User talk:Louis P. Boog/Iran-1953-coup-article-problems

Problems with 1953 Iranian coup d'état article

[The purpose of this page is to highlight problems with the 1953 Iranian coup d'état wikipedia article ] which can corrected with the Proposed revised version

[NOTHING FROM A RS STATING THAT THE COUP WAS SIGNIFICANT.] The 1953 Iranian coup d’état deposed the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. In a plan called Operation Ajax (less commonly TPAJAX), the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) organized and executed the overthrow of the nationalist government of Prime Minister Mosaddeq, at the request of, and with support from the British government.[SOUNDS LIKE THE US GOVERNMENT WAS A CONTRACTOR DOING WHAT UK WANTED] This enabled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to become an authoritarian monarch, who went on to rule Iran, often violently, for 26 years until he was overthrown in 1979. DID THE COUP PLAN MAKE SHAH A DICTATOR? NO RS INDICATES THAT.]

[LONG HISTORY OF OIL IN IRAN WITHOUT STATING THAT THIS WAS A CAUSE OF COUP. NO RS STATING IT WAS A CAUSE] Two years earlier, in 1951, nationalist supporters in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, had nationalized Iran's petroleum industry and then elected Mosaddeq as prime minster; they agreed with his argument that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves instead of allowing profits to continue to flow to the United Kingdom. Mosaddeq had backing throughout Iran, but this decision had angered the British goverment, because since 1913, the oil industry in Iran had been controlled exclusively by the British government-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and it represented the UK's single largest overseas investment. [NOT TOTALLY TRUE AS USSR HAD OIL INDUSTRY IN THE NORTH] The ejection of the British staff of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) from the nationalized refineries in Iran triggered a crisis at Abadan, the world's largest refinery, in what came to be called the Abadan Crisis. Britain accused Mosaddeq of violating the legal rights of the AIOC and mobilized a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that plunged Iran into financial crisis. "After Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company May 2, 1951, Britain assembled an armada made up of its Navy, Air Force and army to seize the island of Abadan in order to reclaim control of the oil refinery but Prime Minister Clement Attlee declined to attack, choosing instead to enforce the economic boycott against Iran. The British government, headed by Winston Churchill, tried to enlist the United States in planning a coup, but President Harry S. Truman refused. Under his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, the CIA embarked on its first covert operation to overthrow a foreign government.

The economic and political crisis in Iran that began in early 1952 with the British-organized worldwide boycott of Iranian oil, ended with the signing of the Consortium Agreement of 1954. Pahlavi signed the agreement with the result that, for the first time, United States oil companies shared in the control of Iranian oil, with the U.S. and UK evenly splitting 80% and the remainder divided between French and Dutch interests. Iran was allocated 50% of the revenues, which was an increase from 16% in the original agreement. However, from Iran's perspective, the Consortium Agreement of 1954 was far less favorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint 'Churchill-Eisenhower' proposal to Mosaddeq. After the coup, the Consortium Agreement of 1954 ended the crisis, and stayed in effect until it was modified in 1957 and 1973 and then ended in 1979 when the Iranian Revolution deposed the monarch. [MUCH DETAIL FOR A LEAD. WAS THE Consortium Agreement of 1954 CONNECTED WITH THE COUP? A GOAL OF THE COUP? WHERE IS ANY RS STATING THIS?]

US support and funding continued after the coup, with the CIA training the Shah's secret police, SAVAK. [SAVAK WAS CONNECTED WITH THE COUP? A GOAL OF COUP?] Originally, the Eisenhower Administration considered Operation Ajax a "successful secret war", but, given its blowback, that assessment is no longer generally held, because of the coup's "haunting and terrible legacy". AWKWARD SENTENCE. "HAUNTING AND TERRIBLE" SHOULD COME FIRST The coup d’état was "a critical event in post-war world history" that replaced Iran’s native, and secular parliamentary democracy with an authoritarian monarchy. [BUZZFLASH A RS?] The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which deposed the Shah and replaced the pro-Western monarchy with the anti-Western Islamic Republic of Iran.

Background
According to Guardian correspondent Dan De Luce, the principal motive for overthrowing Iran's elected government was US and UK refusal to accept the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the business agreement, between the Imperial British and the Iranian civil governments. [PROBLEM: ARTICLE DOESN"T SAY THIS]

However according to political scientist Mark Gasiorowski, while "it is often argued that the main motive behind the coup was the desire of U.S. policy makers to help U.S. oil companies gain a share in Iranian oil production ... it seems more plausible" the U.S. policymakers "were motivated mainly by fears of a communist takeover in Iran." Gasiorowski's later book written with Malcolm Byrne and published in 2003 offers a different interpretation. [IT'S EXACTLY THAT INTERPRETATION]

History professor Ervand Abrahamian and author of five books on Iran's history was interviewed on Democracy Now concerning the US motive for overthrowing the government of Iran. [WAY TOO LONG. undue weight] Amy Goodman: That issue of the U.S. government funding both the people in the streets who pretended that they were for Mossadegh but communist, and against Mossadegh, pro-Shah, I would like our guest, professor Ervand Abrahamian, Middle East and Iran expert at Baruch College, to comment on. This was a time, the British had used the ruse of anti-communism supposedly to lure in the U.S. Do you think the U.S. was fully well aware of the issue of oil being at the core of this, and also them possibly getting a cut of those oil sales.

Ervand Abrahamian: Yes, I think oil is the central issue. But of course this was done at the height of the Cold War, so much of the discourse at the time linked it to the Cold War. I think many liberal historians, including of course Stephen Kinzer’s wonderful book here, even though it’s very good in dealing with the tragedy of the ‘53 coup, still puts it in this liberal framework that the tragedy, the original intentions, were benign—that the U.S. really got into it because of the Cold War and was hoodwinked into it by the nasty British who of course had oil interests, but the U.S. somehow was different, that the U.S. Eisenhower’s interests were really anti-communism. I sort of doubt that interpretation. For me, the oil was important both for the United States and for Britain. It’s not just the question of oil in Iran. It was a question of control over oil internationally. If Mossadegh 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. Once you have control, then you can determine how much oil you produce in your country, who you sell it to, when you sell it, and that meant basically shifting power from the oil companies, both British Petroleum, Angloversion, American companies, shifting it to local countries like Iran and Venezuela. And in this, the U.S. had as much stake in preventing nationalization in Iran as the British did. So here there was not really a major difference between the United States and the British. The question really was on tactics. Truman was persuaded he could, in a way, nudge Mossadegh to give up the concept of nationalization, that somehow there could be a package seen as nationalized but which, in reality, kept power in the hands of Western oil companies. Mossadegh refused to go along with this facade. He wanted real nationalization, both in theory and practice.

So the Truman administration, in a way, was not that different from the British view of keeping control. Then, the Truman policy was then, if Mossadegh was not willing to do this, then he could be shoved aside through politics by the Shah dismissing him or the Parliament in Iran dismissing him. But again, it was not that different from the British view. Where the shift came was that after July of 1952, it became clear even to the American ambassador in Iran that Mossadegh could not be got rid of through the political process. He had too much popularity, and after July ’53, the U.S. really went along with the British view of a coup, indeed to have a military coup. So even before Eisenhower came in, the U.S. was working closely with the British to carry out the coup.

What came out of the coup was that the oil industry, on paper, remained Iranian, nationalized, but in reality controlled by a consortium. In that consortium the British still retained more than 50 percent, but the U.S. got a good 40 percent of the control.

Early petroleum development
[SHOULD BE ABOUT BRITISH INTERFERENCE AND OIL]

[TOO LONG. ARTICLE IS ON THE COUP NOT THE APOC/AIOC. SHOULD BE FORKED OFF TO APOC ARTICLE] In May 1901 Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar, the Shah of Iran, sought to partially alleviate debts he owed to Britain by granting a 60-year concession to search for oil to William Knox D'Arcy. Although the oil exploration took seven years in a very punishing environment and was almost called off before oil was found, it discovered a huge oil field for which Iran received only 16% of future profits.

The company grew slowly until World War I when its strategic importance led the British Government to acquire controlling interest in the company, essentially nationalizing British oil production in Iran for a short period of time, becoming the Royal Navy's chief source of fuel oil in defeating the Central Powers during World War I. During this period, British troops occupied strategic parts of Iran.[SOURCE?]

There was growing dissatisfaction within Persia with the oil concession and royalty terms, whereby Iran received 16 percent of net profits. This dissatisfaction was exacerbated by British involvement in the Persian Constitutional Revolution as well as the British Empire's use of Iranian routes to invade Russia in an attempt to reverse the October Bolshevik Revolution.

In 1921, a military coup, financed at least in part by the British, placed Reza Pahlavi on the throne as Shah of Iran. The new Shah undertook a number of modernization measures, many of which were advantageous not only to the British but the Iranians as well, such as the Persian Corridor railroads for military and other transportation. [TANGENT]

In the 1930s, Nazi Germany heavily courted the Shah in order to secure access to oil, for use in their war effort. The Shah terminated the APOC concession. The concession was resettled within a year, covering a reduced area with an increase in the Persian government's share of profits. [SOURCE?]

In 1941, following the German invasion of the USSR, the British and Commonwealth forces and the Soviet Union invaded Iran, to secure supply lines (see Persian Corridor) for the Soviets fighting against Germany on the Eastern Front and Iranian oil fields for the allies. They deposed Reza Shah, who was considered sympathetic to the Nazis, and installed Reza's 22-year-old son Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to replace him.

Post-World War II
[SHOULD BE CONSOLIDATED WITH SUPPORT FOR NATIONALISATION] In Iran, a constitutional monarchy since 1906, nationalist leaders were becoming increasingly powerful as they sought to reduce the long-time foreign intervention in their country, including the highly-profitable British oil arrangements.

A particular point of contention was the refusal of the AIOC to allow an audit of the accounts to determine whether the Iranian government received the royalties it was due. Intransigence on the part of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company led the nationalist government to escalate its demands, requiring an equal share in oil revenues. A final crisis was precipitated when the oil company ceased operations in Iran rather than accepting the Iranian government's interference in its business affairs.[THIS HAPPENED IN THE 1950S]

AIOC and the Iranian government resisted nationalist pressure to come to a renewed deal in 1949.

Support for nationalization
By 1951, AIOC resistance to negotiating and increasing payment to Iran had created support for nationalization of that company among Iranians that was not just strong but passionate.

In March the pro-western Prime Minister Ali Razmara, who had spoken out against nationalization, was assassinated. The next month the Iranian parliament passed a bill to nationalize the oil industry, creating the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). This was undertaken with the guidance of western-educated Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq, at that time a member of the parliament, the leader of the nationalization movement. By May, Mosaddeq was appointed Prime Minister by the Shah.

That summer, American diplomat Averell Harriman came to Iran to try to negotiate a compromise between Mossedegh and the British. His plea for help from the Shah was met with the reply that "in the face of public opinion, there was no way he [the Shah] could say a word against nationalization." Harriman called a press conference in Tehran were he read a statement calling for "reason as well as enthusiasm" in confronting the crisis. "As soon as those words were out of his mouth, one journalist jumped to his feet and shouted, 'We and the Iranian people all support Premier Mosaddeq and oil nationalization!' The others began cheering and then marched out of the room. Harriman was left alone, shaking his head in dismay."

Nationalization
The newly state-owned oil company saw a dramatic drop in production as a result of Iranian inexperience and the AIOC-mandated policy that British technicians not work with the newly created National Iranian Oil Company. This resulted in the Abadan Crisis, a situation that was further aggravated by its export markets being closed when the British Navy imposed a blockade around the country in order to force the Iranian state to abandon the effort to nationalize its nation's oil. By September 1951 the British had all but closed down oil production from the Abadan oil fields, prohibited the export to Iran of key British commodities, including sugar and steel, and blocked Iran's access to its hard currency accounts in British banks.

The United Kingdom took a case against the nationalization to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Mossadegh vowed that at the hearing, the world would hear of a, "cruel and imperialistic country," stealing from a "needy and naked people." Britain, representing the AIOC, lost the case. Britain pointed out that Iran was violating the company's legal rights and spearheaded a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that submerged the regime into financial crisis.

Political crises
In late 1951 Prime Minister Mosaddeq held a parliamentary election. Told by aides that British agents were bribing rural candidates and and political bosses, and realizing that "the opposition would take the vast majority of the provincial seats", Mossadeq halted the election as soon as enough deputies (79 or 80) had been elected "to form a parliamentary quorum". This was interpreted variously as a defensive action against subversive British agents by Mosaddeq supporters, and "as undemocratic and grasping for personal power" by his opponents.

In July 1952 Mosaddeq resigned after the Shah refused to accept his nomination for War Minister, a position traditionally filled by the Shah. Mosaddeq appealed to the general public for support and recieved an overwhelming response. After five days of mass demonstrations, 29 killed in Tehran, and "signs of dissension in the army," the Shah backed down and asked Mosaddeq to form a new government. This was an enormous personal triumph for Mosaddeq vis-a-vis the Shah and Mosaddeq capitalized on it by asking the majlis (parliament)  for "emergency powers for six months to decree any law he felt necessary for obtaining not only financial solvency, but also electoral, judicial, and educational reforms."

Mosaddeq dealt his opponents "not only at the Shah and the military but also at the landed aristocracy and the two Houses of Parliament ... a rapid succession of blows."

In early 1953 Mosaddeq successfully pressed Parliament to extend his emergency powers for another 12 months. With these powers, he decreed a land reform law that established village councils and increased peasants' shares of production.

By mid-1953 Mosaddeq's struggle with Parliament had resulted in a mass of resignation of his parliamentary supporters reducing parliament below its quorum, and a referendum to give the prime minister powers to legislate law. The referendum passed with 99% approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against, but was critized by opponents for its use of separately placed ballot boxes for yes or no ballots and a requirement that "each ballot must be clearly inscribed with the full name of the voter and the number and place of issue of his identity card."

However while Mosaddeq gained political power during this time, Britain’s boycott had cut off revenue to the Iranian government and devastated Iran's economy. Iranians were "becoming poorer and unhappier by the day". Former supporters of Mosaddeq, Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani, along with the three groups representing the bazaar - the Society of Muslim Warriors, the Toilers Party, and the Fadayan-e Islam - turned against him.

Origins
[THERE'S A "BACKGROUND" SECTION, THEN THERE'S AN "ORIGINS" SECTION... WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE???] The government of Britain was concerned about its interests in Iran and the rest of the Middle East. It appealed to U.S. President Harry S. Truman but Truman refused. By 1953 however, both the US and UK had more conservative governments. General Dwight D. Eisenhower became the President of the United States, and the British under Churchhill convinced the new American administration to join them in overthrowing Mosaddeq and re-establishing control of Iranian oil.

Cold War
There is disagreement over the importance and/or legitimacy of American and British fears of Communist influence in Iran in regard to the coup.

In the decades following the October Revolution, Iran's huge neighbor, the Soviet Union, had expanded its domain to rule over tens of millions of Muslim in Central Asia, and following World War II over much of Eastern Europe. On June 26, 1950, as the movement for oil nationalization was gathering steam in Iran, soldiers of the North Korean Communist regime with the backing of the Soviets, crossed the 38th parallel to invade South Korea, beginning the Korean War. Three years later, just before the coup in Iran, Soviet tanks crushed an anti-Communist uprising of strikes and protests in East Germany. In Iran itself, the well-organized, pro-Soviet Tudeh (Communist) Party, greatly exceeded the National Front in the sized of its rallies as the crisis became worse.

In the view of American mainstream public and elite opinion, the crisis in Iran became just part of the conflict between Communism and "the Free world." 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."

According to Sam Falle, a young British diplomat at the time of the coup, 1952 was a very dangerous time. The Cold War was hot in Korea. The Soviet Union had tried to take all Berlin in 1948. Stalin was still alive. On no account could the Western powers risk a Soviet takeover of Iran, which would almost certainly have led to World War III

In addition to fear of the Soviet influence in Iran, the Cold War influenced American support for, or at least lack of opposition to, Britain's policies there. Hardline 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 Mosaddeq. "Britain was supporting the Americans in Korea, he reminded Truman, and had a right to expect `Anglo-American unity` on Iran."

But according to Prof. Ervand Abrahamian, "the `communist danger` was more of a rhetorical device than a real issue." The coup d'état was "a classic case of nationalism clashing with imperialism in the Third World". Secretary of State Dean Acheson admitted the “`Communist threat` was a smokescreen” in responding to Pres. Eisenhower's claim that the Tudeh party was about to assume power.

"Despite 20,000 members and 110,000 sympathizers, 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 Mossadeq 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."

As part of the post–coup d'état political repression of the Tudeh, the imposed imperial government revealed that the party had 477 members in the Iranian armed forces: "22 colonels, 69 majors, 100 captains, 193 lieutenants, 19 noncommissioned officers, and 63 military cadets", however, none was member of the tank divisions, stationed around Tehran, that might have participated in (or prevented) the 1953 coup d'état; the Shah had carefully screened these commanders.

Planning
The organizer of Operation Ajax was Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a senior CIA officer, and grandson of the former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. While formal leadership was vested in Kermit Roosevelt, the project was designed and executed by Donald Wilber, a career CIA agent and acclaimed author of books on Iran, Afghanistan and Ceylon.

The CIA operation centered around having the Shah dismiss Prime Minister Mosaddeq and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi with the assistance of Colonel Abbas Farzanegan, a choice agreed on by the British and Americans after careful examination for his likeliness to be anti-Soviet.

The BBC spearheaded Britain's propaganda campaign, broadcasting the code word to start the coup.

Attempted Nasiri coup
Colonel Nasiri of the Imperial Guards arrived at the Mosaddeq's doorstep late the night of August 15-16 with a number of Imperial Guards and "a royal decree replacing Mossadeq with Zahedi as premier". Mosaddeq had been tipped off by the Tudeh military network however, and a pro-Mosaddeq army contingent surrounded and arrested Nasiri. With this failure, the Shah fled to Iraq and then Italy.

With planned coup a failure, Roosevelt choose to stay in Iran and improvise another coup, find another coup leader. This turned out to be retired General Fazlollah Zahedi. Mossadegh forces mistakenly believed Shah was behind coup and with him gone relaxed their guard.

In Tehran, the next two days riots are started by "black" mobs, i.e. paid for by the CIA to "loot shops, destroy pictures of the Shah, ransack offices of royalist groups". They also include sincere supporters of Mossedeq who have joined in the rioting.

Zahedi coup
On August 19 Sha'yban the Brainless, a south Tehran strongman paid by Roosevelt, led a noisy demonstration from the red light district to the bazaar. The gendarmerie also transported 800 farm hands from the royal stables in Veramin to central Tehran. Many anti-Mosaddeq demonstrators were killed attempting to overrun Mosaddeq's house by armed defenders, but in the afternoon General Zahedi, commanding 35 Sherman tanks surrounded the premier's residence. A nine-hour battle ended with 300 people dead, Mossadeq fleeing and his house burnt.

Zahedi was installed to succeed Prime Minister Mosaddeq. The deposed Mosaddeq was arrested, given what some have alleged to have been a show trial where he defends himself brilliantly, and is sentenced to death before the Shah commutes this sentence to three years in a military prison and house arrest for life. After prison Mosaddeq was confined to the village of Ahmad Abad of his country estate. He stayed in his estate compound running his farm for the rest of his life.

''As a condition of restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the U.S. required that the AIOC's oil monopoly lapse. Five major U.S. oil companies, plus Royal Dutch Shell and French Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were designated to operate in the country alongside AIOC after a successful coup.'' [Mark Gasiorowski book says nothing about this]

''In planning the operation, the CIA organized a guerrilla force in case the communist Tudeh Party seized power as a result of any chaos created by Operation Ajax. According to formerly "Top Secret" documents released by the National Security Archive, Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith reported that the CIA had reached an agreement with Qashqai tribal leaders in southern Iran to establish a clandestine safe haven from which U.S.-funded guerrillas and intelligence agents could operate.''[Mark Gasiorowski book says nothing about this]

Media report
In 2000, The New York Times made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled, "Clandestine Service History – Overthrow of Premier Mosaddeq of Iran – November 1952-August 1953." This document describes the planning and execution conducted by the American and British governments. The New York Times published this critical document with the names censored. The New York Times also limited its publication to scanned image (bitmap) format, rather than machine-readable text. This document was eventually published properly – in text form, and fully unexpurgated. The complete CIA document is now web published. The word 'blowback' appeared for the very first time in this document.

Iran
One of immediate after effects of the coup was a crackdown on the National Front opposition and especially on the Tudeh party and a concentration of political power in the hand of the Shah and his court. Another effect was a sharp improvement in Iran's economy. Not only did the embargo end but oil revenue increased significantly over pre-nationalization levels. Although Iran did not get national control of the oil, the Shah signed an agreement replacing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company with a consortium of British Petroleum, and eight other European and American oil companies. As a result of the agreement oil revenues increased from $34 million in 1954-55 to $181 million in 1956-57 and continued on up in later years. In addition America provided development aid to Iran.

The sight of the Shah fleeing the country until a military coup with its covert conspiring of foreign powers returned him to the throne, is often credited with being a major cause of his overthrow in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The occupation of the U.S. embassy also took place during the 1979 revolution, which caused diplomatic relations to be severed between the new Iranian government and the United States. The role that the U.S. embassy had played in the 1953 coup led the revolutionary guards to suspect that it might be used to play a similar role in suppressing the revolution, some revolutionary guards reported.

Jacob G. Hornberger, the founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, commented that "U.S. officials, not surprisingly, considered the operation one of their greatest foreign policy successes -- until, that is, the enormous convulsion that rocked Iranian society with the violent ouster of the Shah and the installation of a virulently anti-American Islamic regime in 1979." According to Hornberger, "the coup, in essence, paved the way for the rise to power of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and all the rest that's happened right up to 9/11 and beyond."

The monarchy supported by the U.S. and Britain invited western oil companies back into Iran. "The crushing of Iran's first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms," Dan De Luce wrote in The Guardian in a review of All the Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer, a reporter for The New York Times, who for the first time revealed details of the coup.

Internationally
The 1953 coup was the first time the United States had overthrown a government. Operation Ajax was seen as a unalloyed success there, with "immediate and far-reaching effect. Overnight, the CIA became a central part of the American foreign policy apparatus, and covert action came to be regarded as a cheap and effective way to shape the course of world events." A coup against the Guatemalan regime of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán which had expropriate land owned by the United Fruit Company followed the next year.

In 2009 President Obama admited US involvement in the coup in his keynote speech to the Muslim world from Cairo University, saying "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government." This was "first time a sitting US president has publicly admitted American involvement in the coup", according to Iranian government new service Press TV.

Conspiracy theories
The Islamic Republic of Iran, the main expose of the 1953 coup, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, by Stephen Kinzer, has been censored to exclude descriptions of the late Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani's activities in the coup. Mahmood Kashani, the son of Abol-Ghasem Kashani and described as "one of the top members of the current ruling elite" who has been approved twice to run for the presidency by the Council of Guardians, denies there was a coup in 1953 and says Mosaddeq himself was following British plans and carrying out their dictates. In his words: "In my opinion, Mosaddeq was the director of the British plans and implemented them. .... Without a doubt Mosaddeq had the primary and essential role" in the August 1953 coup. Kashani says Mosaddeq, the British and the United States were working together against Ayatollah Kashani to undermine the role of Shia clerics. According to Masoud Kazemzadeh, this theory is contradicted by the fact that "the second person who spoke on Radio Tehran announcing and celebrating the overthrow of Mossadegh was Ayatollah Kashani’s son, who was hand-picked by Kermit Roosevelt." This allegation is also advanced in a book alleged to have been written by former SAVAK official Hossein Fardoust entitled Khaterat-e Arteshbod-e Baznesheshteh Hossein Fardoust (The Memoirs of Retired General Hossein Fardoust). According to it, Mohammad Mosaddeq was not a mortal enemy of the British, but had "always favored" them, and his campaign to nationalize the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company had been inspired by `the British themselves.` Scholar Ervand Abrahamian has suggested that torture by Islamic Republican authorities is likely to have been used against Fardoust whose death was announced before the publication of the book.

Complaint about proposed lead
Skywriter: (pasted from 1953 coup article talk page) "This suggested new lede does not begin to explain the reasons for the 1951-53 crisis. There is nothing in this account explaining that the Brits led a world-wide boycott of Iranian oil, blocking Iran's ports in the Persian Gulf, causing real economic crises in Iran, with widespread unemployment and unrest between 1951 and 1953, or that the reason for the boycott was specifically over British anger (greed) over the nationalization of Iranian oil which Britain had controlled since 1913. This account does not mention that, after the coup, and, for the first time in half a century, Britain shared Iranian oil with the United States as a reward for overthrowing the Iranian government. Britain shared the profits of Iranian oil, 40 percent for US oil companies, 40 percent for British oil companies and 20 percent divided among French and other oil companies. These inconvenient facts were deleted in last week's orgy of reverts by snowfire, et al. and that's why any account leaving out the role oil played in this coup is unacceptable."

reply: the lead reads "Britain accused Mosaddeq of violating the legal rights of the (AIOC) and mobilized a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil, plunging Iran into financial crisis." Is there any source drawing any connection between the coup and the different percentages of ownership of different oil companies in the consortium? --BoogaLouie (talk) 19:00, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Complaints about current lead
lement Attlee declined to attack, choosing instead to enforce the economic boycott against Iran.
 * The current lead is a bit big.
 * Doesn't say what happened in the coup. Who did the overthrowing
 * Repeats "boycott" "Britain accused Mosaddeq of violating the legal rights of the AIOC and mobilized a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that plunged Iran into financial crisis."
 * Some unsourced statements: Mossaddeq “had angered Britain with his argument that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves instead of allowing profits to continue to flow to Britain through its control of Iran's oil industry.” He angered the UK government by nationalizing the AIOC,  but  who said the UK was angered by “his argument”?  Why not just say UK retaliated with a boycott?
 * “The ejection of the British staff of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company from the Iranian refineries triggered the Abadan Crisis and nearly caused a war.” The AIOC built the refineries, which of course is part of the dispute. The British thought their discovery of the oil, drilling wells, building refinery, etc. entitled them to lots of compensation. Should say something like “The ejection of the British staff of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company from their refineries in Iran triggered the Abadan Crisis and nearly caused a war”
 * “British and U.S. spy agencies replaced the government of the popular Prime Minister Mosaddeq with an all-powerful monarch.” yes the shah became an autocrat, but the sentence sounds like the UK/US put the Shah on the throne with all-powerful powers. What source says that? Revised is better "In the wake of the coup Zahedi became prime minister and the Shah returned to Iran where he ruled as an autocrat for the next 26 years until being overthrown in 1979."
 * “From Iran's perspective, the Consortium Agreement of 1954 was much more unfavorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint 'Winston Churchill-Dwight D. Eisenhower' proposal to Mosaddegh.” Two problems with this
 * First, what's the "Churchill Eisenhower proposal"? It's not explained in the lead. In fact it's never mentioned again in the article!
 * Second, there are three sources given for the statement, but the only one that supports the statement about "much more unfavorable than conditions set forth several months earlier" comes from a state-owned company in the Islamic Republic, not really a WP:Reliable Sources. Here are the three sources:
 * the first one is petropars  Go to the link and you will find the statement: “From the point of Iran, the contents of this agreement were much more unfavorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint ‘Churchill-Eisenhower’ proposal to Dr. Mosaddegh.”  Petropars is owned by “NICO an affiliated company of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) owns all of Petropars shares.”  ( http://www.petropars.com/tabid/53/Default.aspx ) and the NIOC is a part of the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum.  This statement may (or may not) be true, but a subsidiary of the Iranian oil company is not exactly an unbiased source.
 * The second is a joint statement from the consortium agreement. It (not surprisingly) says nothing about the agreement being "more unfavorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint 'Winston Churchill-Dwight D. Eisenhower' proposal"
 * and the third source is a very brief mention in a book called The Legal Regime of Foreign Private Investment in Sudan and Saudi Arabia, which the footnote claims explains: “Article 41b of the Iran Consortium Agreement of 1954 precluded Iran from making any administrative or legislative changes to oil company operations without the consent of the foreign oil companies.”
 * When you go the book you find it says nothing about the coup, has no judgement about whether the Consortium Agreement was "more unfavorable" for Iran, says nothing specifically about whether Iran was "precluded ... from making any administrative or legislative changes to oil company operations," and next to nothing about Iran. It deals with the finer points of contract law. I’ve typed it out:


 * `No general or special administrative measures or any other act whatsoever ... shall annul this agreement, amend or modify its provisions or prevent or hinder the due and effective performance of its terms. Such annulment, amendment or modification shall not take place except by agreement of the parties to this agreement`"
 * ... i.e. pretty clear cut WP:Original Research.