On this day in 1953, the U.S. and British governments initiated a coup d'état against the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had been preparing to nationalize Iran's British-owned oil fields.

Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), later re-named British Petroleum, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves. When the AIOC refused to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.

In response, the British began a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically and engaged in subterfuge to undermine Mosaddegh's government.

Judging Mosaddegh to be unreliable and fearing a communist takeover, Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration overthrew Iran's government. The coup action was also supported by the Iranian clergy, who opposed Mosaddegh's secularism.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hired mobsters to stage pro-Shah riots and paid people to travel to Tehran and take over the streets of the city. Between 200 and 300 people were killed in the ensuing mayhem.

Mosaddegh was arrested, tried, and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court. Many of his supporters were imprisoned, several received the death penalty. Mosaddegh himself lived the rest of his life under house arrest, dying in 1967.

After the coup, the Shah ruled as a monarch for the next 26 years until he was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

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  • GaveUp [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    You're way overcomplicating things lol

    Big boss makes decision that hurts them -> big boss is bad because they made decision that hurts them

    Why are you throwing terms around like imperial periphery as if this concept I've laid out above requires any specific education or skillset to grasp. Almost all uneducated low wage earners I've met intuitively understand class dynamics pretty well

    • ashinadash [she/her]
      ·
      3 months ago

      I mean yeah that's the guts of it, it is pretty simple. I said it because outsourcing your shit to India instead of hiring local due to it being cheaper and workers having less rights where you're outsourcing is probably part of the relationship between imperial core and periphery nations? It doesn't require any skillset or education to grasp, I just used big words is all

      • GaveUp [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        Okay I thought you were being sarcastic because of those academic terms being transposed onto the thoughts of tech workers lol, sorry

        • ashinadash [she/her]
          ·
          3 months ago

          Nah I was just being sicko-wistful about the possibility of tech workers being based (unlikely)