On 04/27/2011 03:35 AM, RHF wrote:
The government of Iran is overthrown by Iranian rebels and the CIA in a
coup codenamed Operation Ajax. The coup was planned by CIA operative
Kermit Roosevelt after receiving the blessings of the US and British
governments. Muhammad Mosaddeq is deposed and the CIA promptly
reinstates Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the throne. The Shah’s secret
police, SAVAK, trained by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad, are widely
perceived as being as brutal and terrifying as the Nazi Gestapo in World
War II. British oil interests in Iran, partially nationalized under
previous governments, are returned to British control. American oil
interests are retained by 8 private oil companies, who are awarded 40%
of the Iranian oil industry. US General Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. (father
of the general with the same name in the 1991 Gulf War) helps the Shah
develop the fearsome SAVAK secret police. [ZNet, 12/12/2001; Global
Policy Forum, 2/28/2002] Author Stephen Kinzer will say in 2003, "The
result of that coup was that the Shah was placed back on his throne. He
ruled for 25 years in an increasingly brutal and repressive fashion. His
tyranny resulted in an explosion of revolution in 1979 the event that we
call the Islamic revolution. That brought to power a group of
fanatically anti-Western clerics who turned Iran into a center for
anti-Americanism and, in particular, anti-American terrorism. The
Islamic regime in Iran also inspired religious fanatics in many other
countries, including those who went on to form the Taliban in
Afghanistan and give refuge to terrorists who went on to attack the
United States. The anger against the United States that flooded out of
Iran following the 1979 revolution has its roots in the American role in
crushing Iranian democracy in 1953. Therefore, I think it’s not an
exaggeration to say that you can draw a line from the American
sponsorship of the 1953 coup in Iran, through the Shah’s repressive
regime, to the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the spread of militant
religious fundamentalism that produced waves of anti-Western terrorism."
[Stephen Kinzer, 7/29/2003]

http://www.historycommons.org/contex... nst_iran_328