The CIA/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).
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.
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.
The Shah's reign lasted 25 years. A generation that grew up under the Shah'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'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.
And I would really like to visit the gardens of Shiraz or the markets of Isfahan which have been around for 1000s of years ;)
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.
>There is not a single democratic govt in the ME sans Israel
The millions of Palestinians unable to vote for the government that controls their movement, trade, and lives in general would probably disagree with your characterization of Israel as a democracy.
Unfortunately, "democracy" doesn't mean "liberal democracy" and it certainly doesn't mean "nice democracy".
For instance, in the Athenian democracy women and metics (immigrants) couldn't vote and slavery was legal. In modern times, the USA, the model of modern democracies, has the largest military in the world (in history!) and does not hesitate to use it to crush lesser nations.
I wouldn't be able to tell you what "democratic" means exactly (I'm not a political scientist) but I susepect having elections without limits on who can vote and who can stand for office, having independent courts and the rule of law are important criteria and under those Israel sure checks out as a democracy. Its people are free. It just happens to keep crushing some other people, who are not its own people, under its heel.
I think what the GP was getting at was that having a sizable population of people living within the de-facto boundaries of a state who are unable to vote (in this case, because they lack citizenship) makes it less democratic.
That's a slightly different problem than the fact that democracies can be terrible if the voters choose terrible things.
I downvoted for the obnoxious phrasing of "Wrong. Try again." It goes against the first paragraph of the HN commenting guidelines: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
You were not responding to the snark but egging on a troll who made a serious political issue about an innocent mention of Israel in the pondering about the course of Persian history this century.
Virtue signalers pop out of the woodwork each time Israel is mentioned. They don't ask everyone to preface each mention on Turkey with their persecution of the Kurds or their refusal to accept the Armenian Genocide. They don't take each mention of Egypt to talk about the Coptic exodus but each mention of Israel has to be prefaced.....this is insanity.
I sincerely feel for the Palestinians because half the world is using them as their club for virtue signaling. This just eggs them to fight to the last Palestinian and give up every chance for peace and their own nation they ever had.
Neither Hamas not the PLO hold the power of the state, therefore there are not democratic elections, therefore Palestine isn't a democratic nation. The immediate reason why they cannot hold elections for their government is because of Israeli occupation. Therefore, there are people that Israel exercise the power of the State over that do not vote for the State, therefore it is not a democracy.
I suppose you could argue that with PLO, but not Hamas. They are in complete control of Gaza have been since 2007. They could have held elections there anytime they wanted to. But they won't.
> Despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza,[21] the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators consider the territory to be still occupied by Israel, supported by additional restrictions placed on Gaza by Egypt. Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, and six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.[21] The system of control imposed by Israel is described as an "indirect occupation".
If the citizens in the Falklands or Guantanamo weren't allowed to vote, you would have a point, however they are allowed to vote, so you don't have a point.
The standard is occupation of a territory without giving them or its inhabitants the right to vote.
The result of their last election led to Israeli raids, detention of parliament/cabinet members, and increased sanctions from both Israel and the US. Why would they want a new election? Further, Israel and the US have both given signals saying that next time they'll ensure the results they want
The GP was talking about Palestinians being unable to vote. While it's easy to place blame Palestine issues on the US and Israel, in this case it's clear that elections are not taking place because Fatah and Hamas can't get their house in order.
The discussion is about Palestinian sovereignty. When your election results in the kind of retaliation I mentioned, why would you work towards another? Such elections aren't proof of democracy.
I figured saying "The result of their last election led to..." made it clear when this happened. The blockade resulting from those events is still ongoing, these things aren't ancient history.
The Palestinians definitely deserve democracy, however creating one will require more than just an election.
The blockade resulted from Hamas sniping at Israel with mortars and missiles and rockets for nearly 15 years - which also caused 2-3 major wars.
The moment they stop their shenanigans is the day the blockade ends.
I agree that creating a democracy needs more than just an election. However, perhaps letting them vote in some new people might result in governance that is willing to play ball and come up with some kind of agreement.
>The blockade resulted from Hamas sniping at Israel with mortars and missiles and rockets for nearly 15 years - which also caused 2-3 major wars
It was initiated as part of the postelection economic sanctions. Israel cites the rocket attacks for making it necessary to continue, but that is not the start.
>However, perhaps letting them vote in some new people might result in governance that is willing to play ball and come up with some kind of agreement.
Or it gives the US and Israel a chance to rectify their previous mistake and ensure their chosen candidates win. Democracy!
They didn't just mix with Arabs. Many Palestinians are descendants from the 12 tribes of Israel but have been disowned be the rest of those tribes because their ancestors changed religions.
No, you're getting downvoted for stating falsehoods. Israel economically and militarily controls the occupied territories. Holding phony elections for "leaders" that are powerless to do anything because they wield no state power is not democracy. This would be true even if Gaza wasn't under an illegal blockade which prevents residents of Gaza from leaving without Israeli permission and prevents those from other countries from visiting or engaging in commerce with Gaza without Israeli permission.
Reasonable people can disagree over what the way forward is in Israel, but people who deny reality in order to push their agenda are not reasonable.
I searched and I cannot see how you found 450 mil for population of arabs in te world. I even counted Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan and none of these are arbs.
Also, I talked to a palistinian friend and she thinks palistinians did not vote for Hamas becasue that was the choise. The other ones were just so corrupt. Any way your sentimate is just too reductive for a very complicated region.
Algerian here. While there are certainly Arabs in the Maghreb, we’re not all Arabs and don’t generally identify as Arab. My family identifies as Amazigh. Most Algerians will tell you they’re Algerian, not Arab. Many friends from other parts of the Maghreb identify similarly.
Having been to the Maghreb, I completely agree with you. There are Tuaregs and Amazigh and even the locals who are "Arabs" are a mixture. I should have used the term Arab-speaking world instead of Arab. There is no ethnic notion of Arabs as a race and I understand that. Shukran :)
No, you're getting downvoted for ignoring the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, something akin to the holocaust that was inflicted on the Jews by the Nazis is being repeated now on the Palestinians, who are technically their distant cousins.
You are being downvoted because you ignore history conveniently to support an apartheid state like Israel.
Everything I said about the Palestinian elections is from Wikipedia and their direct words. You also ignore the fact that Arabs in Israel are the only Arabs (other than the Tunisian, occasionally) who can vote and have their own parties.
Palestinians Arabs have had one national election and Israeli Arabs vote as often as Israel has elections which seems to be happening every year.
Criticize Israel's conduct all you want but please come with facts.
The wikipedia article indicates an absence of democracy in Palestine, haltingproblem, wouldn't you agree?
> Israel does not allow free exercise of political activities; checkpoints and separation walls hinder many social activities. The Legislative Council cannot properly function because free travel is impossible, especially between Gaza and the West Bank, regardless of hostilities between Fatah and Hamas. Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and other politicians have been subject to lengthy detentions by Israel or even killed
Israel is not a democratic country because it supports the Saudi monarchy, a completely unprincipled, and despotic regime. Basically a Middle Eastern North Korea.
A political regime supporting an inherently antidemocratic system is not democractic by the definition.
They are also very fond of the Egyptian Sisi, an another tinpot despot.
And am not joking here. People need to finally stop thinking of it as a some kind of tinfoil thing. The Israel—Saudi—Egyptian axis is 100% real. It sounds bizarre, but its true, been documentary verified, and supported by accounts of many diplomats of 3rd countries, US included. The open source investigatory journalists, among other things, established the fact of regular visits of their top officials to each other's countries.
So does the US, UK, France, Germany. By your definition there are no democracies in the world.
I was talking about the glories of Persian civilization and its glories and you had to drag in the "evil US-Saud-Egyptian" axis. You got an axe to grind.
Surely the Persian civilization was glorious and it could still shine. The problem was you mentioning Israel and denigrating the Palestinians. I urge you to take a second look at this issue, Israel is a terrible oppressor of these people.
They do. They voted for their government in 2006. Then the ones who they elected decided to not hold elections again. Its good to virtue signal for Palestinians but atleast get the facts right.
You're demonstrating that anyone can pick any facts to tell any story.
According to 'haltingproblem, self determination is being able to vote in an election in an occupied territory where there is no freedom of movement and a large portion of the population is dependent on humanitarian aid.
Since this is all so simple and clear to you, can you please arrange your facts to explain what the 982 UN resolutions on the "Question of Palestine" are about?
Out of these three, I think one one goes as far as do so boldly, loudly, and on the record.
> the "evil US-Saud-Egyptian" axis. You got an axe to grind.
Of course I do. For as long as I have a dime of moral judgement, and integrity, I will. Spawning Laden, Qaeda, other tinpot outfits, funding rogue dictatorships of Bashirs, Sisis, Gaddafis, committing the unspeakable barbarity of 9.11 attack, and effectively breaking the world as it is, for the last 20 years. What out of this is not worth the outrage???
The Observer received a D-notice which prevented its publication.
The makers of Coup 53 made use of the unpublished Observer material.
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.
Yup a lot of Age of Empire is used in the documentary. Finding that Observer material in Microfilm set them down the merry path. My father was excitedly telling me about it when they discovered it. He really couldn't believe it.
I love this. Our decades of oil wars still don't seem to be common knowledge. All of the wars have of course been sold to the public as something else and it's a pretty important thing to understand about modern western power.
> Our decades of oil wars still don't seem to be common knowledge.
Nor are common knowledge the names of the oil company executives and shareholders who benefited from these wars, while dumping the expense and blame on their host countries.
There's more than enough oil in the US, Canada, and Mexico to support not only US military needs but the entire North American civilian economy indefinitely. There is no risk of the US ever losing a war due to an oil shortage.
When the US 'goes to war for oil' in the Middle East, it's going to war not to protect its oil supply but rather to make sure the profits of oil accrue to US companies and to ensure that oil remains priced in US dollars, which is vital for the US Dollar to continue to be the world's reserve currency.
You can't value oil under your own soil the same as imported oil, and it has nothing to do with profit.
Oil demand is never going away (we need it for plastic, lubricants for wind turbines, etc) but the supply is. When you are talking about macroeconomic nation state scales of oil, the only logical decision is to acquire foreign oil. Not only are you helping to speed the depletion of their reservers, you are holding yours.
The last barrel of oil on earth will be worth more than all the barrels that came before it.
Edit: I did some math. As of 2018 there were 43.8 billion discovered barrels of oil in the US, in 2019 we consumed 20.46 million barrels a day domestically. So we are self sufficient for a little less than 6 years.
This assumes you don't discover alternatives to fossil fuels before running out of them. Historically this is a bad bet. As the price increases people search harder and harder for alternatives. It seems impossible now because cheap oil means there's no demand for alternatives, but people are clever and if there's demand they'll usually find a solution.
To understand the economics of oil you have to think of it as a raw ingredient rather than a fuel source.
Even if you stop burning it (which I think is a terrible idea), you can't live without oil. Antiseptics, rubbing alcohol, paint, aspirin, toothpaste, shoes, pens, bike tires, computers, etc. require it for modern production.
Heck, a standard solar panel plopped on top of your home requires just shy of a full barrel of oil to produce.
According to [1], non-fuel use of petroleum is 16%. Of those 16%, I'd guess most uses have an alternative, even if less convenient. Most of the things you listed don't specifically require oil, just hydrocarbons transformed in series of steps.
Oil is a strategic resource for energy and not much else important. There is short term manufacturing dependence, but most countries should have sufficient reserve capacity, currently for fuel use.
It lost due to a lot more than that. Britain and her colonies (excluding India) out produced the Germany economy. Once you add in the US and USSR it’s more a question of how Germany lasted so long.
It's an oversimplification for sure, but there was definitely no way Germany was going to win without oil and explains why (the one sane reason) they invaded the Soviet Union.
> For years, I thought the CIA was the prime mover of the coup, but I was wrong.
I think the CIA was indeed the prime mover of the coup, at least according to the CIA's official history. Derbyshire, the person who was in charge of SIS's Iran branch, came up with the idea of a coup, but the Brits had not the capacity to pull it off and so they asked the CIA for help. The whole operation was very well documented by the declassified report entitled "CIA Clandestine Service History, Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran, November 1952-August 1953", which is downloadable from
I think you might have a different understanding of the phrase "prime mover" than the author. Aristotle used the term[1] to refer to the source of all motion, the idea being that motion had to begin with some entity moving without having been moved from something else, and then all other motion flowed from it. According to the history you give, Derbyshire would fit the definition of the prime mover here; he had the idea without it having come from another source, and so the CIA's action only came about as a result of that initial idea.
Thanks for the link! I'm working on the documentary and as we don't have a distributor we're doing what we can. We know that people all over the world would like to see it. We have to develop subtitles and reach out to theaters in each country to partner with them. It's a lot of work. If anyone has suggestions of art houses in the country they are located, please send them to us! We are partnering with independent cinemas because they are really hurting because of the pandemic, so any venue that partners with us gets 50/50 split of profits.
I'm so glad. I will pass on your comment to the film-makers. We've been a bit overwhelmed. I updated the website today with almost 100 cinemas we're partnering with and I'm hoping it doesn't crash. ::fingers-crossed::
Unfortunately it seems that it's not an international release. You need to buy a ticket from one of the participating venues, and then your virtual screening would be limited to the country of the venue.
I live in Hong Kong, so I'm out of luck. Maybe I could use a VPN, but I don't have any VPN subscription and I don't know how well any of the VPN providers can stream video.
Mulvad is one of the best, if you fill a captcha they give you an account number valid for 3 hours without any restrictions, their vpn client is open source and support wireguard
Marjane Satrapi's awesome autobiographical comic "Persepolis" [1] also addresses this as the setup to the chain of events that would lead to Iran's current theocracy.
I recommend this comic as well as the movie based on it.
Worth noting that Satrapi's family were part of the US supported-side and so the story might be slightly slanted to one side, covering more the time period where a conservative religious group cane in to power as a backlash.
> How that happens is the heart of the film, which paints a fascinatingly detailed picture of how, in practical terms, you go about toppling a popular foreign leader. It all starts with spreading around money and maybe arranging a couple of assassinations.
"The Jakarta Method" by Vincent Bevins delves into how the CIA adapted and shifted course to address some of the weaknesses of its in-plain-sight coup approach in Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s. The ideal is always to preserve as much as possible the impression that the change in regimes is driven by local, endogenous political forces. The recent coup in Bolivia is a good demonstration of how this can be pulled off while almost entirely avoiding accusations of U.S. involvement.
Personally I would also argue for Brazil, 2016. Operação Lava Jato was publicized as an anti-corruption effort, but more recent information indicates it was more of an anti-socialist coup. Sérgio Moro was in IVLP, and the highlight of his first trip to USA after becoming Justice Minister was a courtesy call at CIA headquarters. [0] This was an unmistakable public statement of Moro's allegiance and actions.
Kinzer also wrote an interesting little book in 2010 (Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future) about how Turkey and Iran-with-a-very-different-government could be naturally aligned with the-United-States-when-not-captured-by-hawks. It looks hopelessly naive at the moment, but it's still a great primer on the entangled history of the three countries.
I liked it a lot, although I’ve later found the depiction of the Eisenhower administration a bit simplistic. Another good and fun read on that is Evans’ _Ike’s bluff_, which paints a more detailed picture on John Foster Dulles in particular.
It's not included in the written summary but the NPR audio segment includes some commentary by Kinzer about how exploitative the British oil extraction deals with Iran were.
The story that the CIA did this is mostly myth created by CIA people to enhance the reputation of the CIA in the eyes of US White House and Congress. CIA had Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (Teddy's grandson) in Iran working on it, but he accomplished little, and the CIA sent him orders to stop a couple of days before the coup. He pretended not to get the message and kept trying, but probably without much effect. Mohammad Mosaddegh lost power when the ayatollahs
raised their opposition to his rule. Roosevelt then returned to the US and collected all the credit.
This PR coup led to Eisenhower giving Dulles of the CIA a couple of fighter planes to use in Guatemala to remove Jacobo Arbenz from power, which was the CIA's pinnacle of success, strengthening the CIA's reputation even more and leading to the agency's mediocre record thereafter.
Thanks for posting this. I'm working on the documentary. We're having a live Q&A in 5 hours with the director Taghi Amirani, the editor and co-writer my father Walter Murch, and actor Ralph Fiennes who portrays Darbyshire. The Q&A is moderated by Jon Snow of Channel 4 news. This is exclusive access if you buy your ticket to our online premiere now! It's on our website.
We're having our general release on Friday. It's available in the USA, UK, Ireland and Canada. We're going country by country because we don't have a distributor.
I don't necessarily trust NPR to do that great of a job telling this story. I do recommend listening to the Iran section (all the sections, really) of Safe for Democracy: http://safefordemocracy.com/podcast/6/ . (Note: that's part 1 of 9).
Appreciate the additional sources. I share your skepticism about NPR's take on this sort of thing but have found that sometimes dodgy-but-mainstream sources can still be quite useful for kicking off productive discussions where some of the more salient facts can be explored.
Useful to start discussions, yes! Sometimes risky because they can spread common myths, and it can be very difficult to supplant them. It's so much harder to unlearn something than to learn the right thing the first time, of course.
Safe for Democracy does thorough and sourced deep-dives into the histories of a few American "interventions", disrupting or controlling or supposedly attempting to create democracy in other countries. It goes through the background of the countries, often 100+ years prior to the events in question, and sets the stage thoroughly so that you can get a sense of the cultural forces and context. It also emphasizes the humanity of those involved and what violences were done beyond rattling off death counts so that you can understand the long-term cultural impacts and often genocides involved that are easier to miss if you only hear numbers.
The most fascinating part of Americanism to me is that America regularly compromises and helps compromise any country that doesn't share the same interests, and America's citizens (mostly) think it's fine. The society lives in fear of its government, its representatives live in fear of its military, and the military is controlled by higher-ups who probably shouldn't have been given power. Often people accuse the leaders of these compromised nations of being dictators as if America doesn't have a track record of instilling even more evil leaders (for example, Pinochet[1]).
Why can't America just leave other countries alone and tend to its own sorry affairs? America tries to make other countries "more free" and then treats Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, Mexicans, other people of color, women, transgenders and other gender-nonconformists, homosexuals and anyone else that isn't heterosexual, Communists, Socialists, and anyone who isn't their form of "normal" as second-rate citizens in their own country. America (rightfully) accuses other countries of tampering in their election and then tampers in others' elections.[0] Their actions often contradict the values they claim to purvey.
I hear often that if another country was doing as poorly as America is right now, America would have "liberated" it already.
Honestly? I do believe in democracy and I do think that China is even less free than America. However, I don't think America has any claim to Hong Kong, so no. There are other avenues America and other free(er) countries can take to help Hong Kong's populace, namely, providing an expedited path to citizenship, and subsidizing travel expenses for those who need it and aren't necessarily seeking asylum. I'm not exactly sure of what to do though because I haven't been following the situation closely.
Maybe the US should have stayed out of WW2, or at least the European theatre? Western Europe would have fallen under the yoke of a communist dictator for 50 years.
WWII was different though because America joined the war after the Pearl Harbor attack, which was a direct offense by the axis powers. In my opinion America should actually have joined the war effort when Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany because Poland was (iirc) an ally to America. The situation is different with Hong Kong because China already controls Hong Kong. The conflict happening there is more of a civil war.
JFK, seeking an exit from that Catch-22, tried to promote international institutions[1] in order to approach a world "where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved"[2] ... but he got cancelled.
JFK also planned to help topple democratic government in Brazil and install the dictatorship. "Operation Brother Sam" was actually executed by LBJ, post-cancellation.
Fascinating how demographics change. Back then the UK population was bigger than Iran/Iraq/Syria/Israel/Palestine/SaudiArabia combined and much wealthier and powerful. Now those countries combine to hundreds of millions of people.
Now imagine for a second another country overthrowing the US elected government and installing their own dictator.
How exactly would Americans feel for that country later? (even just from that incident alone, let's ignore half a century of later meddling).
When Americans consider other countries' reactions towards them, they seldom consider the impact of their own actions, as if the toppling some sovereign country's government (the worse thing you can do) is no big deal, and others should just sit and take it...
Most Americans can't place Iran (heck, or even France or Germany) on the map, much less consider the history of interactions between the two countries (and even less so the history, goals, rights, culture of the country in context of its region, history, etc).
What they "know" is a high level view of what mass media feeds them about the enemy du jour (based on the country's current geopolitical interests and goals) and even that at a very crude level.
Heck, Hollywood/TV series/pop culture/etc depictions of the country have even more stronghold in their minds than even the above.
Go talk to 100 random people and ask them who Mosaddegh was and see what you come up with... Heck, ask them to name you current leaders for that matter.
Even their own vice president of 3+ years would be a little difficult for tens of millions...
Do you pay taxes? Do you vote? If so, you're part of the problem. (Me too, so don't feel special...) The machine will crank out the product as long as the machine exists.
Germany hardly waged war against the US, toppled their governmnent, occupied it, bombed it, etc.
Japan did a few of those, though after much provocation to achieve exactly that and give an excuse to the US to sell the war to its public.
The US intervened in the European war (and not even decidely so, that's another myth), to ensure their improved role in the post-war environment, as the old European colonial powers were weakened by the war.
What exactly do you mean? It's just a description of Hitler's declaration of war on the US. It did not result in total war being waged on US soil, and it was mostly a strategic blunder on Hitler's part.
Note the count includes actions by Japan against the US. Compare it to the European theatre of war.
> Their lack of ‘total war’ on the US is mostly the consequence of a lack of resources / more pressing concerns.
But this is irrelevant for this discussion. The fact remains that the US didn't suffer total war waged by Germany on their soil during WW2, and this might explain the comment which sparked this thread:
> It wasn't very many years earlier that Germany waged total war against the US but a grudge hasn't held out there...
It's easier to hold a grudge with millions dead, bombing campaigns destroying your cities, etc, don't you think? Arguing formalities such as whether Germany and the US were at war seems pointless in this context, doesn't it?
No, I think you are vastly underplaying the extent to which Germany was America’s enemy. Don’t forget that Jews had escaped Germany to the US, especially prominent scientists like Einstein. The US didn’t ‘hold a grudge’ because the Cold War power struggles didn’t allow for it. West Germany needed to be an ally.
Oh, I definitely agree with this! This attitude also helped shape the narrative of WW2, especially of the Eastern Front [1], by former Wehrmacht officers in the employ of the US Army Historical Division. The Cold War made friends of former enemies, and let them tell their story in an unprecedented way -- an instance of history being told by the losers.
That war that was fought on European soil, and left the United States with their government intact, and moreover, squarely at the top of the world order.
Ask the Chinese about Japan.
It's more astonishing how russia acts to germany after the losses of WWII.
The US had never an attack on home soil like the UK.
According to Goebbels (and who should know the official line better?) the total war was to protect the west against communism ... and they would be protected even if they didn't want Nazi protection.
> " The West is in danger. It makes no difference whether or not their governments and intellectuals realize it or not.
> The German people, in any event, is unwilling to bow to this danger. Behind the oncoming Soviet divisions we see the Jewish liquidation commandos, and behind them terror, the specter of mass starvation and complete anarchy. ... Two thousand years of Western civilization are in danger. ... We could see our venerable part of the world collapse, and bury in its ruins the ancient inheritance of the West. That is the danger we face today.
> My second thesis: Only the German Reich and its allies are in the position to resist this danger. ... Bolshevism set ideological as well as military boundaries, which poses a danger to every nation. The world no longer has the choice between falling back into its old fragmentation or accepting a new order for Europe under Axis leadership. The only choice now is between living under Axis protection or in a Bolshevist Europe."
(That thread contains the original german, e.g. "Abendland", if anyone wishes to double check the translation copied above. I have not verified the transcript against the speech audio, but given that I've recently watched Triumph of the Will and read some of Ezra Pound's extended rants, I intend to consume some non-fascist content for a good long while...)
I wonder if they'll add an addendum to discuss Clinesmith's guilty plea (not yet entered, there's only a Criminal Information from last Friday), the info Steele sourced from Igor Danchenko, or Warner's contact with Oleg Deripaksa via Adam Waldman?
>
We don't have to imagine very hard. Did you read the Senate report (bipartisan) that shows the level of effort Russia put into helping install a President who's policies show an inclination of wanting to be a dictator? That's supported by a party that takes as many steps as possible to deny citizens the right to vote?
What level of effort? $100,000 in Facebook ad spend, a paid troll farm[1], and airing some of the DNC's dirty laundry? That was all that it took for half the country to go ahead and elect a monster?
You're severely downplaying the scope, abilities, and observable impact of our domestic propaganda organs, that range from mainstream publications (Like Fox) to insane-bonkers fringe crap (Like Alex Jones).
> I arrived there, and I immediately felt like a character in the book '1984' by George Orwell-a place where you have to write that white is black and black is white. Your first feeling, when you ended up there, was that you were in some kind of factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an industrial assembly line.
We have plenty of domestic organizations who engage in this exact same bloody thing, for similarly cynical political ends. The difference is, they are funded by folks like Rupert Murdoch, who, of course, always has the best interests of America in his heart.
[1] Never mind that useful idiots on reddit and 4chan are more then happy to troll the, uh, libs, for free.
It's too bad that didn't get released, but I'm just not sure what would have been in the RNC's emails which would have damaged Trump. Have to imagine it was mostly old hands panicking over how well he was doing in the primaries and trying to find ways to sabotage him.
I would bet my right arm that the RNC's emails were rife with breathtaking racism and misogyny. This is a group of people who are well known for having wildly offensive beliefs that are only expressed in private.
So not just damaging to Trump, but damaging for the entire party.
Damaging the RNC and Republican establishment would have been helpful to Trump: his candidacy was (or at least was perceived as) an upstart insurgency against them. Assuming the RNC emails were actually packed with bigotry (I'm not so sure), the most anti-Trump read which would have emerged out of it might have been something like, "see, all these people like to pretend they're better than Trump but they say the same stuff behind closed doors!"
What there would not have been in the RNC emails was a bunch of discussion between party insiders and Trump surrogates/loyalists as to how to tilt the primary race in his favor. This is what made the DNC leaks damaging to Clinton's campaign.
You keep making the mistake of conflating the 2016 RNC's political fortunes and Trump's. Many Republican insiders probably didn't even want Trump to win the general election as it would mean they'd be frozen out of influence in the party. Remember that guy Paul Ryan?
After Trump was elected and showed himself to be an establishment wolf in populist sheep's clothing they've largely mended relations, and the few holdout never-Trumpers have left for other pastures (including the Democratic Party), but it was a very different picture in 2016.
> You keep making the mistake of conflating the 2016 RNC's political fortunes and Trump's.
You do realize they were on the same ticket, and Trump's fortunes on that ticket had direct, downticket nationwide consequences for the rest of the party?
You only need to look to the UK's Labour Party for an example where a certain faction of a party's insiders considered it better for themselves for their candidate to lose a general election. Winning is never the only consideration.
Hmm. Have you thought about the possibility that what you consider "breathtaking racism and misogyny" might not be seen as such my a sizable portion, maybe a majority of Americans?
Because every time you point out that something is unacceptable, and someone else doesn't agree with you, you've lost their vote- and they will now do anything to prevent people like you from deciding what's acceptable and what isn't.
> Have you thought about the possibility that what you consider "breathtaking racism and misogyny" might not be seen as such my[sic] a sizable portion, maybe a majority of Americans?
I did, and immediately discarded it as ridiculous. 63% of Americans support Black Lives Matter[1], for example. Furthermore, women have been a bigger proportion of the vote than men in every election in the past four decades[2].
That's partly because Russia didn't do anything much - and nothing compared to toppling a government.
The democratic party latched on that story to exlain their failure, using as an excuse the same kind of internet ops the US (and tons of others) do all the time all over the world, and which in Russia's case were insignificant anyway...
As if the US is some poor little country manipulated by the mighty Russia...
> That's partly because Russia didn't do anything much - and nothing compared to toppling a government.
Russia wasn't trying to topple the US. It just wanted to weaken its international coalitions (check), eliminate its diplomatic soft power (check) and eliminate the aggressive posture the US had toward Russian expansion (check).
Russia didn't have to do anything.
The GOP weakend the coalitions and the diplomatic softpower by threatening their partners.
And the last time I checked the sanctions against russia are still in place.
> Is it so hard to accept that the Democrats have been nominating some weak-ass candidates that don't have the broad appeal they think they do?
I think the party running weak-ass candidates without broad support is the one that lost the popular vote in every election in the last 30 years except 2004.
Oh don't get me wrong - I think Trump is a weak and terrible candidate too. Which is why I'm so disappointed in the lack of ability to field a candidate who can actually debate him or follow a stronger trend than Hillary. It should be relatively easy to beat Trump, but we choose a guy who already dropped out of the same race decades ago, and struggles to finish the phrase "all men are created ..." during a speech?
> For the hundredth time, "popular vote" doesn't matter in the US system
It does matter to claims of breadth of appeal, whether or not it matters elsewhere. (It's true, breadth of appeal isn't as important in the US, if you have the right narrow appeal, than it would be in a representative democracy, but the claim.made was about breadth of appeal.)
Insofar as Presidents have limited formal power and their informal power is at least as important, and is based in no small part on the perception of a democratic mandate (because whether the formal processes of the US system are democratic or not, democratic values are widespread in US culture), it actually can matter.
> And that's a feature, not a bug.
Well, it was designed in; whether it's a positive feature or a misfeatures depends on what you value.
If you value the systematic disenfranchisement that the electoral college system rewards, the racial repression that it and the Senate structure which underlies it was designed to protect (and still does, though in somewhat less odious form than it originally did), and the idea of structurally promoting tyranny of a particular minority, then, sure, it's a positive feature.
This is all subjective. The point is, under our system, Trump won the presidency. Any other claim of legitimacy is just sour grapes. I guarantee the same people making this claim would be silent if it was their party who had won.
And the Electoral College was an effort to not have the small state dominated by the large ones. That seems like a positive feature, even today.
"The popular vote" is another tactic in the PR competition between Democrats and Republicans to declare every election that the other party won illegitimate. Has a predictable effect on the general public's confidence in US democracy.
It also encourages decisions like overcampaigning in California as a result of last minute polling in Wisconsin and Michigan looking like a coin toss. A loss is bad, but a loss that can't be marketed as illegitimate afterwards is far worse.
I am always amazed that the US will get into the decimal points of invalid mail voting when the whole one-person-some-weighting-of-vote electoral college is staring them in the face. I guess the elephant in the room must be too large?
(To be fair, yes, getting the slave states on board a few centuries back required it. Legacy code probably wouldn't be there if it hadn't done something at one point.)
The Connecticut Compromise had to do with getting small states on board with the union, so their sovereignty wouldn't just be overpowered by population centers. I think you're thinking of the 3/5 compromise which doesn't have much to do with the electoral college vs direct voting. It's just plain partial-disenfranchisement of blacks.
The vote will be further depressed this year, so we can stipulate that both candidates are weaker than Clinton. Vast majorities of citizens in every state would prefer neither genital-grabbing loudmouth confused old man from the urban Northeast. Only, we don't actually have representative government. That would cost the military-industrial complex some money, and they haven't tolerated that since the Truman administration.
I'm always happy to get advice about how to better follow the guidelines, but I'm not seeing what I can improve there, except perhaps s/exceedingly predictable/predictable/, which I'll do.
Btw, the GP comment was edited after I replied to it. Not sure if that affects things.
Mosaddegh was losing popularity and support among the working class which had been his strongest supporters. As he lost support, he became more autocratic. As early as August 1952, he began to rely on emergency powers to rule, generating controversy among his supporters. After an assassination attempt upon one of his cabinet ministers and himself, he ordered the jailing of dozens of his political opponents. This act created widespread anger among the general public, and led to accusations that Mosaddegh was becoming a dictator.
Once again, behind a bad geopolitical situation is a Brit. History is unduly kind to the U.K., ignoring all of the atrocities of their colonialism for the sole reason that they suffered and overcame in WW2. Israel Palestine, India Pakistan, and Iran are all direct results of their racism and chicanery.
Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. This is a step in the generic direction, which we don't want on HN, and especially not on flamewar topics:
The British have a horrible history of imperialism, but just to be clear, this was mostly carried out the by US, who also have a horrible history of imperialism.
Agreed, but I'd argue that the US's imperialism is fairly well-known. The British managed to avoid that via shrewd and destructive campaigns of divide-and-conquer that stacked the odds against future democracies.
It would be good to get some specifics applied here rather than vague generalisations like "X were horrible". Scope, proportion of British / US involved, level of "horrible" activities seem like they would help avoid this becoming a stereotype. After all it wouldn't be acceptable to make stereotypes about Persians or others in a similar position.
Thanks. I agree on further consideration that stereotype isn't quite the right word. It seemed that vague terms like "horrible" were not likely to mean the same thing to different readers, in contrast to the way that more tangible accusations might stand up and be more universally understood.
well let us not focus just on them, European colonialism as a whole did not end until the 1960s and by then the damage was done. The Arabian peninsula and surrounding areas were pretty much divided up with borders created to respect European influence and not consider much of the existing structure, hence the strife that goes on to this day. The US and USSR meddling while extensive came at a much later date and involved states created prior to their involvement with very little changes to borders.
Remember, France wasn't thrown out of Vietnam until the 1954 and had to be thrown out of Algeria a decade later.
A tactic that most of the colonial powers used was to divide local ethnic/religious groups and set them up in opposition to each other, the concept being if they fight each other they won't fight us. This meant that areas that were a united people under the Ottomans found themselves suddenly split into fractions with borders between the colonial powers imposed on them. Think of it as the colonial version of gerrymandering.
Essentially how the Indian subcontient and the Indian Raj was controlled by the EIC.
In 1857, the ‘Great Mutiny’ broke out in which the Hindus and Muslims jointly fought against the British. This shocked the British government so much that after suppressing the Mutiny, they decided to start the policy of divide and rule.
The British would pay off various people to speak out against the other group i.e. pay of a Hindu priest to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments, and vice versa.
The Ottoman empire was every bit as colonial and extractive as any Western power - the same favoring of local ethnic groups over others, the same subjugation of native cultures.
> Artificial states are those in which political borders do not coincide with a division of nationalities desired by the people on the ground. We propose and compute for all countries in the world two new measures how artificial states are. One is based on measuring how borders split ethnic groups into two separate adjacent countries. The other one measures how straight land borders are, under the assumption the straight land borders are more likely to be artificial. We then show that these two measures seem to be highly correlated with several measures of political and economic success.
> Eighty per cent of African borders follow latitudinal and longitudinal lines and many scholars believe that such artificial (unnatural) borders which create ethnically fragmented countries or, conversely, separate into bordering countries the same people, are at the roots of Africa's economic tragedy.
> Under the Skyles-Picot agreement between British and French during WWI, Northern Palestine would go to the French, Southern Palestine to the British, and Central Palestine including Jerusalem would be an allied Condominium shared by the two. After the war, the French agreed to give up any claims to Palestine in return fo rcontrol over Syria. The British abandoned their protegee (Faisal) in Syria and offered him Iraq, cobbling together three different Ottoman provinces containing Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. This set the stage for instability and the military coups that lead to Saddam Hussein. In Lebanon, the French added Tripoli, Beirut and Sidon to the traditional Moronite area around Mount Lebanon, giving their Maronite Christian allies control to what were originally Muslim areas.
> Latin America is a lesser known (and much earlier) example of artificial borders drawn by a colonial power, in this case Spain.
> The partition of India and Pakistan is [a] famous example of artificial borders
> The partition displaced between 10–12 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions. There was large-scale violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million.[1][c] The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues their relationship to the present.
Absolutely not. Tens of thousands of Indians fought and died (not counting the Bengal famine which killed millions, but may or may not have been a result of malfeasance. Resource extraction from the colonies helped them fight as well.
>The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1908 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Iran. The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914,[1] gaining a controlling number of shares, effectively nationalizing the company. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) when Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asked foreign countries to refer to Persia by its endonym Iran.
"Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favour of his son, the heir to the throne? We have a high opinion of him and will ensure his position. But His Highness should not think there is any other solution."
As a non US person I don't see anything different between the current administration and the last. Just this one isn't polished behind good speaches and fooling the world that their foreign policy is any different. No one was held accountable, secret prisons continue and drone usegae was normalized. The wars continue and new ones are started.
> What new wars have been started under the current administration?
Many an internet flame-war, that's for sure.
But then - how do you define war. The stage of official declaration all to arms type wars seem to be less clear-cut. Economics has and always will be the biggest weapon of wars these days.
I'd probably refer to Obama's actions in Syria as an engagement of war. (I'm not saying he was right or wrong to go there, because I don't know all the facts about the Syria conflict.)
I probably wouldn't refer to Trump's twitter commentary as warfare, inflammatory and counterproductive though it may be.
To my knowledge Trump hasn't stepped outside the conflicts engaged by his predecessor. According to Bolton's book, Trump called off a strike on Iranian military facilities after a US drone was downed by Iran, because he didn't believe that the US should kill Iranians over the loss of a robot.
Even the killing of Soleimani took place in Baghdad, where Soleimani (himself a commander of insurgent forces) was meeting with an Iraqi commander of insurgent forces. Hard to argue that this act fell outside the confines of the Congressionally authorized war in Iraq.
> Hard to argue that this act fell outside the confines of the Congressionally authorized war in Iraq.
Congress didn't authorize war “in Iraq”, but to protect against threats from Iraq (in context of the resolution, pretty clearly the State not the geographical area.)
I'm not sure people in Iran will agree... The economical crisis caused by trump's government and the impossibility of any other country to invest in the country anymore is a big shift.
Sanctions as they are now are quite different from what they were with the nuclear deal.
That didn't start with trump yes, but saying there's no difference is insulting to all the people who are actually paying the price.
As a US person I appreciate the clear view that US foreign policy has been evil even under popular administrations, and every one of them were complicit in that evil.
But tread lightly when comparing this administration to any other in the history of western democracy. It's a horror show up close.
Many Americans are very apolitical, and either don't know or don't care about what the US government does if it doesn't affect them or their friends and families.
When they do care about politics, it's mostly about domestic politics, and Americans tend to have a massive ignorance about what's going on in the rest of the world or the history of any other country.
Civic education and history are not a high priority in the US. American schools tend to be more interested in pumping out people with STEM degrees and business people than about teaching them anything to do with the humanities.
On top of that Americans are constantly lied to and manipulated by their media and politicians, and politicians often act in ways that the American people don't approve of or are not informed of.
So I wouldn't blame the American people for Trump's actions. More and half of those Americans who voted (who aren't nearly all Americans old enough to vote), most voted against electing Trump to be President, and many of them despise him.
That said, Hillary Clinton was a hawk, so even had she become President it's not clear how favorable US government policy would have been towards Iran.
But I wouldn't blame the American people for that either, as America's policy towards Iran was never a major issue in the election (if it was an issue at all), and Americans don't tend to even elect people on policies or issues (which they rarely pay attention to unless it affects them) but on the candidate's image and personality.
Anyway, most Americans have no clue what the US foreign policy towards Iran is, couldn't find Iran on the map, and don't have even have the faintest idea about its history or the history of Iranian-American relations. And for those who know something about it, what they do know (or think they know) probably comes from an occasional 2 minute segment on TV news.
People (all over the world) generally just want to live their lives and be left alone. They don't deserve to be branded enemies for the actions of their governments.
I’m American and all I’ve ever seen from Iran is people chanting for my death and the death of the people I love. I was born in the 90s and had no bearing on foreign policy.
If sanctions prevents Iran from accomplishing those goals then I personally will consider that a good thing.
First, not all Iranian people are chanting your death. This is the propaganda from both sides that says that.
Sanctions currently have the effect at making people in Iran even more dependant of the government, and plays well into the Iranian government propaganda.
> First, not all Iranian people are chanting your death.
Yeah I have no problem with your average Iranian. But the Iranian government routinely organizes protests where people are literally calling for the death of Americans.
Sanctions also have the benefit of preventing the Iranian government and their terrorist revolutionary guard from harming Americans as well as they could without sanctions.
> the Iranian government routinely organizes protests where people are literally calling for the death of Americans.
Literally is the keyword here, because the translation "death to something" is just the literal mistranslation of the Iranian idiom meaning "down with something". As if someone believed that when you say "I'd die for a beer" you really meant it.
> But the Iranian government routinely organizes protests where people are literally calling for the death of Americans.
I mean wouldn't you? If Iran had toppled the US government, installed a puppet, and routinely muddled in your affairs for decades essentially making sure that you are unable to progress in any meaningful way?
I've read before that "death to ____" in the way they use it is similar to how we might say "____ can fuck off", and is not expressing a desire to kill all of us literally.
Nobody in Iran knows or cares that you are alive. They're expressing opposition to the USA as a political entity, much as you are expressing hostility to Iran rather than trying to ruin the lives of individual Iranian people.
No they are not. 'Death to America' is not the same as 'Death to individual Americans'. Perhaps you should consider that your reaction of believing that it is a personal attack on you and your loved ones is the result of anti-Iranian propaganda as much as Iranian animus (and propagandization of Iranians).
I don't think you really believe that Iranians are lying awake at night trying to figure out how to destroy you, plandis. They're not even reading Hacker News and thinking 'Death to America and plandis in particular'. If you think about it, you probably recognize that their gripe is with the American presence that surrounds their country - look at the huge number of US bases in the region, in addition to the history we're discussing here. It's not like the Iranians have a ring of bases in Canada and the US, is it now?
My study of American history has led me to support the idea of ending the government of the United States as it currently exists. We'd menace a lot fewer innocent people if the union were chopped up into about twenty pieces.
Here is what Iranians see from major American presidential candidates considered to be "highly respected on both sides of the aisle": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg
That's probably about as accurate as someone from Iran claiming that all they ever see from the US is Fox talking heads arguing for nuking the Middle East.
I mean the USA shot down an Iranian passenger plane killing all the civilians inside it. The USA sanctioned medical supplies from a country battling a pandemic. The USA armed Saddam Hussein to invade and fight a decade long war with Iran.
The US has been consistently trying to destroy the nation of Iran. Iran holds demonstrations calling for the destruction of America but they never fought the US in any kind of war. When 9/11 happened, they were one of the only countries in the Middle East to have nationwide moments of silence and prayers for victims in America.
Iran also has been one of the biggest fighters of ISIS in Iraq. They are able to mobilize civilian volunteers in Iraq in a way any other organization would envy.
It's really crazy how much reality you have to ignore to believe there is any justification for US sanctions on Iran or to justify why you think Iranians should not be angry at the US
Please substantiate your claim with a source. I'm pretty sure the US is responsible for more, although I don't have the numbers at hand. It is a much longer-lasting empire that used the Soviet Union as an excuse to knock over any neocolonial country, such as Iran, that even thought about taking money from the profits of international companies and spending it on its own citizens.
The thing that's interesting to me about USSR and USA is that they were always playing the same games, tit for tat. Poison cigars, the space race, funneling money to rebel groups to instigate riots... and then regime change and disinformation campaigns. You know I remember reading 10 years ago about how US Army was developing the tech to generate sock-puppet accounts across social media channels to influence public opinion and distribute propaganda. Did we really think it wouldn't be used against us?
"Apparently a company called Ntrepid has scored the contract and the US military is getting ready to roll out these "sock puppet" online personas. Of course, it insists that all of this is targeting foreign individuals, not anyone in the US."
HBGary, Palantir, Berico, anything they build will be seen and copied by foreign intelligence. So we're still stuck playing tit for tat.
The USSR's philosophy was that under Lenin, under Stalin all hopes of worldwide revolution were abandoned and the philosophy shifted to "Socialism in one country".
I meant that under Lenin, the philosophy was to export revolution worldwide so that the Soviet Union would integrate into a worldwide, international socialism.
Under Stalin, the policy of "Socialism in one country" was implemented, and foreign intervention was no longer a priority nor a philosophical goal. Which is why, under Stalin, the USSR attempted to ally with capitalist nations.
I'm sure about more regime chances but the KGB definitely did more volume of things like this. The mitrokhin archive is but a fraction of the history of the KGB and it details huge programs around the world.
The USSR was a prison for 300 million and it was run as such.
Americans are winners as were the Brits before them. History will always favor the winner. The only practical lesson out of this sad story and countless others through history is: learn to be strong and so you can be a winner.
True, but we live relative to the lifespan of an empire. A person born in 1842 in China would have lived only known a falling empire his whole life. A person born in 1945 in America will only know an ascendant one.
The "long run" of our lives are much shorter, we don't wait around to get satisfaction that empires fall or "justice" gets done, however you define that. If we live in the era of one victor over another then that's reality for us.
Learn to mind your own business, and you can have brotherly love, can have five hundred years of democracy and peace, and then get unjustly blamed for the cuckoo clock.
By "Iran's Leader", surely they mean "Iran's dictator", right?
Mossadegh convinced the government to give him 6 months of "emergency powers", ostensibly to fix the financial problems of Iran. In reality, he did a little of that, but also used his powers to further entrench himself by diminishing the power of the Shah. And then he got another 12 months emergency powers, and used it to redistribute land to the poor. Unfortunately at that time, Iran was also incredibly insolvent (due to the British boycott), and so the poor were not happy.
You might argue that Mossadegh would have succeeded if not for the British boycott.. sure, maybe he would have. But what do you expect to happen when you forcibly take all of the British resources? Should they just have said "Oh fine, have them, let's keep doing business together"?
The clerics, at this point, were already the proverbial kingmakers in Iran. They backed Mossadegh when he was expedient, and they backed the Shah when Mossadegh failed them. There's no reason to believe that Iran would have continued under Mossadegh into some kind of Socialist paradise - he probably would have just been deposed by the religious nuts a few years later regardless, just as happened with the Shah.
It is a fair statement because ownership was granted via concession to the British, originally by the Qajar dynasty. Moreover, a company is allowed to own resources and infrastructure outside of its country of domicile, just the same as Royal Dutch Shell is allowed to own resources and infrastructure in the USA.
I often see on HN that, when the topic of Iran comes up, people who don't know much about the history of the country try to interpret its facts through a modern lens that is tinged with a hint of leftism. The reality is that the development of the global petroleum market was a fiercely capitalistic and competitive phenomenon that yielded immense wealth for major oil companies and host governments alike. That context cannot be amputated when discussing topics like Mosaddegh and the British sphere of influence in Iran during the first half of the 20th century.
Why should a concession made by a monarch pre-constitutional revolution be expected to be upheld by a democratically elected leader operating after significant changes in the form and nature of government?
I have noticed all such principled defenses of "property rights" and "capitalism" are built upon a very specific and convenient view of what exactly counts as "legitimate property". Was the oil even the Shah's to give away in the first place?
Why should a treaty signed by Obama be expected to be upheld by Trump?
Continuity of governance, honoring good-faith agreements, maintaining confidence of foreign investors...the list goes on.
Are you suggesting that all governmental responsibilities ought to be thrown out the window every time power changes hands? This is not a realistic perspective in most of the third world, where power changes hands frequently and change of government is often established via change of regime.
Ultimately Iran made a killing on the oil business, and that would never have happened without petroleum concessions. In the parlance of the oil business, a "concession" is a deal where the host government allows oil rights in return for profit share, ownership, or some other financial benefit. It is an asymmetrical but symbiotic contract, and the term doesn't carry the same pejorative connotation as it would in standard parlance.
Not to mention that the monarch in question was also the one who ratified the Persian Constitution of 1906.
I think that people would question whether the agreement was in fact good-faith. The British company had agreed to various obligations to improve the working conditions of Iranian workers, train more Iranians to work in administrative roles, and generally contribute to the development of infrastructure in the country. It had done none of those things in the decades since signing the deal.
Under that light, it's not really a case of buyer's remorse, where Iran signed a fair deal, and unjustly decided to renege on it. It's a case of the British company acting exploitatively, violating their agreement, refusing to renegotiate, and the Iranians declaring the agreement void as a result.
Are we talking about the D'Arcy Concession? I ask because none of what you are describing is found in the text of that agreement.
It's immediately obvious upon observation of modern Iran's highly developed petroleum industry that concessions sparked the development of infrastructure on a massive scale.
> Under that light, it's not really a case of buyer's remorse, where Iran signed a fair deal, and unjustly decided to renege on it.
I think it's precisely a case of buyer's remorse. In Iran prior to the development of infrastructure, 16% share in profits generated by AIOC with no initial capital commitment from the Qajars sounds like a great deal. In Iran after the wells are pumping, 16% share in profits sounds like a pittance. I reject your framing of the issue as an exploitation by British interests. That may be a palatable narrative for the times we live in today, but it's a distorted perception of the actual facts. Petroleum production was the single greatest driver of wealth and development in 20th century Iran. If not for foreign investment, the industry could not have boomed as it did.
D'Arcy took massive personal risk and even took the British government as an investor, but he failed several times in the process of exploring for oil before he was ultimately successful. Risk is the nature of the wildcatting business.
If you study the process of oil rights and nationalization in the Middle East, you will see that it is a topic marked by extremely brutish behavior from local parties as well as faraway beneficiaries like the US and the UK. Even OPEC is full of deception about production numbers as it sets production amongst member nations.
For that reason as well as others beyond the scope of the current conversation, there aren't many clean hands in the oil production business. Look at the massive corruption and cronyism taking place in Venezuela's PDVSA. Iran has the same kind of problem, where the country's dictators finance their corrupt practices using petroleum income.
See Section II (D) beginning on page 4, for violations of the original concession, and Section III (D) beginning on page 16 for violations of the 1933 agreement.
I'm not simply casting the British behavior as exploitative in some hand-waving appeal to the evils of imperialism. I'm talking about real, substantive, and specific violations of their own agreement.
That document highlights Iran's government's objections to AIOC, and we have to contextualize those objections within the backdrop that Iran had already nationalized AIOC a year prior, and needed to justify its actions internationally in order to keep selling oil abroad. World Bank member nations and other buyers also needed to know they would not invite grievances with the UK by continuing to buy from a nationalized company.
The author of the document you cite says that prior to the 1933 agreement, AIOC withheld royalties under guise of covering damages but really to squeeze Iran into accepting the new agreement; the problem with this logic is that damage to a pipeline also causes revenue loss, so you can't indemnify the company by simply paying them for the repair costs. The 1901 agreement says that Iran will protect the infrastructure, which it failed to do. In any case, those payments were addressed in Article 23 of the new agreement.
It does not appear to me that Section II (D) demonstrates that the contractual stipulations you mentioned (training/hiring of locals and establishment of medical facilities at AIOC sites) were violated. That part of the document also says nothing about infrastructure investment. Maybe I am missing something but I have read it three times now to make sure.
I don't see how Section II (D) could be any clearer. The agreement stipulates a reduction of foreign staff in Article 16 (III), and the document shows a substantial increase. The agreement stipulates the development of sanitation, health services, and housing meeting the most modern standards found throughout Iran in Article 17, and the document shows that workers live in unsanitary tent cities.
> Are we talking about the D'Arcy Concession? I ask because none of what you are describing is found in the text of that agreement.
The agreement was re-negotiated in 1933, according to terms that the grandparent pointed out. At this point I have to wonder if you are being disingenuous on purpose. The rest of your comment is a moral appeal making a case for why D'Arcy "deserved" the profits. You have to pick a lane, are you arguing on the basis of who "deserves" a countries natural resources, or from the point of view of adherence to contracts and agreements?
The financial risk of the initial investor is a reasonable justification for his profits. This applies to D'Arcy as well as AIOC. Their cut of the concession deal was reflective of their risk premium.
Iran didn't take the risk -- or the cost outlay -- of building rigs, importing engineers, etc. The idea that the British were somehow exploitative by resisting renegotiation is ignorant of this fact. Both the 1901 agreement and the 1933 agreement laid out responsibilities for the
Article 16 of the 1933 agreement covered the introduction of more Iranian nationals into the petroleum business, which AIOC did in fact carry out. Article 17 talks about sanitary and public health facilities for workmen, which sounds like bathrooms and medical tents/clinics to handle workmen's injuries and treat their families.
However, I see nothing in the 1901 agreement nor the 1933 agreement that says AIOC will invest in the general infrastructure of Iran. That is what the grandparent said ("generally contribute to the development of infrastructure in the country"). That idea is at best a false pretext for breaking the deal, and at worst just a blind restatement of something on Wikipedia. Actually, the text of the 1933 agreement says that AIOC would require Iran's consent to improve AIOC's infrastructure (including aviation and telephone).
Fortunately, the specific violations have been compiled by the world bank, as pointed out in a sibling comment.
I just have one part I found incredibly funny
> The idea that the British were somehow exploitative by resisting renegotiation is ignorant of this fact
If overthrowing a democratically elected government is not exploitative, I don't know what is. "Resisting renegotiation" is a very Orwellian way of phrasing such. I'm guessing something along the lines of "we will topple your government and hand over absolute power to a brutal dictator if the terms are violated" was also part of the the agreement?
What about all the other Iranians, the ones that had nothing to do with APOC or oil or the government. Did they also "deserve" their fate?
I would consider the construction of housing, sanitation and public health to be "general infrastructure", but if you prefer a different description, I won't argue. It strikes me as a bit of a moot point anyway, because the obligations to improve its workers' living conditions are clear and those obligations were not met. It doesn't matter whether you want to call them "infrastructure" or not.
> I expect you to be cheering when Iran assassinates Trump for reneging
Trump pulled a lever that was explicitly listed and offered in the treaty. It was not "reneging" on the deal any more than using a backout clause is reneging on a home purchase. Yes, it is rarely used, and yes, you may piss off the counter party who was really hoping for their payday, but the fact remains that the possibility is explicitly listed in the contract.
> I expect you to be cheering when Iran assassinates Trump
I understand that the HN zeitgeist is not circumspect about topics like Iran and petroleum because there is a strong distaste for anything that seems imperialistic here, but that's not a reason to make uninformed arguments and accuse me of cheering the idea of someone's death. I'm making some fairly informative and historically accurate comments. If you disagree with the substance then please do so without accusing me of being inhumane.
> Governments have responsibilities to their own citizens, not foreign corporations.
Governments ensure citizens' prosperity by protecting economy and trade via foreign-facing agreements. The beneficiaries of smart foreign trade are the citizens themselves. Iran is an example of this; its government's budget has been funded almost entirely by petroleum revenue for decades.
> If you disagree with the substance then please do so without accusing me of being inhumane.
I'm not accusing you of being inhumane. I'm wondering if you would apply similar moral standards when the shoe is on the other foot, or if you are a hypocrite.
Wait a moment, you're equating a change of administration (Obama - Trump or any preceding transfer of power in the US) with a change of governance, as in a structural change in the system of governance (which is explicitly spelled out in the comment you were replying to).
It's particularly odd that you make this argument given Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the P5+1 agreement as well as many other bi- and multilateral arrangements. If we're just going to rely on realpolitik, why not accept that the oil companies also made bank out of Iran for a while and hey, nothing lasts forever?
> Wait a moment, you're equating a change of administration ... with a change of governance
In the context of a monarchy, that's the appropriate way to consider it. When Reza Shah Pahlavi took power from the Qajars, the deals with the British remained. There is a level of continuity of governance that exists in the developed West but doesn't exist in the Third World. Ecuador for example was until recently an OPEC nation, but it has had twenty constitutions. However, it is in the nation's best interests, economically speaking, to ensure a peaceful transition of operation across those political perturbations. (I am reminded of software revisions that do not alter the API, so that the software can be treated like a black box and mated to applications without a rewrite of API calls every time revisions are made.)
A current example would be Argentina, where the return of Cristina Kirchner to the country's executive branch has spooked foreign investors (including miners and petroleum companies) because she froze the dollar during her presidency about a decade ago. Ultimately this has a very damaging effect on the country's economy and its people's ability to eat.
In present-day Argentina, we see economic investment chilled by a new administration that operates under the same constitution but endangers foreign investors. In early-20th-century Iran, we saw economic activity boosted by continuity of international agreements across several different monarchical administrations within two separate dynasties.
Please choose the correct lens when you are evaluating a third-world country's economy. What we all learned in social studies class about the differences between regimes, governments, etc.....well it is not necessarily applicable to developing nations where change of administration is frequently carried out by coup or the establishment of a new constitution that is as ephemeral as the previous one.
I tried to communicate this succinctly in my earlier post, quoted here:
> Are you suggesting that all governmental responsibilities ought to be thrown out the window every time power changes hands? This is not a realistic perspective in most of the third world, where power changes hands frequently and change of government is often established via change of regime.
Your extraneous mentions of Argentina are jarring. First, please don't attempt to sell yours as the unanimous view of what's happening to Argentina, who damaged it and who attempts to recover from the damage, and the dollar reserves/policy. Second, we do have a more or less stable constitution (the latest interruption to our democracy, via coup d'etat, was backed by the US in the 70s, by the way). Comparing our democracy to Iran's government is bizarre.
You are conflating not investing in a country with overthrowing a democratically elected government. Are you really arguing that it was OK for the US and UK to overthrow Iran's government because otherwise foreigners might not have invested in Iran, or otherwise threatened their investments? Truly, this is what they call "capitalism with a human face".
British companies would not have purchased/built that equipment without the resource access that had been established via contractual agreements with the Iranian government.
Sure. But the Iranian government has sovereignty, just like the US government. That means that they cannot be bound by any contract if they decide to change their mind, the most that can be done is that you might press for a fair market value.
Why do you hold the Iranian government to a standard no other government in the world is held? Would you expect the American government to be forever bound to treaties signed by the British, or to agreements made by the executive alone ranging from two decades to a century ago?
Not strange at all when you consider the Iranians had absolutely no means of extracting it themselves.
They gave willing access to their natural resources in exchange for a relatively massive revenue windfall then seized the sizable British capital investments with no compensation.
Right, so if BP drills for oil in South Texas that means that the Texas oil reserves should be under their control? This viewpoint reeks of racism and Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism.
Yes and no. I do not think in that time frame that was being considered dictatorship. It was for the lack of legitimacy of Shah's case Mossadegh needed more power specially since parlemant was not that functional either.
You take Mossadegh's actions by the measures of the time. When I was reading about the history of the time, I fail to imagine what I could have done.
All in all, Iran's liberal movement by this coup might have been distroyed in a way it never did recover yet.
I agree on your second point though. Clercs were having so much hidden power at the time. Consdiering for 250 years since the inception of various religious taxes (5th of salary) and donations they were accumulating a wast amount of wealth.
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.
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.
The Shah's reign lasted 25 years. A generation that grew up under the Shah'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'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.
And I would really like to visit the gardens of Shiraz or the markets of Isfahan which have been around for 1000s of years ;)
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.