Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Iran: some history
Everyone reading this blog knows, I'm certain, that the Shah of Iran was installed in power by a U.S.-sponsored coup against the elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. But there's a bit more to the story than that, which I, at least, was not aware of, and since it involves the U.N. and the weapon of the embargo, it's very much relevant to what is happening today:
Almost 54 years ago, when the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, with the approval of Iran’s consultative assembly and the support of the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people, nationalized the Iranian oil industry, the British Labor government in alliance with the Eisenhower administration declared that nationalization threatened the security of the international community. Using their power of influence in the UN, they were able to impose an embargo on the export of Iranian oil.
The embargo weakened the economy and made Dr. Mossadegh’s government vulnerable to political volatilities that paved the way for the U.S.-British coup of 1953, which made Iranian oil resources uncontrollably available to the U.S., British, French, and Dutch oil companies that also manipulated Iran’s economic and political system through their agent on the Peacock Throne, the Shah.
