The figure of Mohammad Mosaddeq, Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, is an uncomfortable one for both sides of the US-Iran rivalry. For the US, Mosaddeq is a constant reminder that the dictatorial reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after 1953 came into being with a US intervention to overthrow the constitutionally elected Mosaddeq. The US would provide strong support for the Shah in the coming decades. Mosaddeq is someone who challenged Western powers to defend Iranian national interests. This alone should, a priori, afford him a place of honor in the Islamic Republic established by Ruhollah Khomeini after his return from exile in 1979. However, Mosaddeq’s nationalism was grounded on democratic secularist convictions that are at odds with the ideology of the Islamic Republic, which in recent years has shut down its already limited avenues of democratic participation within the system.
In their book “The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951–1954”, David S. Painter and Gregory Brew revisit Mosaddeq’s nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, the ensuing tensions with the US and the UK, and the Western powers’ final decision to remove Mosaddeq. As the title of the book already suggests, the oil dispute was the obvious point of contention but the early 1950s events in Iran would not have unfolded as they did absent the weight of much larger conflicts. https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/origins-crisis-autocracy.html -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29874): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29874 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105483900/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
