leave the worst impression in this The great mob that surged through the streets of Tehran on August 18 was partly mercenary and partly a genuine expression of people’s loss of faith in Mossadegh.” Throughout the crisis, the British obstinately refused to see that world opinion was moving away from support for the colonial system, and consistently misjudged Iranian passion on this topic. Numerous opportunities for compromise presented themselves to the British, each of which they haughtily rejected.

The communist takeover of China and the Korean War changed the way America viewed Iran. Foreign policy was now cast in terms of the Cold War. Still President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson remained anti-colonial. They refused to support Britain’s hardline stand and proposals for direct intervention in Iran. Acheson sent his assistant secretary George McGhee to Iran then followed up with the experienced Averill Harriman to try to negotiate a peaceful resolution. Despite the persistent effort of both men the British and Iranians remained intransigent. Iran took over the oilfields but had no capacity to run them. The British had never trained the Iranian workers who lived in abject poverty. Britain pulled out all its management and technicians and production stopped. meticulously documented throughout essential reading ( Medicine Conflict and Survival, Vol. 21(4) October 2005) In the penultimate chapter, we finally get to the second stage of the coup. This section, like the first chapter, is again drawn from the memoirs of Kermit Roosevelt. Like the first chapter, the absence of detail cripples this chapter and I’m not convinced that the coup succeeded because of Roosevelt and CIA agents.Tell people today that the United Nations was once the center of the world the place where struggling nations got a shot at a fair hearing instead of a monkey trial before they were overthrown and most would probably shake their heads in puzzlement. Although over ninety, Dad is unusually active. He is a docent at the Dundee Historical Society and, thanks to the influence of his Danish wife, Lene, takes courses as a non-degree-seeking student at the Roosevelt University campus out in dreary Schaumburg, Illinois. He tends towards history and political science, having said at one time that he enjoys ganging up with the liberal teachers against his mostly right-wing, fellow suburban students. (Dad always was a pinkish Democrat.) This book was recommended by him after he'd taken some course which used it. He had asked it I'd read it and, having read Kinzer's other book about the overthrow of the Guatemalan government by the C.I.A. and having enjoyed that one, his recommendation was enough for me to obtain the thing. I wasn't disappointed. Kinzer’s tale doesn’t offer much more detail than this. And by ignoring crucial information like the involvement of key generals in rallying the troops and the importance of the clergy in organizing the protests, his account gets distorted and is attributed mostly to the work of CIA agents. I don’t know if we can say Mosaddeq's government would have fallen even without Ajax. But I think we can say that the CIA didn’t play that big a part. For that I recommend Darioush Bayandor’s account of the coup. All the Shah's Men is a comprehensive, thoughtful & exceedingly enjoyable attempt at rendering a very complicated event in American-Iranian relations and I highly recommend this & other books by Stephen Kinzer. And if you are feeling intrepid, I also recommend a visit to Iran, with the Iranian people among the most hospitable I have ever experienced. Obviously, this dose of Sufi metaphysics does not explain the storming of the U.S. embassy in 1979 but it serves to humanize Iran for the outsider perhaps more than any listing of the historical achievements of Cyrus the Great or Darius in ancient Persia. Iran has a very rich & complex history & Kinzer builds on that history so that a casual reader can begin to fathom the happenings in 1979 & what led up to that moment in history.

Moreover, blaming the C.I.A. and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company for the Iranian revolution lets later American administrations (and the shah himself) off the hook. Most cold war presidents relied too heavily on the shah for Persian Gulf stability while doing too little to press him to reform. John F. Kennedy, who did push Iran to liberalize, proved an honorable exception. In April 1962, he told a somewhat baffled shah to learn from the example of Franklin Roosevelt, who ''was still regarded almost as a god in places like West Virginia'' for siding with the common citizen.

Indicative of a Post-War Economic Boom

Following the 1941 Allied Invasion of Iran, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Shah, who upheld the oil agreement with APOC, which by then had been renamed the "Anglo-Iranian Oil Company". While being very curious about the erstwhile Persia, most of the available media-supplied images of Iran were couched in extreme anti-American rhetoric, nary a hint about why the people of that land might be so antagonistic. Kinzer fills in the gaps & does so in an almost politically neutral manner. As the saying has it, "the devil is in the details" and the way the story of the CIA-led overthrow of an elected Iranian government unfolds, seems almost comic at times, with anti-Mossadegh protestors being somewhat randomly hired by the CIA, at times reminding one of an early scene from the recent film Argo. What happened hardly represnts a distinguished moment in American diplomatic history. The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.



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