All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

"All The Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer is an important piece of work for people who follow current and past American petro-warrior events in the Middle East. This book is even more important for American citizens who do *not* follow current events in the Middle East. This latter group includes but isn't exclusive to people who watch, listen, and read the mainstream media: tabloid TV, political television programs, political talk-radio, and mainstream American newspapers. These mainstream American media sources do *not* report on, nor even discuss what goes on in the Middle East, beyond a superficial level, if even that.

The events of 1953 are eerily reminiscent of current US policy and its continued *long-term presence* in the Middle East. Awareness by US and world citizens about the role of the US and UK in the Middle East past and present, is vital, as this book has proved to be so prescient. The US and UK have worked together in the Middle East long before the recent inaccurate "poodle" labels of 2003. These two cousins have worked together hand-in-hand before, helping each other in this symbiotic relationship, when it's about: oil.

Although I think information exists (somewhere), I don't recall one single article, Op-Ed piece, story, or documentary by the American Mainstream Media about the 1953 American coup in Iran because of oil. Therefore, another reason to tout this book. It seems that this historical info is just not available to the casual observer living in Americana.

Under Mossadegh, Iran was tilting towards the West and away from the Soviet Union (which it never leaned toward in the first place). However the US government and mainstream media constantly reported to the American public that "Iran was tilting towards the Soviet Union." "Gravitating towards communism." This mis-information campaign, during the height of the Cold War Red Scare period during the during the 1950s. Repetitive messages disseminated to the public.

Sound familiar?

CIA operatives falsely fed misinformation to ignorant journalists and also journalists that agreed with the US policy towards Iran. In addition, CIA operatives actually wrote articles for newspapers themselves.

Kinzer begins with the early, middle, and latter history of present-day Iran, leading up to the oil dispute that lead to the rise and fall of democratically elected Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh in the CIA sponsored coup.

Resentment of the British by the Iranians increased over many years. Much of the resentment toward the British was the result of the Britain's 19th Century colonial attitude towards the Iranian government and people. There are 3 primary reasons among many, for the dispute:

1. Constant deceit and dishonesty by the British by not following up on their promises and signed agreements they made with the Iranians. Huge profits were made by the British oil companies but they refused to open their books or let them be audited.

2. Second, was the deplorable treatment and sub-human conditions of Iranian workers in Abadan and other oil fields and refineries. These Iranian oil workers lived in shanty towns without electricity or running water.

3. The British were taking a huge profit-share ratio. The British being foreign Western colonialists, used their power to create and perpetuate these conditions. This ratio was bound to cause not only resentment and dislike, but also let to the labeling of them as the "enemy."

As the Iranian government wanted a more equitable profit sharing agreement, the British government responded by implementing sanctions, blocking exports, and freezing accounts. The British debated sending troops to Iran, but it wasn't feasible. Britain didn't have enough the muscle nor the mojo, for such a task.

ENTER THE AMERICANS:

Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt) was the main point man behind this calculating operation. Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. was also heavily involved. The elites are often related and over generations these familiar family names pass the want of power and influence.

Chapters:

1. Good Evening, Mr. Roosevelt
2. Curse The Fate
3. The Last Drop of the Nation's Blood
4. A Wave of Oil
5. His Master's Orders
6. Unseen Enemies Everywhere
7. You Do Not Know How Evil They Are
8. An Immensely Shrewd Old Man
9. Block Headed British
10 Pull Up Your Socks and Get Going
11 I Knew it! They Love Me!
12 Purring Like a Giant Cat

Notes, Bibliography, and Index

A very worthy book for contemporary issues in the Middle East, and the roots of petro-coups that have carved at the Geo-political landscape of Iran, and the entire Middle Eastern region, today.

In August 1953, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, was overthrown in a clumsy coup d’état orchestrated by the infant Central Intelligence Agency. Veteran journalist Stephen Kinzer expertly tells this outrageous story of subterfuge in “All the Shah’s Men.” For Kinzer the episode is a cautionary tale of western meddling in Middle Eastern political affairs. I’m certain that there is more than one way to interpret the remarkable events of 1953.

Mossadegh is the tragic hero of Kinzer’s crisp narrative. He was, in the author’s estimation, “a visionary, a utopian, a millenarian.” Two central beliefs shaped his political consciousness, according to the author: the rule of law and independence from foreign interference. He opposed any attempt to concentrate political power and abhorred the concessions given to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. To Winston Churchill he was “an elderly lunatic bent on wrecking his country and handing it over to the Communists.” I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between.

In the early 1950s Mossadegh moved to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, which became something of a sacred cause for his followers. “The Shiite religious tradition blended perfectly with the nationalist passion sweeping through Iran,” Kinzer writes. The British run Anglo-Iranian Oil Company steadfastly refused to make any meaningful concessions to the sweetheart deal the company had struck in the 1920s. Mossadegh was prepared to have his country fall on its sword rather than cave to British economic blackmail. As the British did everything in their power to cripple the Iranian economy, Mossadegh called for “deprivation, self-sacrifice, and loyalty.”

Kinzer places responsibility for the 1953 coup squarely on the shoulders of the British, even though it was the Americans that would eventually carry out the deed. “The main responsibility [for the coup] lies with the obtuse neocolonialism that guided the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and with the British government’s willingness to accept it.” Interestingly, Mossadegh saw things much the same way. “My only crime,” he said, “is that I nationalized the Iranian oil industry and removed from this land the network of colonialism and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire on earth.”

The Americans weren’t overly interested in the economic consequences of oil nationalization. Rather, they viewed the crisis through the prism of the Cold War. There was genuine angst in Washington that the Soviet-backed Tudeh party would orchestrate a coup to overthrow Mossadegh if they didn’t do so first. Of course, that is a great imponderable, as Kinzer concedes: “The crucial question of whether the American coup was necessary to prevent the Soviets from staging a coup of their own cannot be conclusively answered.” The key point, however, is that the Dulles brothers believed it was true and that decisive action was necessary.

What really amazed me was how effective the upstart CIA was in fomenting dissent and orchestrating Mossadegh’s fall. The agency was just a few years old and had no real experience at covert regime change. Yet for as little as $100,000 placed in just the right hands clandestine operatives, led by Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson, Kermit – “The chief hero or villain of the piece” depending on your perspective, according to the author – a popular nationalist regime was replaced with a more pliable, and eventually far more repressive one. Indeed, one might perceive Operation Ajax, the code-name given to the operation, as one of the greatest in the CIA’s history.

Kinzer certainly doesn’t see it that way. On the contrary, it was very nearly the worst of all outcomes. “Only a Soviet takeover followed by war between the super-powers would have been worse,” he writes. Why? In his view, “It is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah’s repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York.” The blowback from the ouster of Mossadegh may have been slow in coming, but it’s been with us now for over thirty years. The operation sent all the wrong signals, according to Kinzer. “Operation Ajax taught tyrants and aspiring tyrants [in the Middle East] that the world’s most powerful governments were willing to tolerate limitless oppression as long as oppressive regimes were friendly to the West and to Western oil companies.”

Mossadegh’s legacy in his homeland remains sticky. On the one hand, he is a revered nationalist hero. Shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 the main boulevard in downtown Tehran was renamed in his honor. On the other hand, there is much about Mossadegh that the mullahs governing Iran today are unsettled by. “Mossadegh’s secularism was as abhorrent to the new regime as his democratic vision had been to the old one.”

This is a book every Iranian and everyone interested in history and/or politics should read. It is eye opening and disgusting how politics work and how Americans and Brits, for centuries, have manipulated other nations elections and government and exploited them. How they (Americans, German, Britiish, Russians, etc) treated other poor countries, national resources as their own god given birth right. Ironic especially now to hear that they cry about Russians hacking the American elections! Well even if they did, you deserve it... that is my opinion... and no wonder Americans and British are not liked or trusted in the eastern countries
The disgusting lies the politicians feed people!!! nothing short of amazing...

Doubtlessly, Stephen Kinzer is a gifted writer. His book All the Shah's Men tells the story of Mohammad Mossadegh who was briefly prime minister of Iran in 1952-3 before getting overthrown by a secret United States coup. Unlike his book on Turkey, Crescent and Star, this book is primarily based on research and not personal experience in the country he writes about. Nevertheless, you can easily tell that Kinzer deeply feels for Mossadegh, and Kinzer's Epilogue, where he tells about his own personal pilgrimage to the home and town where Mossadegh was imprisoned the last 11 years of his life, is extremely moving and revealing.

As is Kinzers habit, just underneath the surface of his text is a warning and a message on current United States foreign policy. Surely, this 1952-3 story of the overthrow of the Iranian government has lots to teach us about Iran, but the story is a little more complicated.

As an aside, in the book we learn of yet another sordid episode in the history of British Petroleum, initially created as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company!!!... the nationalization of which the entire 1953 coup was about!

The Iranian Revolution did not occur at the start of college student's protesting the Shah of Iran, it began even further before 1979. This book gives the reader the insight as to the reasons of the revolution and the primary actors who were directly involved in coordinating and planning to storm the US Embassy. The book details the hour by hour of the US Embassy and security staff's uncertainty as to whether the situation was going to go from bad to worse. Depsite early warning indicators of possible storming of the US Embassy the internal discussions became confusing and somewhat chaotic. This book will provide the reader all aspects to the take over and eventually hostage situation for those Americans captured and tormented by their Iranian captors. The actions that day would ripple across the Middle Eastern region and leave a deep wedge between Iranian and US relations.