Five Quick Facts About Iran That the U.S. Wants You to Ignore
In light of the current Arab-Spring-ish protests currently occurring in Iran, and the Trump Administration’s thinly veiled attempt to use them as pretext for yet another unprovoked U.S. attack on a Middle-Eastern country, it seems necessary to highlight some very important facts about Iran that the U.S. government will not tell the American people and wants you to ignore. Those are:
- After World War II, Iran was an America ally and a Western-friendly, secularist state moving towards Western-style democracy.
- In 1953, staunchly secular, pro-Western, pro-American and democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadeqh, was overthrown in a black ops coup called “Operation Ajax” staged by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency at the behest of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (precursor to BP Oil) and the British government.
- Operation Ajax, involved spending $1 million (about $10 million today) of U.S. taxpayer money on buying not only politicians and military officers in Iran, but in paying Iranian media outlets to publish anti-Mossadegh propaganda produced by the CIA to foment discontent. It is common knowledge in Iran that the coup plotters were CIA agents that had been operating out of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
- Operation Ajax installed autocrat Mohammad Reza Shah to power in Iran. The Shah’s repressive regime which eventually produced revolt and the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. With the Islamic Revolution came the Ayatollah Khomeni’s radical Islamic, as well as passionately anti-American, theocratic government that has ruled ever-since.
- Time Magazine named Mohammed Mossadegh as “Man of the Year” for 1951.
- BONUS: “Regime change” is, by definition, an act of war.
That’s the super-short version of what the U.S. government wants you to ignore about Iran. Learn more about Operation Ajax and the CIA’s first coup by reading Stephen Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men via my sponsored link at Amazon.com on Kindle, paperback or Audible. The Political News Report earns a commission with each purchase you make, but there is no extra cost to you. What a deal!
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Image credit: Örlygur Hnefill via Flickr Creative Commons.
