The Reality of Iran. Why the U.S. fears Iran

 Iran doesn’t trust the United States, they don’t want us to teach them about freedom or liberty. They don’t want to start a war, they don’t want to build nuclear weapons to attack Israeli. Iran isn’t going around trying to create more terrorist and create chaos around the world. Iran isn’t building a military the likes the world has never seen, Iran isn’t the one going around the world overthrowing country’s leaders who aren’t friendly to them. They could do all these things if they want too, but they don’t, never have and will not even after the U.S. stops bullying them to get what they want. Before the U.S. involvement in Iran in the 1950s, it was the British and Russian empires who harassed the Iranians before U.S. 

 Iran has a history of being one of the oldest countries in the world, and known in the western hemisphere as Persia. It is one of the oldest and continuous civilizations on earth, yet they are referred to as if they are a new country that is still battling for its identity. Yet, in reality, they have an identity, but one that changes when The Great Persian Famine 1870–1871 happened, which estimates put it at 2 million Iranians perished;which, in turn caused a backlash of the Shah in which the Persian Constitutional Revolution takes place. The problem was that the Shah only allowed a limited parliament in which Iran was classified as a Constitutional monarchy. But, all changed when petroleum was found in 1908, which is when Iran was split into three different spheres of influence. The government of Iran had no influence in the agreement between Russia and England which was called the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907. During World War 1, Iran had British and Russian Troops occupying their country to protect their own national interest (Not Iran). After the Russian Revolution, Russian troops withdrew; in which the British tried to turn Iran into a protectorate state, but it failed. In this time, William Knox D’Arcy negotiated a deal with the Shah for exclusive drilling rights in Iran for almost 60 years, in which the Shah received nearly 20,000 pounds (roughly 2 million dollars today), an equal amount of shares in the company, and 16% of future profits went to the country of Iran. 

 Now D’arcy was part of the Burmah Oil company, who in 1909 created the Anglo-Persian Oil Company(Known now as British Petroleum). The APOC created its first refinery in Abadan, and for the next 50 years it was the largest oil refinery in the world. At this point, WW1 was starting and the British wanted to create a new navy, so they bought a controlling share of the company with a contract that held for the next 20 years. The British wanted to leave their oil dependency from Standard Oil and Royal Dutch-Shell companies. In the next decade, popular opposition grew in Iran against the oil concession of only 16% of net profits. In the coming years negotiations take place, and the terms of the deal ended up fueling more unrest in Iran. It provided another 60 years of exclusive rights which extended the original deal by another 32 years. The agreement also reduced the area under APOC control, but the area they controlled was picked by the British, which ended up taking the best lands for oil extraction. The minimum annual payment that APOC had to make to the Iran government was modest, if not completely unfair to Iran. At the same time, APOC was promising that they would pay better wages to workers, build hospitals, roads, schools, and yet they never fulfilled any of them. By 1935 they changed their name to Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. 

 1941

 Iran was invaded by the Soviet Union and Britain, and replaced Reza Shah out of power in favor of his son, who was much more favorable to allied interest. By the end of WW2 we started seeing a nationalistic sentiments on the rise in the middle east, but especially inside of Iran. The Pro-Western government led by Prime Minister Ali Razmara was being pressured to renegotiate with AIOC on the terms that were settled nearly a decade before. By 1949, Britain offered a “Supplemental oil agreement” to help try to settle the unrest in the country, but the Iranian government and people still knew that they were still being unfairly treated, without being able to look at the company’s books, they would never know if they were being fairly treated. In late 1950, word spread that the Arabian-American Oil Company had agreed to share profits with Saudis on a 50–50 basis. Within the next 6 months, the Prime minister Haj Ali Razmara was assassinated by somebody from the National Front party (Nationalistic Ideology) who was in favor of nationalizing the oil. The mourning from the public lacked so much, the government in place knew sentiment to nationalize the oil was growing. At this point, the government in place was very democratic, they held fair elections, and the government tried to do right by the people. But within the same month as the assassination, the Iranian Parliament voted to nationalise the AIOC and its holdings. Shortly after, the people elected Mohammed Mossadegh to Prime Minister. He was in favor of the Nationalizing of the oil and AIOC. 

 Within the next 6 months, the British, and other foreign countries agreed not to purchase Iranian oil. The mighty refinery in Abadan was closed, and AIOC withdrew from Iran and went to other parts of the Persian Gulf. Mossadegh ended up breaking off negotiations with the AIOC in July of 1951, and Britain warned that Iranian receipts for oil would not be accepted on the world market. At this time, America wanted Britain's support for the Korean War, all while the British wanted American support for coup in Iran. At this time, the U.S and Britain both sent their diplomats to try to negotiate a way that AIOC could still have a share of the oil, but Mossadegh refused. In which, the British concluded that he had to go, the allied powers were worried other countries would follow Iran’s lead on nationalizing. 

 In 1951, Mossadegh paid a visit to the United States, where he actually agreed to a complex settlement, which, Iran would own the refinery in Kermanshah and administer the oilfields, and the much larger Abadan Refinery would be sold to a non-British company. The money from the sale would go to AIOC, and then the National-Iranian Oil Company would sell a minimum of 30 million tons of crude oil annually to AIOC for the next fifteen years, the board would consist of three Iranians and four non-Iranians, and the transactions of the NIOC would mostly remain in sterling. The deal though, was rejected by the British as they were planning a coup to replace the leadership in Iran. By mid-1952, an attempt by the Shah to replace Mossadegh backfired, which led to riots against the Shah and perceived foreign intervention. Because of the boycott led by the British on Iranian oil, Iran started to struggle financially, the people started to be unhappier day by day. By summer of August 1952, the British embargo worked, the people started to blame Mossadegh for the economic woes. Now by this time, AIOC was now British Petroleum and was majorly owned by the British government, and the profits helped pay back debts owed for the war. (It was considered to be Britain’s largest foreign asset) 

 Summer 1952

 As Mossadegh’s political power fell, as his popularity started to tumble and economic woes started to take form in riots and political clashes between groups in the streets. Unfortunately for Mossadegh, as he became less popular, he started to conceal power for himself. He started to rule by August, mostly through emergency powers, which a lot of his supporters didn’t like. An assassination attempt on him and one of his cabinet members happened, and he ordered the jailing of dozens of political opponents, which created massive backlash from the general public. By mid 1953, the mass resignations of Mossadegh’s parliamentary supporters reduced the National Front seats in Parliament, which led to a referendum to dissolve parliament, it passed 99.9 percent approval (2,043,300 votes for, 1,300 against)which was widely known to be a sham. The Shah and the rest of government was effectively stripped of all their powers. Which this act by a democratically elected prime minister, would end up being his downfall, since the CIA for some time was pressuring the Shah to stage a coup, but up until this point he refused. 

 1953

 Saturday 15th of August, Colonel Nematollah Nassiri the commander of the Imperial Guard delivered to Mossadegh a firman from the Shah dismissing him. Mossadegh who was warned about the plot, was prepared and had Nassiri arrested. Mosaddegh argued at his trial that Iran is a constitutional monarchy, the Shah had no constitutional right to issue an order for the elected Prime Minister’s dismissal without Parliament’s consent, but the constitution at the time did allow for such action. The CIA was actively publicizing these actions inside Iran, and riots began by the National Front supporters vs the communist party. The Shah after the failed coup fled Iran, and ran to europe. By August 19th, General Zahedi challenged Mossadegh for Prime Minister and was on the run, while the C.I.A hired infiltrators posing as Tudeh party(communist party)members and began to organize a “communist revolution”. Within days the hired infiltrators convinced the real members of the Tudeh party of this revolution, and they started to attack anything that representative of capitalism, and rioting through the streets. After this, a second group of paid infiltrators came in as Shah supporters, and organized angry crowds of the common Iranian people and gathered an organized with any weapons they could find to fight back against the Tudeh party members. Under Zahedi’s authority the army got involved and fought back the Tudeh members and stormed government building in mass demonstrations. Mossadegh fled after a tank fired a shell into his house, and Mossadegh later that day turned himself into the army’s custody. Zahedi took control of the government as Prime Minister, and the Shah returned to the country and stayed in his position, while Mossadegh was sentenced to three years in military prison, then house arrest till his death. 

 Conclusion

 Remember that Mossadegh was a democratically elected official, that knew for most of his time as Prime Minister that the foreign powers was concluding to have a coup to replace him for the oil interest. It was the British who caused Iran to suffer under his time as Prime Minister in a depression, since they led the world bank to ban exports on Iranian oil, the lifeblood of the country at the time. Iran was the first middle eastern country to introduce democracy, and was far advanceded culture compared to the rest of the brutal tyrants in the middle east. The British and Russians corrupted the government to get as much of the oil resources as they could, by bribing public officials. But once America got involved, it was them who helped overthrow the democratic government in Iran, and install religious fundamentalist and a dictator who was brutal towards its people until the Iranian revolution in 1979. It was America who helped fuel the Iraq-Iran war who killed millions, as they actively sold weapons to both sides. In all the struggle for the Coup of Mossadegh, remember it was America who was awarded the most after his coup.

We fear Iran, because they are one of the only nations we have overthrown who has actually survived since they kicked out people who were favorable to American interest. Ever since the Revolution in 1979, America has been saying Iran was a grave threat to the world, and Israel. But in the time that America has been screaming about Iran being a threat, it was us who overthrew or supported the overthrow of over 5 governments in the middle east. Remember that as Trump talks about how the Iran nuclear deal is terrible, it took over a decade to negotiate. We fear them not because they could build a nuclear bomb, but because they are free of the grasp of the American military machine and all that brings, death for resources.