@grrlscientist The grave of the man largely responsible is in a leafy English country churchyard

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/94466140/miles_axe-copeland

@grrlscientist please stop using "the west" in statements like this.

It was the CIA and MI6. "The West" as a collective being don't exist and if you want to put all people from like 60 different countries all together the thing that they did was too mostly care about their own stuff (like 10 years after a war that destroyed an entire continent) and not caring enough for people in a country many back then potentially didn't know even exist.

But blaming "the west" for current situation is easy.

@grrlscientist Ahh, the beneficiaries.

So who got what?

Well...
* Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC): The company that had been nationalized by Mosaddegh was the largest single shareholder. As a concession for its previous losses, it was rebranded as British Petroleum (BP) in 1954 and held a 40% share in the new consortium. Previously, it had been the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, and had purchased a 51% stake in 1909, which it lost when Mossadegh ascended.

 * American Oil Companies: In a major victory for U.S. foreign and economic policy, a group of five major American oil firms collectively received a 40% stake, marking their first significant entry into the lucrative Iranian oil fields. This share was divided among:
   * Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon)
   * Standard Oil of California (SoCal, later Chevron)
   * Standard Oil Co. of New York (later Mobil, which eventually merged with Exxon)
   * The Texas Company (Texaco)
   * Gulf Oil

 * Royal Dutch Shell: The Anglo-Dutch oil giant secured a 14% share of the consortium.

 * Compagnie Française des Pétroles (CFP): The French company, which would later become Total, was granted the remaining 6% stake.

@grrlscientist

Of course, it is about the oil. Nothing else…

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@grrlscientist There's an even better book on this topic, All the Shah's men by Stephen Kinzer. Exact same historical events but is a page turner because it reads like a thriller.

#iran

@grrlscientist truth

The great tragedy of the Iranian revolution and the ensuing hostage crisis and everything that followed was it was our fault because we didn’t like the idea that democratic institutions in the middle east wanted things that didn’t align with our strategic interests. Mostly oil. So they had to go.

It was all our fault. The Iranian theocracy. Decades of war and civil unrest. All for oil.

@grrlscientist
100% Correct
the British-owned oil industry was nationalized by the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had support from Iran's national parliament to do so; .

Mosaddegh was overthrown in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, which was carried out by the Iranian military under the aegis of the United Kingdom and the United States.

Western Imperial Assholes only care about profits not people. That has not changed at all.

@grrlscientist The Shi'a clergy (ayatollahs and their supporters) also hated Mosaddegh because he was secular, and they thought he was too cozy with godless communists. Some of them even took CIA money to mobilize street violence against his government. But they were already organizing against Mosaddegh before Ajax was a thing.

Isn't it odd that today's ayatollahs don't talk much about their enthusiastic collaboration with the West's interference. Arguably they made a bigger difference on the ground in 1953 than the CIA did (as it was primarily a British operation).

I agree this event is history that Americans and Brits should know. But it's an ironic flavor of Western chauvinism to think that Muslim societies don't have internal dynamics, as if they only ever react against (or imitate) the West.

Iran's current regime has local roots that go back long before 1953; arguably the clerics gained power because they were just the best organized faction in the vacuum after the Shah fled in 1979. The Mosaddegh coup was terrible, but it's arrogant to say the theocracy is all our fault. #agency #HistoryHasNuance

@grrlscientist Current developments have nothing to do with "promoting freedom&democracy." They have to do with the current Iranian leaders' promises to destroy Israel and the West, coupled with the fact that they are enriching uranium well beyond the levels needed for energy production.

It seems they have the will and are close to having the tools. Should we wait until ICBMs hitting Israeli civilians can carry nuclear warheads?

@grrlscientist I always find it so funny when Americans are like "We're the protector of freedom around the world!"

People in the following (sometimes former) countries 🤨

Hawaii 1893
Cuba 1898 (from Spain)
Philippines 1898
Puerto Rico 1898
Nicaragua 1909 (Lumber, mining)
Honduras 1911 (Land, Bananas)
Iran 1953 (Oil)
Guatemala 1954 (for Bananas again)
Cuba, again (attempted - failed) 1961
South Vietnam 1963
Chile 1973
Iraq 2003 (A government they originally supported and help arm)

@grrlscientist

and they still have more of a democracy (they elect a president who has to be subservient to the supreme leader, but still) than other countries in the Middle East.