Aug. 19, 1953: When the Eisenhower Administration destroyed Iran's secular democracy

Mohammed Mossadegh It is impossible to understand modern American history, modern American foreign policy, anti-American anger throughout the Middle East and the developing nations, and the roots of anti-American terrorism, without understanding what happened on this date in 1953. Any understanding of modern Iran has to begin with an understanding of what happened on this date. For on August 19, 1953, the little known and not even six-year-old Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, installed a new prime minister of its own choosing, and restored to the throne a recently self-exiled Shah. It wouldn't be long before the Shah seized total local control of his government and established the brutal SAVAK, which over the next decades tortured and killed thousands, to crush all opposition.

Mohammed Mossadegh is not widely remembered in this country, but he was Time Magazine's Man Of The Year for 1951. The first Iranian to receive an advanced education from a European university, and a man widely renowned for his blunt honesty and impeccable integrity, Mossadegh was brilliant and disturbingly passionate, capable of verbally eviscerating opponents in political or juridical debates, and just as easily capable of breaking down crying while giving a speech, or even passing out while in the middle of tense negotiations. His understanding of national and international law became legendary. He often conducted official business while lying in bed.

Iran's monarchy had had a long, turbulent history, with the corrupt and incompetent Qajar regime being forced to democratize by the 1906-1911 Constitutional Revolution, but that effectively came to an end when the Qajars were toppled in the early 1920s by a British-backed military officer named Reza Khan. In 1925, Reza Khan became Reza Shah Pahlavi, and soon turned the Iranian parliament, or Majlis, into a rubberstamp. Most people don't understand this, but the final Shah of Iran was not part of an ancient royal family, rather he was heir to a dynasty that had lasted exactly two generations, himself included.

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