"Iran would not be treated as an enemy of the west were it not for what happened in 1953, when Winston Churchill's government persuaded the CIA to launch a coup against the popular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The UK did so because Mossadegh sought to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company: to stop a foreign power from stealing the nation's wealth."
"Fury about the 1953 coup, combined with ever-more vicious repression under the shah's dictatorship, triggered the revolution of 1979, which was captured by the ayatollahs, with horrible consequences for many Iranians. They would not be running the country were it not for our governments' violent crushing of democracy for the sake of oil."
"The conflation of capitalism with free markets is one of the most successful lies in human history. The historical and ongoing plunder of resources; the police, armies and death squads deployed against those who resist; the shifting of profits from less powerful nations to the major powers; the intimidation of labour; the conning of consumers; the extraction of rent; the dumping of costs on the living."
Western powers have maintained intense interest in the Middle East and Central Asia for over a century, primarily driven by access to oil resources. The 1953 coup against Iran's democratic leader Mohammad Mossadegh, orchestrated by Churchill's UK government and the CIA, aimed to prevent nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The coup succeeded on a second attempt with ayatollah support, reinstalling the shah. This intervention triggered decades of repression, ultimately leading to the 1979 revolution captured by ayatollahs. Current tensions with Iran directly result from this historical interference. The article argues that capitalism's association with free markets masks systematic resource plunder, military deployment against resistance, profit extraction, and cost externalization benefiting major powers.
#iran-1953-coup #oil-geopolitics #western-intervention #resource-nationalism #capitalism-and-imperialism
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