The history of America's relationship with Iran illustrates the distance between the claim that we stand for democracy and freedom throughout the world and what the U.S. actually does when that principle is stacked up against another interest: controlling the spigot of the world's oil supply. In 1953 the U.S. toppled Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, putting the Shah of Iran firmly in control. By 1979 our support of the Shah had turned most Iranians into bitter enemies of the United States. They chased him out of power and installed a fundamentalist Muslim regime that bedevils us to this day.
The reason the U.S. toppled the Mossadegh regime boils down to one word, the same word that governs most of our policy in the region: oil. When Mossadegh became prime minister, Iran had one-quarter of the world's proven oil reserves. And yet his country received more income from the sale of its carpets abroad than from its petroleum. The British Empire held a controlling interest in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), and they were not shy about exerting that control.
When Britain assumed control of AIOC in 1913, Iran's share of royalties was 16%, and was based only on the sale of its crude, not on the more profitable refining business. The Iranian government was never allowed to audit the books to ensure they were getting a fair deal, nor were any Iranians involved in the management of the company. Even the drinking fountains-on Iranian soil-were marked "not for Iranians."
But by 1951 the Saudis had cut a deal for a 50-50 split of the profits for the jointly owned company with the U.S., and a similar arrangement had been made in Venezuela. The British, however, were unwilling to go quite that far-until it was too late. When negotiations bogged down, the Iranian legislature voted to nationalize the AIOC. Mossadegh was then swept into office on a wave of nationalist fervor, determined to use oil revenue to construct highways and railroads and improve the educational system.
The Iranian prime minister offered Britain compensation, including a continuing 25% of net profits, as well as retention of all British employees. His Majesty's government responded with a threatening flotilla of gunboats, followed by an economic blockade and a boycott of all Iranian oil products, enforced by oil companies worldwide. Rather than modernizing his country, Mossadegh presided over its decline into chaos.
As the crisis deepened, both Iran and Britain turned to the U.S. for assistance. The Truman Administration was uninterested in helping the British get their oil company back, but when Dwight Eisenhower became president in 1953, his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, saw Iran as yet another pawn in the Cold War. Iran's communist party, the Tudeh, received little support from Moscow, and was illegal in Iran. But Dulles saw Mossadegh as insufficiently keen to suppress the Tudeh, and feared the economic decline caused by the British boycott might strengthen the party's hand. Then, too, Dulles and his brother Allen (head of the CIA) were also corporate lawyers who represented a number called the Shah a "miserable wretch," and announced that "it will be difficult for us to tolerate you much longer.... The nation will not allow you to continue this way." Predictably, the Shah had Khomeini arrested, and just as predictably, the streets of Iran's cities erupted in fury. In three days of rioting, 86 people were killed, and it took martial law to restore order. Though the Shah would sit on the Peacock Throne for sixteen more years, this was the beginning of the end for him. Ironically, his U.S.-backed purge of leftists and centrists left open no other avenue for dissent besides Islamic militancy.
Khomeini challenged his authority again the following year, denouncing a treaty which allowed U.S. citizens immunity from Iranian laws. For this affront, the Ayatollah was sent into exile in neighboring Iraq. There he continued to spread the word of militant Islam through writings and audiocassettes, widely distributed in his homeland.
Shah Reza Pahlavi entered a downward cycle of ever greater repression of the Iranian people, which stirred up ever more opposition to his rule. By 1976, Amnesty International announced that Iran had the worst human rights record on Earth, no small distinction on this particular planet. The secret police, SAVAK, trained by Israel and supplied by the U.S., were infamous for the use of torture and assassination. And meanwhile the Shah's personal corruption grew ever more blatant. Iran's vast oil wealth was squandered on palaces and ceremonies, used to enrich a small class of cronies and collaborators, and funneled into massive weapons purchases from the U.S.
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http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zepezauer_Mark/Iran_Boomerang.html
