{"id":30530,"date":"2018-02-05T07:56:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T12:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30530"},"modified":"2018-02-05T07:56:57","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T12:56:57","slug":"blowback-how-a-cia-backed-coup-let-to-the-rise-of-irans-ayatollahs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30530","title":{"rendered":"Blowback: How a CIA-Backed Coup Let to the Rise of Iran&#8217;s Ayatollahs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"Post-header\">\n<div class=\"Post-image-block\">\n<div class=\"Post-featured-video-block\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"Post-featured-video\" src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/previews\/N3oDxlAq-biiQQJhC\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"Post-header-grid\">\n<div class=\"Post-header-row\">\n<div class=\"PostSocial\">\n<div class=\"Post-social-container\">\n<div class=\"Post-social\">\n<div class=\"Post-social-grid\">\n<div class=\"Post-social-row\">\n<div class=\"Post-social-block\">\n<div class=\"Post-social-inner-block\">\n<h3 class=\"Post-social-link-block Post-social-link-block--facebook\"><a class=\"Post-title-link\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/02\/05\/iran-cia-coup-mossadegh-ayatollah\/\">BLOWBACK: HOW A CIA-BACKED COUP LED TO THE RISE OF IRAN\u2019S AYATOLLAHS<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"Post-body\">\n<div class=\"Post-content-block-outer\">\n<div class=\"GridContainer Post-scroll-container\">\n<div class=\"GridRow\">\n<div class=\"Post-content-block\">\n<div class=\"Post-content-block-inner\">\n<div class=\"PostContent\">\n<div>\n<p><u>WHY CAN\u2019T IRAN<\/u> have a secular, democratic government? It\u2019s a question Americans often ask of their longstanding Middle East adversary \u2014 especially when they see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/01\/01\/world\/iran-protests-deaths-rouhani-intl\/index.html\">images<\/a> of anti-regime protesters taking to the streets of major Iranian cities and towns to demand greater freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike citizens of the Islamic Republic, however, citizens of the United States tend to have short memories. The historical reality is that Iran <em>did<\/em>have a secular, democratic government, led by Prime Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Mohammad-Mosaddeq\">Mohammad Mossadegh<\/a>\u00a0between 1951 and 1953 \u2014\u00a0but Mossadegh was removed from power in a coup <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2013\/aug\/19\/cia-admits-role-1953-iranian-coup\">organized and funded by the CIA<\/a> and Britain\u2019s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6.<\/p>\n<p>With a handful of exceptions \u2014 Madeleine Albright in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Q5HYUtYa3wI\">2000<\/a>, Barack Obama in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/06\/04\/us\/politics\/04obama.text.html\">2009<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/07\/15\/opinion\/thomas-friedman-obama-makes-his-case-on-iran-nuclear-deal.html\">2015<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 most mainstream U.S. politicians have little to say about any of this sordid history. In Washington, D.C., Iranian hostility toward the U.S. has long been treated as inexplicable and irrational, while the CIA\u2019s role in the 1953 coup \u2014 which set off a chain of events that resulted in the rise of Iran\u2019s ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolution of 1979 \u2014 has vanished into a memory hole.<\/p>\n<p>It was left to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, of all people, to remind Americans of the catastrophic consequences of that coup in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=h5RKdI-ltoI\">televised debate<\/a>with Hillary Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries in February 2016:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Mossadegh back in 1953. Nobody knows who Mossadegh was. Democratically elected prime minister of Iran. He was overthrown by British and American interests because he threatened oil interests of the British. And as a result of that, the Shah of Iran came in, terrible dictator, and as a result of that, you had the Iranian Revolution coming in, and that\u2019s where we are today. Unintended consequence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BLOWBACK: HOW A CIA-BACKED COUP LED TO THE RISE OF IRAN\u2019S AYATOLLAHS WHY CAN\u2019T IRAN have a secular, democratic government? It\u2019s a question Americans often ask of their longstanding Middle East adversary \u2014 especially when they see images of anti-regime protesters taking to the streets of major Iranian cities and towns to demand greater freedom. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[17807,93,135,2321,441,17012,4546,5567,827],"class_list":["post-30530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-1953-coup","tag-britain","tag-cia","tag-coup","tag-iran","tag-mehdi-hasan","tag-mi6","tag-the-intercept","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30530"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30532,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30530\/revisions\/30532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}