Mohammad Mosaddegh - "If I sit silently, I have sinned."
Background:
Book - Stephen Kinzer - All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror.
Video - History of U.S. Intervention in Iran - 1953 Until Present.
An excerpt from a speech given by Ayatollah Khamenei on October 31, 2012, to Iranian students in Tehran:
The answer to the first question - "when did the battle start?" - is that it started before the year 1343. It started from the year 1332 after the coup d'état of the 28th of Mordad, which was staged in Iran by the Americans and resulted in the overthrow of the government of Dr. Mosaddeq. American agents openly came to Iran with suitcases filled with American dollars. Quite a few books have been written in this regard and everybody knows the names of those American agents. They came to Iran with suitcases filled with money, they bribed thugs and certain corrupt politicians of the time, they staged the coup d'état of the 28th of Mordad in the year 1332, and they overthrew Mosaddeq's government.My take:
The interesting point that you should know is that Mosaddeq's government, which was overthrown by the Americans, was not at all hostile towards the Americans. He had stood up against the English. He trusted the Americans. He was hoping that they would help him. He had established friendly relations with them. He would announce his affection for the Americans - and maybe his humility. The Americans did those things to such a government. It was not the case that the government which was in power in Tehran was anti-American. No, Mosaddeq's government was their friend, but their imperialist interests required that the Americans enter into an alliance with the English. They came with their suitcases filled with money and they did what they wanted to do. The main element behind the coup was an American. Everybody knows his name. I myself know very well who he was. His name has been mentioned in different books. After they had carried out the coup and returned the Shah to the country, they took every affair of our country into their own hands. They took control of the country.
The CIA's legacy is one of terrorism, tyranny, and torture. This was true even before the false flag September 11 events, and it is more true today. The CIA engineered coup in Iran was a crime against Iran, but the storming of the American embassy and the taking of American officials by Iranian students was also a crime. Obviously, these crimes are not of the same nature and should not be measured equally. The CIA's crime led to thousands of dead and imprisoned in Iran. The hostages were freed.
The mainstream version of the hostage crisis is untrue. It is one episode where both governments defend the official story, while having some minor disagreements about the rightness of the action, the motivations of the students, and the role of Khomeini and his entourage.
The United States is also criminally responsible for instructing Saddam Hussein to attack Iran after the Iranian revolution and supporting his criminal war against the Iranian people. That war resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The military-industrial complex was happy.
Sanctions are also a criminal act. The U.S. has made itself judge of the world, and this is not right.
But perpetual mutual hostility is a bankrupt approach. The tragic American-Iranian relationship must not continue on forever in a hostile environment. We need new and clear thinking, divorced from ideological point of views on both sides. There are better ways of resolving the historical grievances between the two nations.
But I do not have faith in either the American government or the Iranian government to put their pride aside and deal with issues openly, honestly, and courageously. There are elements in both governments that want war. As for Israel, all it wants is war, so it is hopeless.
I will write another article in the future about the American-Iranian hostage crisis. I saw the film Argo last week and it presented the major myth that Iran is acting irrationally, and that it has deviated from reason. This is not true. Also, forget the talks. They are a distraction. I still think USrael is crazy enough to attack Iran.
