<story><title>&apos;Coup 53&apos; tells the story of 1953 campaign by MI6 and CIA to oust Iran&apos;s leader</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/903505983/coup-53-tells-the-true-story-of-the-cia-s-campaign-to-oust-iran-s-leader</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>haltingproblem</author><text>The CIA&amp;#x2F;MI5 coup is fascinating not only because it overthrow a democratically elected government of a Middle Eastern country in 1953 (!) but also because of its consequences. There is not a single democratic government in the ME sans Israel. No, tiny Tunisia does not count, it is in the Maghreb (N. Africa).&lt;p&gt;What would the middle east look like if the Mosaddegh government had continued? No revolution, No Ayatollah, no Iran-Iraq war, no Hezbollah? Instead we got the Shah who forced his people to modernize, secret police pulling veils off women was common and generally unleashed a reign that was anathema to most of the conservative population outside Tehran. Most of the anger you see is towards the US is from that reign rather than the coup.&lt;p&gt;The Iranians who are Persians, and not Arabs, have a civilizational history going back 1000s of years. Expat Persians have achieved great success in the US and UK. Going further back, the Zoroastrians, who fled the Islamic conquest and arrived in India more than a millennia ago are the richest, most educated and economically successful minority group by an order of magnitude, or two.&lt;p&gt;The Shah&amp;#x27;s reign lasted 25 years. A generation that grew up under the Shah&amp;#x27;s tyranny led the revolution in 1979. The Islamic revolution is now 40 years old. There have been almost two generations 
that grew up under the Islamic govt&amp;#x27;s misrule and grandiose projects of power projection. Hopefully they can take charge and lead Iran back to civilizational greatness. Iran, the middle east and the world needs it.&lt;p&gt;And I would really like to visit the gardens of Shiraz or the markets of Isfahan which have been around for 1000s of years ;)&lt;p&gt;Edit: As pointed out in the comments, instead of Arab world, I should have used Arab speaking. There are Arab speakers who are Arab and there are Arab speakers who are not Arab.</text></comment>
<story><title>&apos;Coup 53&apos; tells the story of 1953 campaign by MI6 and CIA to oust Iran&apos;s leader</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/903505983/coup-53-tells-the-true-story-of-the-cia-s-campaign-to-oust-iran-s-leader</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>DonaldFisk</author><text>There was a documentary about the coup shown on Channel 4 in the UK in 1985: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=xhCgJElpQEQ&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=xhCgJElpQEQ&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just before it was shown, the role of Norman Darbyshire, the MI6 officer involved in the coup, was leaked to the Observer: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;aug&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;mi6-the-coup-in-iran-that-changed-the-middle-east-and-the-cover-up&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;aug&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;mi6-the-coup-i...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Observer received a D-notice which prevented its publication.&lt;p&gt;The makers of Coup 53 made use of the unpublished Observer material.&lt;p&gt;Briefly, the UK Government wanted Mosaddegh overthrown because he wanted to nationalize a British oil company (Anglo-Iranian).   It tried to get the CIA involved but Truman opposed American involvement.   This changed when Eisenhower was elected president.</text></comment>