I think that's how a lot of people feel. After reading/hearing all of the insanity of the other presidential candidates, reading/hearing what Ron Paul says on foreign policy is like ding ding ding, we've got a winner. You know he's just the only one who says anything that makes any kind of logical sense when it comes to foreign policy. The others are just out to lunch and want to continue the nightmare of the W admin.
This is some of the most absurd stuff I've ever read. You don't really believe any of that do you? Understanding the motivations for attacks is a lot different than "listening to the attacker." It's just being informed at the most basic level. We need to stop cherishing ignorance and stupidity in this country. It just doesn't work. It's time to start making decisions that are logical, decisions that will help our country be safe & free. What Ron Paul wants to do is to stop getting tangled up in all of these messes in other countries. He wants to bring home our troops. He wants to end our "empire" like behavior. It's time to take care of ourselves! If we do that, not only will we save a lot of money and a lot of lives but we'll actually be making our country and the world safer.
The blame game huh? He & he alone is responsible for his own newsletters & their content no matter who wrote them. What's next? "oh that is right but".... Just picture if he wrote something negative about muslims.............
If anyone understood the 'who' and 'why' of the current enemy of the USA, then you would also understand that even pulling all our support and pulling our troops within our border will not solve the problems. Canada is doing what RP wants to do and Canada is changing rapidly. The UK (or should I say the WEU) can be an example of playing both sides of the fence and they are in trouble too.
I take it you only are thinking in terms of money. Well if that is your god, go for it, but people are more important than money to me.
Who said Muslims don't like prosperity? Theologically, their ideas about the free market are some of the most advanced in the world, from Islamic banks, to Zakkat. True Islamic commerce is actually the enemy of socialism. If you're going to hate on Muslims, at least be informed about their religion. And before anyone lectures anyone on Islamic fundamentalism, I think it would be wise to remember that, women in Iraq are now required to wear a veil, prior to the invasion, they were not. And the ruling party in government are the extremists who bombed the US Kuwait embassy. There is plenty of hypocrisy to go around.
Guerilla very good, but you see the neocons dont like this kind of information, asthey are trying to clump all muslims into one category.
Toopac thsi issue has been rehashed over and over again and its a non issue. i would rather argue this issue with gtech then with his 100th in command foot soldier lol. At least gtech is leading and not following. By teh way not one of your group besides gtech has answered my statement that we helped to destroy democracy in iran. Do you have the gumption to answer this or will there be a no show on that also. or maybe u can ask gtech for some copy and paste links.
Lets not forget the Iraq constitution is based on Islam. I find it funny those in favor of the Iraq war are usually those who bash Islam. Yet we took out an evil dictator who did not rule by Islam, but now have a constitution with laws based off of Islam.
The problem here is sheer deception. All these guys here, Gtech and his clan know all of this and know that saddam and osama were bitter enemies but seem to have a hidden agenda of posting lies or are too ignorant to post the truth. I challenged gtech to go and find a bunch of educated iranian students and ask them who their hero was and why. You will find that most will say mossadegh, but he isnt interested in the truth is he. I dont worry about toopac much because hes just following and repeating what gtech and his clan are saying. Parakeets are very good at repeating also but are you gonna have a real dialogue with them. baathest wanted a panarab middle east whether it was christian or muslim it didnt matter. Islamic fundamentalists didnt care if it was arabic or not as long as it was extremist muslim.
The current enemy of the usa is anyone who is against freedom or democracy whether it is extremists muslims or anyone destroying democracy in third world countries Debunked. Its funy how you keep mentioning islamic fundamentalism yet you totally ignore the role our government played in destroying democracy in these countries for the profit of the oil companies. Now i wonder why do you keep ignoring this. I still say Ron Paul is osama bin laden's biggest enemy because his policy os non interventionism would totally destroy osama's ability to recruit new members as he will not be able to say we are OVER THERE. Now lets hear debunked's explanation on why we destroyed democracy in those countries. I imagine it will be a no show like gtech when u hit them with straight facts or challenges.
ummm ok... the tooth fairy stopped by, wanted his change for the dollar you got last week. Give facts or even a source to your facts before you attempt to act like you have any 'facts' osama would love Ron Paul, guaranteed! He would be able to muster up support and then attack us here. Are you really that blind not to see that there is always an excuse for the crazies (um like you) to go on with their mission?
fact no 1 we destroyed democracy in iran in 1953 by helping to take out the majority elected mossadegh. Everyone on DP gather around and watch debunked IGNORE this statement right here because the facts are indisputable. Debunked its better if you go back to ignoring these posts like your groupies did becauseit tells the cold hard truth. We overthrew mossadegh, installed the non-elected shah and he in turn gave us the favorable oil contracts and control over iranian oil fields that we wanted. Say " your right pingpong" and you can begin the process of admitting the truth. It was a shock to me when i first read about it because i , like you had been brought here in fairy tale history books in junior high and high school, but a few good college courses changed my thinking and opened my eyes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état Fact no 1 1953 Iranian coup d'état From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. 1953 coup d'état Tank-riding anti-Mosaddeq demonstrators in Tehran on August 19, 1953. Date 1953 Location Iran Result Overthrow of the Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq, and his subsequent replacement by Fazlollah Zahedi on August 19, 1953. In the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the United Kingdom and the United States orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically-elected administration of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and his cabinet from power. The support of the coup was carried out, using widespread bribery[1] in a covert operation by Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). According to a report on the BBC, Britain, motivated by its desire to control Iranian oil fields, contributed to funding for the widespread bribery of Iranian officials, news media and others. The project to overthrow Iran's government was codenamed Operation Ajax (officially TP-AJAX).[2] The coup re-installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the primary position of power. In 2000, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, during the administration of President Bill Clinton, called it a "setback for democratic government" in Iran.[3] Origins The idea of overthrowing Mosaddeq was conceived by the British who asked U.S. President Harry S. Truman for assistance but he refused.[4] The British raised the idea again to Dwight D. Eisenhower who became president in 1953. The new administration agreed to participate in overthrowing the elected government of Iran.[5] Mosaddeq decided that Iran ought to begin profiting from its own vast oil reserves and took steps to nationalize the oil industry which had previously been controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later changed to the British Petroleum Company). Britain pointed out that Iran was violating the company's legal rights and spearheaded a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that submerged the regime into financial crisis.[6] The monarchy supported by the U.S. and Britain invited western oil companies back into Iran.[6] "The crushing of Iran's first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms," Dan De Luce wrote in The Guardian in a review of All the Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer, a reporter for The New York Times, who for the first time revealed details of the coup. Early oil development During the British imperial period The Great Game, Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar, the Shah of Iran, sought to partially alleviate debts he owed to Britain by granting a 60-year concession to search for oil to William Knox D'Arcy in May 1901. D'Arcy struck oil in May 1908 which was the first commercially significant find in the Middle East. Due to financial hardships, controlling interest was sold to Burmah Oil Company who incorporated the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909 to exploit this find. The company grew slowly until World War I when its strategic importance led the British Government to acquire controlling interest in the company, essentially nationalizing British oil production in Iran for a short period of time, becoming the Royal Navy's chief source of fuel oil in defeating the Central Powers during World War I. During this period, British troops occupied strategic parts of Iran. Post-World War I There was growing dissatisfaction within Persia with the oil concession and royalty terms, whereby Iran received 16 percent of net profits[citation needed]. This dissatisfaction was exacerbated by British involvement in the Persian Constitutional Revolution[citation needed] as well as the British Empire's use of Iranian routes to invade Russia in an attempt to reverse the October Bolshevik Revolution. In 1921, a military coup, organized by the British, placed Reza Pahlavi on the throne as Shah of Iran. The new Shah undertook a number of modernization measures, many of which were advantageous not only to the British but the Iranians as well, such as the Persian Corridor railroads for military and other transportation. In the 1930s, Nazi Germany heavily courted the Shah in order to secure access to oil[citation needed], for use in their war effort. The Shah terminated the APOC concession. The concession was resettled within a year, covering a reduced area with an increase in the Persian government's share of profits. In 1935, the Shah insisted[citation needed] that the name Iran be used instead of Persia and, so, APOC became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). In 1941, Britain invaded Iran, exiled the Shah, and secured both Iranian oil production and strategic railways. The British installed[citation needed] Reza's 22 year old son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran. Post-World War II In Iran, a constitutional monarchy since 1906, nationalist leaders were becoming increasingly powerful as they sought to reduce the long-time foreign intervention in their country, including the highly-profitable British oil arrangements. A particular point of contention was the refusal of the AIOC to allow an audit of the accounts to determine whether the Iranian government received the royalties it was due. Intransigence on the part of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company led the nationalist government to escalate its demands, requiring an equal share in oil revenues. A final crisis was precipitated when the oil company ceased operations in Iran rather than accepting the Iranian government's interference in its business affairs. AIOC and the Iranian government resisted nationalist pressure to come to a renewed deal in 1949. 1950s In March 1951, the pro-western Prime Minister Ali Razmara was assassinated. In April, the Iranian parliament passed a bill to nationalize the oil industry. This was undertaken with the guidance of western-educated Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq, at that time a member of the parliament, who believed nationalization was the only way to provide prosperity and national sovereignty for the Iranian people. By May, Mosaddeq had been elected Prime Minister by the parliament. The newly state-owned oil company saw a dramatic drop in production as a result of Iranian inexperience and the AIOC-mandated policy that British technicians not work with the newly created National Iranian Oil Company. This resulted in the Abadan Crisis, a situation that was further aggravated by its export markets being closed when the British Navy imposed a blockade around the country in order to force the Iranian state to abandon the effort to nationalize its nation's oil. Oil revenues to the Iranian government were significantly higher than before nationalization, since nationalization, by definition, caused oil profits to be directed into the state's coffers rather than into the hands of foreign oil companies. The United Kingdom took a case against the nationalization to the International Court of Justice at The Hague on behalf of AIOC, but lost the case. The government of Britain was concerned about its interests in Iran, and laboring under a misconception that Iran's nationalist movement was Soviet-backed. Eventually, Great Britain persuaded U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that Iran was slowly coming under Soviet influence. This was an effective strategy for the British, since it exploited America's Cold War mindset. U.S. President Harry S. Truman never agreed to the British proposal to oust Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. But in 1953, General Dwight D. Eisenhower became the President of the United States, and the British convinced the new American administration to join them in overthrowing the only democratically elected government Iran has ever had and re-establishing British control of Iranian oil. Planning Operation Ajax As a condition of restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the U.S. required that the AIOC's oil monopoly lapse. Five major U.S. oil companies, plus Royal Dutch Shell and French Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were designated to operate in the country alongside AIOC after a successful coup. In planning the operation, the CIA organized a guerrilla force in case the communist Tudeh Party seized power as a result of any chaos created by Operation Ajax. According to formerly "Top Secret" documents released by the National Security Archive, Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith reported that the CIA had reached an agreement with Qashqai tribal leaders in southern Iran to establish a clandestine safe haven from which U.S.-funded guerrillas and intelligence agents could operate. The leader of Operation Ajax was Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a senior CIA officer, and grandson of the former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. While formal leadership was vested in Kermit Roosevelt, the project was designed and executed by Donald Wilber, a career CIA agent and acclaimed author of books on Iran, Afghanistan and Ceylon. The CIA operation centered around having the increasingly impotent Shah dismiss the powerful Prime Minister Mosaddeq and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi with the assistance of Colonel Abbas Farzanegan, a choice agreed on by the British and Americans after careful examination for his likeliness to be anti-Soviet. The BBC spearheaded Britain's propaganda campaign, broadcasting the code word to start the coup.[1] Despite the high-level coordination and planning, the coup d'état briefly faltered, and the Shah fled Iran. After a short exile in Italy, however, the Shah was brought back again, this time through follow-up CIA operations, which were successful. Zahedi was installed to succeed Prime Minister Mosaddeq. The deposed Mosaddeq was arrested, given what some have alleged to have been a show trial, and condemned to death. The Shah commuted this sentence to solitary confinement for three years in a military prison, followed by house arrest for life. In 2000, The New York Times made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled, "Clandestine Service History – Overthrow of Premier Mosaddeq of Iran – November 1952-August 1953." This document describes the planning and execution conducted by the American and British governments. The New York Times published this critical document with the names censored. The New York Times also limited its publication to scanned image (bitmap) format, rather than machine-readable text. This document was eventually published properly – in text form, and fully unexpurgated. The complete CIA document is now web published. The word 'blowback' appeared for the very first time in this document. Outcome On August 19, 1953, the Prime Minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq, was forced from office and replaced by Zahedi and the Shah was recalled. The AIOC became the British Petroleum Company (BP) in 1954, and briefly resumed operations in Iran with a forty percent share in a new international consortium. BP continued to operate in Iran until the Islamic Revolution. However, due to a large investment program (funded by the World Bank) outside Iran, the company survived the loss of its Iranian interests at that time. The success of North Sea oil exploration contributed to BP's fortunes and the company recovered swiftly, continuing to be one of the world's foremost oil companies to this day. Repercussions Popular discontent with the erosion of Iran's social mores, its sluggish economy, and other developments caused widespread dissatisfaction with the regime of the Shah, leading to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The occupation of the U.S. embassy also took place during the 1979 revolution, which caused diplomatic relations to be severed between the new Iranian government and the United States. The role that the U.S. embassy had played in the 1953 coup led the revolutionary guards to suspect that it might be used to play a similar role in suppressing the revolution, some revolutionary guards reported. Jacob G. Hornberger, the founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, commented that "U.S. officials, not surprisingly, considered the operation one of their greatest foreign policy successes -- until, that is, the enormous convulsion that rocked Iranian society with the violent ouster of the Shah and the installation of a virulently anti-American Islamic regime in 1979."[7] According to Hornberger, "the coup, in essence, paved the way for the rise to power of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and all the rest that's happened right up to 9/11 and beyond."[7] Cold War and controversy For the U.S., an important factor to consider was Iran's border with the Soviet Union. A pro-American Iran under the Shah would give the U.S. a double strategic advantage in the ensuing Cold War, as a NATO alliance was already in effect with the government of Turkey, also bordering the USSR. In addition, even though the appropriation of the companies resulted in Western allegations that Mosaddeq was a Communist and suspicions that Iran was in danger of falling under the influences of the neighboring Soviet Union, Mosaddeq declined to change course under moderate international pressure. One controversial argument[citation needed] which has been put forward by William Blum in his 2003 book Killing Hope is that a conspiracy organized by the Dulles brothers was the main motivation for US involvement in Iran.[citation needed] The Dulles brothers had worked for Sullivan and Cromwell, a prominent law firm that represented Standard Oil of New Jersey. Standard Oil had wanted to gain oil interests in Iran for many years; but the AIOC had a monopoly on the region. The Dulles brothers saw a chance to give Standard Oil the ability to set up operations in the region, when the British asked about a coup. The British, no longer the dominant power, knew they could not remove Mosaddeq without the US, which meant that the US would be entitled to a portion of the Iranian Oil, which they were okay with, because 60% is better than nothing. After the Coup, 40% of Iranian oil was owned by US oil companies.[citation needed] In addition to relying on entirely circumstantial evidence,[citation needed] this theory ignores several key factors outlined below. First, the idea of ousting Mosaddeq had been formed in preliminary stages by the Truman administration long before the Dulles brothers came into their positions as Secretary of State (JF) and Director of Central Intelligence under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Steve Marsh's article "The United States, Iran and Operation 'Ajax': Inverting Interpretative Orthodoxy"[8] points out key policy continuities between the two administrations, arguing that the change in administration was not the key factor in the acceptance of the coup. Second, it ignores the most basic goals of British foreign policy in Iran. To say that Britain was no longer the dominant power in the Middle East is accurate, but to assume that this was understood by the people and governments in power is not. The subsequent events in Suez show that even after the fall of Mosaddeq, Britain still felt it had a right to overseas possessions. Moreover British policy did not show willingness to compromise. In fact, the blockade and sanctions imposed on Mosaddeq’s government represented a successful unilateral policy that could have crippled Iran and, in the long term, been successful in reestablishing the dominance of the AIOC, or at the very least destroying Iran’s political stability entirely thereby sending a message to the world that nationalization of private property was not acceptable, and that the sanctity of contract endured. A major factor that made this plan unacceptable to the new superpower was that it would probably leave Iran politically and economically crippled.[citation needed] The cold-war mentality in the US viewed this possibility as extremely dangerous, as it could result in communist takeover. This (probably unrealistic) fear of communist takeover was played on by the British and Iranians to encourage US support.[citation needed] Eventually, Winston Churchill prevailed and convinced the Eisenhower administration that they would better contain the communist threat by removing Mosaddeq. These arguments were meant to refute the assertions that the TPAJAX was an entirely economically motivated conspiracy that was orchestrated by John and Alan Dulles with the help of Kermit Roosevelt.[citation needed] There is also some speculation that Kim Roosevelt may have been part of a British plot to maintain an anglophile alliance with the United States.[citation needed] The Anglo Iranian Oil Company had a full monopoly on Iranian oil, but by 1951, Prime Minister Mosaddeq had nationalized oil and removed British interests in the region. The British contacted the Truman administration to set up a coup, but they were not interested, as Mosaddeq had been an anti-communist, and kept the Tudeh Party in place. However, in 1953 a new administration came to power and contacted MI-6 (British) to give their support for a coup. John Foster Dulles (United States Secretary of State from 1953-1961) and his younger brother Allen Dulles (CIA Director) came up with Operation Ajax, a plan giving a million dollars to Kermit Roosevelt to create a coup. Roosevelt began giving money to General Zahedi, who in turn distributed the money among his soldiers to ensure their loyalty. In 1953, Zahedi led tanks into Tehran and closed the Majlis (legislature) and removed Mosaddeq from power. See also Asadollah Rashidian Mohammed Reza Pahlavi False flag operations Footnotes ^ How to Overthrow A Government Pt. 1 The 1953 U.S. Coup in Iran March 5, 2004 ^ A Very British Coup (radio show) (English). Document. British Broadcasting Corporation (2005). Retrieved on 2006-06-14. ^ "U.S. Comes Clean About The Coup In Iran", CNN, 04-19-2000. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1021997,00.html ^ [Book review of Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men by CIA historian David S. Robargehttps://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no2/article10.html] ^ a b The spectre of Operation Ajax (English). Article. Guardian Unlimited (2003). Retrieved on 04-02-2007. ^ a b Washington's wise advice. Ralph R. Reiland. Pittsburgh Tribune Review July 30, 2007. ^ The United States, Iran and Operation 'Ajax': inverting interpretative orthodoxy. Middle Eastern Studies July 2003. Marsh, Steve. References Kinzer, Stephen (2003). All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-26517-9. KapuÅ›ciÅ„ski, Ryszard (1982). Shah of Shahs. Vintage. ISBN 0-679-73801-0. Roosevelt, Kermit (1979). Countercoup: The struggle for the control of Iran. McGRAW-Hill Book Company. ISBN 0-07-053590-6. [edit] External links
Anyone ever tell you that wikipedia is not an absolute? I am not disagreeing with the facts, but some interpretations of the facts.
Debunked shall we go on the other countries we meddled in or shall you admit the truth, trust me i can go through all of them because i have read many books on this. My memory may be bad because of an illness but i can get these facts online very easily.
The cold hard fact is we took out mossadegh Plain and simple. I can get you many more facts from other sources. the shah was our puppet and he was never elected by the iranian people. Since your too stubborn, i will get even more sources. fact no 2 this all started because of an oil dispute. Mossadegh nationalized because he would not get a fair trade proposition for his oil. The shah however didnt care about being fair to his own country. This bit of fact comes straight from our own cia's website. I gotta see how u spin these facts around Debunked. Care to admit the truth yet https://www.cia.gov/library/center-...s/csi-studies/studies/vol48no2/article10.html Part 1 At an NSC meeting in early 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower said "it was a matter of great distress to him that we seemed unable to get some of these down-trodden countries to like us instead of hating us."1 The problem has likewise distressed all administrations since, and is emerging as the core conundrum of American policy in Iraq. In All the Shah's Men, Stephen Kinzer of the New York Times suggests that the explanation may lie next door in Iran, where the CIA carried out its first successful regime-change operation over half a century ago. The target was not an oppressive Soviet puppet but a democratically elected government whose populist ideology and nationalist fervor threatened Western economic and geopolitical interests. The CIA's covert intervention—codenamed TPAJAX—preserved the Shah's power and protected Western control of a hugely lucrative oil infrastructure. It also transformed a turbulent constitutional monarchy into an absolutist kingship and induced a succession of unintended consequences at least as far ahead as the Islamic revolution of 1979—and, Kinzer argues in his breezily written, well-researched popular history, perhaps to today. British colonialism faced its last stand in 1951 when the Iranian parliament nationalized the sprawling Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) after London refused to modify the firm's exploitative concession. "y a series of insensate actions," the British replied with prideful stubbornness, "the Iranian Government is causing a great enterprise, the proper functioning of which is of immense benefit not only to the United Kingdom and Iran but to the whole free world, to grind to a stop. Unless this is promptly checked, the whole of the free world will be much poorer and weaker, including the deluded Iranian people themselves."2 Of that attitude, Dean Acheson, the secretary of state at the time, later wrote: "Never had so few lost so much so stupidly and so fast."3 But the two sides were talking past each other. The Iranian prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, was "a visionary, a utopian, [and] a millenarian" who hated the British, writes Kinzer. "You do not know how crafty they are," Mossadeq told an American envoy sent to broker the impasse. "You do not know how evil they are. You do not know how they sully everything they touch."4 The Truman administration resisted the efforts of some British arch-colonialists to use gunboat diplomacy, but elections in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1951 and 1952 tipped the scales decisively toward intervention. After the loss of India, Britain's new prime minster, Winston Churchill, was committed to stopping his country's empire from unraveling further. Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, were dedicated to rolling back communism and defending democratic governments threatened by Moscow's machinations. In Iran's case, with diplomacy having failed and a military incursion infeasible (the Korean War was underway), they decided to take care of "that madman Mossadeq"5 through a covert action under the supervision of the secretary of state's brother, Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen Dulles.6 (Oddly, considering the current scholarly consensus that Eisenhower was in masterful control of his administration, Kinzer depicts him as beguiled by a moralistic John Foster and a cynical Allen.) Directing the operation was the CIA's charming and resourceful man in Tehran, Kermit Roosevelt, an OSS veteran, Arabist, chief of Middle East operations, and inheritor of some of his grandfather Theodore's love of adventure. The CIA's immediate target was Mossadeq, whom the Shah had picked to run the government just before the parliament voted to nationalize the AIOC. A royal-blooded eccentric given to melodrama and hypochondria, Mossadeq often wept during speeches, had fits and swoons, and conducted affairs of state from bed wearing wool pajamas. During his visit to the United States in October 1951, Newsweek labeled him the "Fainting Fanatic" but also observed that, although most Westerners at first dismissed him as "feeble, senile, and probably a lunatic," many came to regard him as "an immensely shrewd old man with an iron will and a flair for self-dramatization."7 Time recognized his impact on world events by naming him its "Man of the Year" in 1951. Mossadeq is Kinzer's paladin—in contrast to the schemers he finds in the White House and Whitehall—but the author does subject him to sharp criticism. He points out, for example, that Mossadeq's ideology blinded him to opportunities to benefit both himself and the Iranian people: "The single-mindedness with which he pursued his campaign against [the AIOC] made it impossible for him to compromise when he could and should have."8 In addition, Mossadeq failed at a basic test of statecraft—trying to understand other leaders' perspectives on the world. By ignoring the anticommunist basis of US policy, he wrenched the dispute with the AIOC out of its Cold War context and saw it only from his parochial nationalist viewpoint. Lastly, Mossadeq's naïvete about communist tactics led him to ignore the Tudeh Party's efforts to penetrate and control Iranian institutions. He seemed almost blithely unaware that pro-Soviet communists had taken advantage of democratic systems to seize power in parts of Eastern Europe. By not reining in Iran's communists, he fell on Washington's enemies list. Kinzer throws this fair-minded assessment off kilter, however, with a superfluous epilogue about his pilgrimage to Mossadeq's hometown. Intended to be evocative, the chapter sounds maudlin and contributes little to either an understanding of the coup or Kinzer's speculations about its relevance today. Kinzer is at his journalistic best when—drawing on published sources, declassified documents, interviews, and a bootleg copy of a secret Agency history of the operation9—he reconstructs the day-to-day running of TPAJAX. The plan comprised propaganda, provocations, demonstrations, and bribery, and employed agents of influence, "false flag" operatives, dissident military leaders, and paid protestors. The measure of success seemed easy enough to gauge—"[a]ll that really mattered was that Tehran be in turmoil," writes Kinzer. The design, which looked good on paper, failed on its first try, however, and succeeded largely through happenstance and Roosevelt's nimble improvisations. No matter how meticulously scripted a covert action may be, the "fog of war" affects it as readily as military forces on a battlefield. Roosevelt may have known that already—he and his confreres chose as the project's unofficial anthem a song from the musical Guys and Dolls: "Luck Be a Lady Tonight."10
part 2 You can say UNCLE at any time now DEBUNKED This is coming straight from the cia, would u also like the library of national congress's version or did i make my point allready. TPAJAX had its surreal and offbeat moments. Kinzer describes Roosevelt calmly lunching at a colleague's house in the embassy compound while "[o]utside, Tehran was in upheaval. Cheers and rhythmic chants echoed through the air, punctuated by the sound of gunfire and exploding mortar shells. Squads of soldiers and police surged past the embassy gate every few minutes. Yet Roosevelt's host and his wife were paragons of discretion, asking not a single question about what was happening." To set the right mood just before Washington's chosen coup leader, a senior army general named Fazlollah Zahedi, spoke to the nation on the radio, US officials decided to broadcast some military music. Someone found an appropriate-looking record in the embassy library and put on the first song; to everyone's embarrassment, it was "The Star-Spangled Banner." A less politically discordant tune was quickly played, and then Zahedi took the microphone to declare himself "the lawful prime minister by the Shah's order." Mossadeq was sentenced to prison and then lifetime internal exile.11 The Shah—who reluctantly signed the decrees removing Mossadeq from office and installing Zahedi, thereby giving the coup a constitutional patina—had fled Iran during the crucial latter days of the operation. When he heard of the successful outcome from his refuge in Rome, he leapt to his feet and cried out, "I knew it! They love me!"12 That serious misreading of his subjects' feeling toward him showed that he was out of touch already. Seated again on the Peacock Throne, the insecure and vain Shah forsook the opportunity to introduce constitutional reforms that had been on the Iranian people's minds for decades. Instead, he became a staunch pro-Western satrap with grandiose pretensions. He forced the country into the 20th century economically and socially but ruled like a pre-modern despot, leaving the mosques as the only outlet for dissent. Although the next 25 years of stability that he imposed brought the United States an intelligence payoff the price was dependence on local liaison for information about internal developments. The intelligence gap steadily widened, and Washington was caught by surprise when the Khomeini-inspired Islamist revolution occurred in February 1979. That takeover, according to Kinzer, links the 51-year-old coup with recent and current terrorism. With their devotion to radical Islam and their eagerness to embrace even the most horrific kinds of violence, Iran's revolutionary leaders became heroes to fanatics in many countries. Among those who were inspired by their example were Afghans who founded the Taliban, led it to power in Kabul, and gave Osama bin-Laden the base from which he launched devastating terror attacks. 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.13 This conclusion, however, requires too many historical jumps, exculpates several presidents who might have pressured the Shah to institute reforms, and overlooks conflicts between the Shia theocracy in Tehran and Sunni extremists in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Kinzer would have been better off making a less sweeping judgment: that TPAJAX got the CIA into the regime-change business for good—similar efforts would soon follow in Guatemala, Indonesia, and Cuba—but that the Agency has had little success at that enterprise, while bringing itself and the United States more political ill will, and breeding more untoward results, than any other of its activities.14 Most of the CIA's acknowledged efforts of this sort have shown that Washington has been more interested in strongman rule in the Middle East and elsewhere than in encouraging democracy. The result is a credibility problem that accompanied American troops into Iraq and continues to plague them as the United States prepares to hand over sovereignty to local authorities. All the Shah's Men helps clarify why, when many Iraqis heard President George Bush concede that "ixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe,"15 they may have reacted with more than a little skepticism. Footnotes 1. "Memorandum of Discussion at the 135th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, March 4, 1953," US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, Volume X, Iran, 1951-1954 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1989), 699. 2. Kinzer, p. 121, quoting the British delegate to the UN Security Council, Gladwyn Jebb. 3. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), 503. 4. Vernon A. Walters, Silent Missions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978), 247. 5. John Foster Dulles, quoted in Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), 8. 6. The British had a covert action against Mossadeq in train until he expelled all British diplomats (including undercover intelligence officers) in October 1952. As Kinzer describes, members of MI-6 collaborated with CIA officers in drawing up the TPAJAX operational plan. 7. Kinzer, 120. 8. Ibid., 206-7. 9. Details of the Agency history were publicized in James Risen, "How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and '79)," New York Times, 16 April 2000, 1, 16-17. Lightly redacted versions of the history are posted on two Web sites: the New York Times at www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html; and the National Security Archive's at www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/index.html. 10. Kinzer, 175, 211, 13. 11. Ibid., 181, 183-84. 12. Ibid., 184. 13. Ibid., 203-4. 14. Such is the theme of Kinzer's previous venture (with Stephen Schlesinger) into covert action history, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Anchor Books ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1990), wherein the authors ask, "Was Operation SUCCESS [in Guatemala] necessary and did it really advance US interests, in the long range and in the aggregate?" (xiii). 15. David E. Sanger, "Bush Asks Lands in Mideast to Try Democratic Ways," New York Times, 7 November 2003: A1. Dr. David S. Robarge, is a member of CIA's History Staff. This article is unclassified in its entirety.