Reddit mentions of The Coup: 1953, The CIA, and The Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations

This article is basically a revisionist view of the coup that is popular in the Right and among Iran Hawks, and this view has been the subject of some academic debate already:

> In recent decades, some academic historians, such as the late Amos Perlmutter, of American University, have argued that the C.I.A.’s role in Mossadegh’s downfall had been exaggerated, and that, having lost the support of numerous political factions in Tehran, he would have been pushed from power without the agency’s intervention. In a different document that Byrne obtained, which is heavily redacted, another agency historian, Scott A. Koch, disputes this revisionist argument, writing:

>>Perlmutter is correct in saying that Iranian political divisions made the fall of Mossadeq (this is yet another spelling) possible, but merely because something is possible does ensure that it will happen. Without Kermit Roosevelt’s leadership, guidance, and ability to put some backbone into the key players when they wanted to quit, no one would have moved against Mossadeq.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-lessons-of-classified-information-from-mossadegh-to-snowden


In Iran and the CIA (2010) Darioush Bayandor also claimed that the coup was primarily indigenous
https://www.amazon.com/Iran-CIA-Mosaddeq-Revisited-Hardback/dp/B00FKYJCRI

This particular article was a well-known case of attempted historical revisionism by a NeoCon author with a well-known hawkish view on Iran, which ironically was published just a few days before the CIA files on the coup were made public and US officials admitted to the role of the CIA.

He also wrote an op-ed in the Wash Post along the same lines http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/17/AR2010081704944.html

There are other similar works of revisionism
for example http://nationalinterest.org/feature/six-myths-about-the-coup-against-irans-mossadegh-11173?page=show


Counter-points to this revisionism

http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2014/04/us-president-admits-american-role-iran-coup.html




http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/national-review/josh-gelernter-iran-blunder/

http://lobelog.com/takeyhs-history-lesson-mossadegh-and-1953/


http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/ray-takeyh/

Author profile
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/takeyh_ray/


The revisionist view is basically that the US should stop accepting blame for the coup when the clergy in Iran also wanted Mossadegh gone. However he leaves out why they wanted that: the CIA had spent quite a bit of effort at undermining their support for Mossadegh, including by bombing a cleric's house and blaming it on Communists.






[NOTE: The volume of Foreign Relations of the United States series dealing with the coup period -- which initially simply had no reference to the coup leading to a scandal despite the fact that it was required to be a thorough historical account -- has still not been published despite promises and laws requiring it to be:
https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2017/04/iran-history-deferred/ ]


His point is that the US should not really be blamed for the ouster of Mossadegh but rather than being exculpatory the argument actually makes the US look worse: not only did the CIA indeed set out to topple Mossadegh, it was also incompetent in doing so.

His version also concentrates on one set of events a few days immediately before the coup but ignores the fact that the machinery to undermine Mossadegh had been set into effect earlier and was much broader, including a massive propaganda campaign that had labeled Mossadegh as a Communist, a Homosexual, a Jew and a Bahai (thus to undermine his religious support.)

Ervand Abrahamian also points out that the CIA went on the instigate several other coups very much along the same lines

https://www.amazon.com/Coup-Roots-Modern-U-S-Iranian-Relations/dp/1595588264

[though he disagrees with Kinzer on whether Mossadegh's inflexibility in dealing with the Brits led to the coup. Kinzer says it was Mossdegh's zero-sum view of sovereignty over Iran's oil that led to the coup, others like Oxford historian and Mossadegh biographer Homa Katouzian say that the Brits would have toppled him regardless. https://www.amazon.com/Musaddiq-Struggle-Power-Iran-Katouzian/dp/186064290X)


This revisionist view also claims for example that the motivation in toppling Mossadegh by the US was to fight the spread of Communism, however there really was no particular Communist threat, Mossadegh was hardly a Communist either, and indeed the CIA operatives had to go to great lengths to manufacture Communist threats (above bombing)

The Dulles Bros sold the policy as an anti-Communist effort to Eisnehower admin however that was just the cover ("Communists" were convenient for raising funding many things back then, including the national highway system)

Nice anecdotes that have no relevance to our conversation topic on the current views of the Islamic State.

If you believe the Mongol conquest of West Asia circa 1200 AD is causation of radical Islam we see today, I will not only continue to laugh at you, but encourage others to do so as well.

EDIT: If you're actually interested in learning.