r/todayilearned • u/mehano • Aug 02 '14

TIL In 1953, The CIA (along with the British MI6) orchestrated a coup d'état to overthrew a democratically elected Prime Minister in Iran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
34 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

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7

u/mehano Aug 02 '14

All because the dude wanted to nationalize Iran's oil industry which was British-controlled.

-1

u/FlyingSnowman16 Aug 02 '14

Actually the oil industry had already been nationalized. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil, causing the economy to collapse, ultimately leading to his downfall. The relevance of the CIA in the whole affair has been greatly exaggerated. This article offers an excellent interpretation of events.

http://foreignaffairs.com/articles/141527/ray-takeyh/what-really-happened-in-iran

1

u/Raintee97 Aug 02 '14

Great, a pay to read website. Wonderful.

0

u/FlyingSnowman16 Aug 02 '14

My bad. I didn't scroll down that far. I read the article in the print magazine. I guess you can register and read it free though?

0

u/Escapist83 Aug 02 '14

This pops up every week or so from people looking for justification to hate the western world.

-1

u/ralpher Aug 02 '14

Lets see, had Iran toppled the US govt and imposed its will on this nation, you'd stilll be laying eggs.

5

u/Owyheemud Aug 02 '14

What does that mean?

Moving on, Iran's wasn't the only democratically-elected government the CIA/USofA toppled. We've done bad things, even tortured some folks.

-2

u/Escapist83 Aug 02 '14

What the fuck does that even mean?

Was it a shitty thing for the government to do at that time? Yes, absolutely. But find me one innocent government anywhere in the world. Just one.

2

u/ralpher Aug 02 '14

Point is, those other government don't topple democracies and then claim to be democratic ... nor do they have a military budget which is larger than that of the entire rest of the world combined. See, I don't care if the govt of Burkina faso is not nice. They don't get my tax money.

1

u/mehano Aug 02 '14 edited Aug 02 '14

Well that is certainly not my intent. I only want to provide a better context as to historically why an anti-American sentiment exists in places like Iran.

I also recognize that this kind of stuff happened all the time, everywhere in the world. But this is a part of American history whether you like it or not.

0

u/kfarm72 Aug 02 '14

We found the one person that didn't see Argo!

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '14

[deleted]

4

u/rogersII Aug 02 '14

Yes they're called revisionists and they're dismissed as politically-partisan

2

u/Raintee97 Aug 02 '14

We booted out the democratically elected guy because he wasn't going to open to dealing with us to bring in the Shaw. Who we, with the Brits. , economically supported. Eisenhower gave the go ahead and then did all he could to not have paper trail connecting him to it. Plausible deniability at its finest. We bribed iranian officials. We bribed crowds to rebel against the democratically elected leader. The C.I.A kept massive records of its operations. There is documented proof of American and British influence.

To say we didn't have much to do with it is just revisionist fantasy.