Read and digest this opening paragraph from Peter Hartcher, international editor of the Sydney Morning Herald:
"Iran is far from Australia. Yet if it goes to war with America the consequences could be uncomfortably near." (Acute problem with US-Iran war, 25/6/19)
If IRAN goes to war with America?
Incredibly, what Hartcher is doing here is reversing over a century of US regime change dating back to the overthrow of the Queen of Hawaii in 1893 under US president Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) (See Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, 2006, pp 11-30)
Typically, Hartcher's only concern is how this will affect Australia - and who does he cite on this matter? Who else but the former Liberal senator and Australian Army commander responsible for the siege of the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004, major-general Jim Molan:
"We are 90 per cent dependent on imported fuel... and we have only around 23 days' supply in Australia." (ibid)
Moving on, however, Hartcher cannot help but deal with the stark reality of the matter:
"The new US President pulled out of [Obama's] Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)]. He was persuaded by the urgings of US hardliners and by the governments of Iran's biggest foes - its neighbours Israel and Saudi Arabia. These countries want Iran crushed, and they want the Americans to do the crushing for them." (ibid)
Will wonders never cease? Hartcher's got Israel right for once!
Now the Sydney Morning Herald of the same day (25/6/19) carried the following report:
"US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is touring the Middle East and Asia looking to build a global coalition against Iran... not only throughout the Gulf states, but in Asia and in Europe... " (Pompeo seeks anti-Iran coalition, Darlene Superville, AP)
Unsurprisingly, in yesterday's (26/6/19) Sydney Morning Herald, we read that:
"The Morrison government has left the door open to joining a co-ordinated international effort to ratchet up pressure on Iran, saying Australia is 'in consultation with our allies and partners' as tensions rise between Washington and Tehran." (Australia open to anti-Iran push, David Wroe)
Could it be any clearer than this? The United States is gunning for Iran, not, as Hartcher has it, the other way around. And Morrison wants in on the action, just like his Liberal Party predecessor John Howard did in 2003. Incredibly, we have learnt nothing as a nation since then.
Showing posts with label Stephen Kinzer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Kinzer. Show all posts
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Monday, February 7, 2011
Operation Ajax Redux 2
"Egypt's embattled President Hosni Mubarak appears likely to remain at the helm, according to a US-approved transition plan for presidential elections to be held within 8 months. Despite 13 consecutive days of protests involving millions of Egyptians calling for his resignation, the 82-year old dictator has persuaded foreign powers that Egypt would be best served if he oversaw the transition. As the largest opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, caved in to pressure to hold talks with new Vice-President Omar Suleiman, the Obama administration's special envoy to Egypt, Frank Wisner, spoke of Mr Mubarak in glowing terms. Speaking to the Munich Security Conference via video link at the weekend, Mr Wisner, a former US ambassador to Egypt, described Mr Mubarak as an 'old friend' of the US. 'You need to get a national consensus around the preconditions of the next step forward, and the President must stay in office to steer those changes through', Mr Wisner said. 'I therefore believe that President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical, it's his opportunity to write his own legacy'." (Mubarak likely to hang on during transition, Jason Koutsoukis, The Age, 7/2/11)
OK, seeing that the USraeli-engineered coup against the will of the Egyptian people and for Egypt's continued subordination to Israeli interests appears to be firming (read my 3/2/11 post Operation Ajax Redux if you haven't already done so), let's take another look at the forces at work behind it:
If the coup has found its General Zahedi in Omar Suleiman, as I've suggested in my 4/2/11 post Smooth Operator, could it have its Kermit Roosevelt in Frank Wisner?
Frank Wisner Jr, that is. You see, there was a Frank Wisner Sr, who was, as it happens, in like flynn on Operation Ajax:
"Over the course of his meetings in Washington, ['Monty'] Woodhouse [chief of the British intelligence station in Tehran during the early 1950s] detected 'steadily increasing interest' in his proposal for what the British called 'Operation Boot'. Frank Wisner, a New York lawyer who had become the CIA's director of operations, was strongly positive. So was Wisner's newly named boss, Allen Dulles... By the time Woodhouse flew home, the incoming [Eisenhower] administration had committed itself... to a covert operation aimed at removing [Iranian prime minister Mohammad] Mossadegh. It had also accepted Britain's nominees to play the two key roles: General Zahedi as Iraq's designated savior and Kermit Roosevelt as the CIA field commander who would place him in office." (All the Shah's Men, Stephen Kinzer, 2008, p 152)
Frank Sr then moved on to direct the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954:
"Once the plan [to oust Arbenz] received official sanction, the CIA and State Department began to divide up responsibilities for its execution... Frank Wisner, the CIA's deputy director for 'plans' (ie 'operations'), was in command. He had served as Mission Chief for the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), in Istanbul and Bucharest during WWII, and had abandoned a prestigious law firm in Manhattan after the war to return to the dark arts in 1947... The plot was code-named Operation Success, reflecting the optimism of its creators. Wisner and his crew immediately began daily meetings on Guatemala. Wisner's first major decision was to choose a field commander. Once Kermit Roosevelt had turned Dulles down, Wisner appointed Colonel Albert Haney, then CIA station chief in South Korea." (Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Schlesinger & Kinzerpp, 1982, 108-109)
Kermit Roosevelt? Fascinating how these names just keep on popping up.
Alas, after helping screw first Iran, then Guatemala, Frank Sr topped himself some years later. But not before siring that chip off the old block, Frank Jr:
"Frank Jr is well known around [CIA headquarters] Langley [Virginia], with a career in the Defense and State Departments along with ambassadorial service in Egypt, the Philippines, and then India. In each of these places Wisner insinuated himself into the social and military branches of the power elite. He became their spokesperson. Wisner and Mubarak became close friends when he was in country (1986-1991), and many credit this friendship (and military aid) with Egypt's support of the US in the 1991 Gulf War. Not once did the US provide a criticism of Egypt's human rights record. As Human Rights Watch put it, the George HW Bush regime 'refrained from any public expression of concern about human rights violations in Egypt'. Instead, military aid increased, and the torture system continued. The moral turpitude (bad guys, aka the Muslim Brotherhood and democracy advocates, need to be tortured) and the torture apparatus set up the system for the regime followed by Bush's son, George W after 9/11, with the extraordinary rendition programs to these very Egyptian prisons. Wisner might be considered the architect of the framework for this policy. Wisner remained loyal to Mubarak. In 2005, he celebrated the Egyptian election (Mubarak 'won' with 88.6% of the vote). It was a 'historic day' he said, and went further, 'There were no instances of repression; there wasn't heavy police presence on the streets. The atmosphere was not one of police intimidation'. This is quite the opposite of what came out from election observers, human rights organizations and bloggers... The Democratic and Republican ghouls came together in the James Baker Institute's working group on the Middle East. Wisner joined the Baker Institute's head Edward Djerejian and others to produce a report in 2003 that offers us a tasty statement, 'Achieving security and stability in the Middle East will be made more difficult by the fact that short-term necessities will seem to contradict long-term goals'. If the long-term goal is Democracy, then that is all very well because it has to be sacrificed to the short-term, namely support for the kind of Pharaonic State embodied by Mubarak. Nothing more is on offer. No wonder that a 'Washington Middle East hand' told The Cable, '[Wisner's] the exact wrong person to send. He is an apologist for Mubarak.' But this is a wrong view. Wisner is just the exact person to send to protect the short-term, and so only-term, interests of Washington. The long-term has been set aside." (The empire's bagman, Vijay Prashad, counterpunch.org, 2/2/11)
Whether it's Operation Ajax of 1953, Operation Success of 1954, or Operation Ajax Redux of 2011, ain't it great to see folks like the Wisners doing their bit to keep USrael safe from the Reds and the Fundies. Shame about the Egyptian people though. But then of course, they are brown...
OK, seeing that the USraeli-engineered coup against the will of the Egyptian people and for Egypt's continued subordination to Israeli interests appears to be firming (read my 3/2/11 post Operation Ajax Redux if you haven't already done so), let's take another look at the forces at work behind it:
If the coup has found its General Zahedi in Omar Suleiman, as I've suggested in my 4/2/11 post Smooth Operator, could it have its Kermit Roosevelt in Frank Wisner?
Frank Wisner Jr, that is. You see, there was a Frank Wisner Sr, who was, as it happens, in like flynn on Operation Ajax:
"Over the course of his meetings in Washington, ['Monty'] Woodhouse [chief of the British intelligence station in Tehran during the early 1950s] detected 'steadily increasing interest' in his proposal for what the British called 'Operation Boot'. Frank Wisner, a New York lawyer who had become the CIA's director of operations, was strongly positive. So was Wisner's newly named boss, Allen Dulles... By the time Woodhouse flew home, the incoming [Eisenhower] administration had committed itself... to a covert operation aimed at removing [Iranian prime minister Mohammad] Mossadegh. It had also accepted Britain's nominees to play the two key roles: General Zahedi as Iraq's designated savior and Kermit Roosevelt as the CIA field commander who would place him in office." (All the Shah's Men, Stephen Kinzer, 2008, p 152)
Frank Sr then moved on to direct the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954:
"Once the plan [to oust Arbenz] received official sanction, the CIA and State Department began to divide up responsibilities for its execution... Frank Wisner, the CIA's deputy director for 'plans' (ie 'operations'), was in command. He had served as Mission Chief for the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), in Istanbul and Bucharest during WWII, and had abandoned a prestigious law firm in Manhattan after the war to return to the dark arts in 1947... The plot was code-named Operation Success, reflecting the optimism of its creators. Wisner and his crew immediately began daily meetings on Guatemala. Wisner's first major decision was to choose a field commander. Once Kermit Roosevelt had turned Dulles down, Wisner appointed Colonel Albert Haney, then CIA station chief in South Korea." (Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Schlesinger & Kinzerpp, 1982, 108-109)
Kermit Roosevelt? Fascinating how these names just keep on popping up.
Alas, after helping screw first Iran, then Guatemala, Frank Sr topped himself some years later. But not before siring that chip off the old block, Frank Jr:
"Frank Jr is well known around [CIA headquarters] Langley [Virginia], with a career in the Defense and State Departments along with ambassadorial service in Egypt, the Philippines, and then India. In each of these places Wisner insinuated himself into the social and military branches of the power elite. He became their spokesperson. Wisner and Mubarak became close friends when he was in country (1986-1991), and many credit this friendship (and military aid) with Egypt's support of the US in the 1991 Gulf War. Not once did the US provide a criticism of Egypt's human rights record. As Human Rights Watch put it, the George HW Bush regime 'refrained from any public expression of concern about human rights violations in Egypt'. Instead, military aid increased, and the torture system continued. The moral turpitude (bad guys, aka the Muslim Brotherhood and democracy advocates, need to be tortured) and the torture apparatus set up the system for the regime followed by Bush's son, George W after 9/11, with the extraordinary rendition programs to these very Egyptian prisons. Wisner might be considered the architect of the framework for this policy. Wisner remained loyal to Mubarak. In 2005, he celebrated the Egyptian election (Mubarak 'won' with 88.6% of the vote). It was a 'historic day' he said, and went further, 'There were no instances of repression; there wasn't heavy police presence on the streets. The atmosphere was not one of police intimidation'. This is quite the opposite of what came out from election observers, human rights organizations and bloggers... The Democratic and Republican ghouls came together in the James Baker Institute's working group on the Middle East. Wisner joined the Baker Institute's head Edward Djerejian and others to produce a report in 2003 that offers us a tasty statement, 'Achieving security and stability in the Middle East will be made more difficult by the fact that short-term necessities will seem to contradict long-term goals'. If the long-term goal is Democracy, then that is all very well because it has to be sacrificed to the short-term, namely support for the kind of Pharaonic State embodied by Mubarak. Nothing more is on offer. No wonder that a 'Washington Middle East hand' told The Cable, '[Wisner's] the exact wrong person to send. He is an apologist for Mubarak.' But this is a wrong view. Wisner is just the exact person to send to protect the short-term, and so only-term, interests of Washington. The long-term has been set aside." (The empire's bagman, Vijay Prashad, counterpunch.org, 2/2/11)
Whether it's Operation Ajax of 1953, Operation Success of 1954, or Operation Ajax Redux of 2011, ain't it great to see folks like the Wisners doing their bit to keep USrael safe from the Reds and the Fundies. Shame about the Egyptian people though. But then of course, they are brown...
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Operation Ajax Redux
With the appearance of Mubarak's goons (naively described on SBS TV News tonight as simply "demonstrators loyal to Hosni Mubarak") attacking protesters with molotov cocktails and guns in Cairo's Tahrir Square, you don't have to be the proverbial rocket scientist to know that a counter-revolutionary plot of some kind has been hatched in the back rooms of Washington, Tel Aviv and Cairo.
To understand something of its dimensions, it is well to bear in mind my adaptation of Dr Phil's immortal advice: the best indicator of present American skullduggery is past American skullduggery.
Which brings us to the need for a working knowledge of Operation Ajax, the successful CIA-engineered coup against the democratically-elected government of Iranian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. Needless to say, the only real difference between Tehran then and Cairo today is that, in the former, Mossadegh represented the will of the people, and was therefore the target of the coup, whereas in the latter the people themselves are the target.
The following account is from Stephen Kinzer's wonderful book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (2006):
"After the National Security Council meeting in March, planning for a coup began in earnest. [CIA director] Allen Dulles, in consultation with his British counterparts, chose a retired general named Fazlollah Zahedi as titular leader of the coup. Then he sent $1 million to the CIA station in Tehran for use 'in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh'. [Secretary of State] John Foster Dulles directed the American ambassador in Tehran, Loy Henderson, to contact Iranians who might be interested in helping to carry out the coup.
"Two secret agents, Donald Wilber of the CIA and Norman Darbyshire of the British Secret Intelligence Service, spent several weeks that spring in Cyprus devising a plan for the coup. It was unlike any plan that either country, or any country, had made before. With the cold calculation of the surgeon, these agents plotted to cut Mossadegh away from his people. Under their plan, the Americans would spend $150,000 to bribe journalists, editors, Islamic preachers, and other opinion leaders to 'create, extend and enhance public hostility and distrust and fear of Mossadegh and his government'. Then they would hire thugs to carry out 'staged attacks' on religious figures and other respected Iranians, making it seem that Mossadegh had ordered them. Meanwhile, General Zahedi would be given a sum of money, later fixed at $135,000, to 'win additional friends' and 'influence key people'. The plan budgeted another $11,000 per week, a great sum at that time, to bribe members of the Iranian parliament. On 'coup day', thousands of paid demonstrators would converge on parliament to demand that it dismiss Mossadegh. Parliament would respond with a 'quasi-legal' vote to do so. If Mossadegh resisted, military units loyal to General Zahedi would arrest him. 'So this is how we get rid of that madman Mossadegh!' Secretary of State Dulles exclaimed happily when he was handed a copy of the plan...
"The American press played an important supporting role in Operation Ajax, as the Iran coup was code-named. A few newspapers and magazines published favorable articles about Mossadegh, but they were the exceptions. The New York Times regularly referred to him as a dictator. Other papers compared him to Hitler and Stalin. Newsweek reported that, with his help, Communists were 'taking over' Iran. Time called his election 'one of the worst calamities to the anti-communist world since the Red conquest of China'.
"To direct its coup against Mossadegh, the CIA had to send a senior agent on what would necessarily be a dangerous clandestine mission to Tehran. Allen Dulles had just the man in Kermit Roosevelt, the 37-year-old Harvard graduate who was the agency's top Middle East expert. By a quirk of history, he was the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, who half a century earlier had helped bring the United States into the 'regime change' era.
"Roosevelt slipped into Iran at a remote border crossing on July 19, 1953, and immediately set about his subversive work. It took him just a few days to set Iran aflame. Using a network of Iranian agents and spending lavish amounts of money, he created an entirely articial wave of anti-Mossadegh protest. Members of parliament withdrew their support from Mossadegh and denounced him with wild charges. Religious leaders gave sermons calling him an atheist, a Jew, and an infidel. Newspapers were filled with articles and cartoons depicting him as everything from a homosexual to an agent of British imperialism. He realized that some unseen hand was directing this campaign, but because he had such an ingrained and perhaps exaggerated faith in democracy, he did nothing to repress it...
"At the beginning of August, though, Mossadegh did take one step to upset the CIA's plan. He learned that foreign intelligence agents were bribing members of parliament to support a no-confidence motion against him, and to thwart them, he called a national referendum on a proposition that would allow him to dissolve parliament and call new elections. On this occasion he shaded his democratic principles, using separate ballot boxes for 'yes' and 'no' voters. The result was overwhelmingly favorable. His enemies denounced him, but he had won a round. Bribed members of parliament could not carry out the CIA's plan to remove him through a 'quasi-legal' vote, since there no longer was a parliament.
"Roosevelt quickly came up with an alternative plan. He would arrange for Mohammad Reza Shah to sign royal decrees, or firmans, dismissing Mossadegh from office and appointing General Zahedi as the new prime minister. This course could also be described as 'quasi-legal', since under Iranian law, only parliament had the right to elect and dismiss prime ministers. Roosevelt realized that Mossadegh, who among other things was the country's best-educated legal scholar, would reject the firman and refuse to step down. He had a plan for that, too. A squad of royalist soldiers would deliver the firman, and when Mossadegh rejected it the soldiers would arrest him.
"The great obstacle to this plan turned out to be the shah. He hated Mossadegh, who was turning him into little more than a figurehead, but was terrified of risking his throne by joining a plot. In a series of meetings held late at night in the backseat of a car parked near the royal palace, Roosevelt tried and failed to persuade the shah to join the coup. Slowly he increased the pressure. First he arranged to fly the shah's strong-willed sister, Ashraf, home from the French Riviera to appeal to him; she agreed to do so after receiving a sum of money and, according to one account, a mink coat. When that approach failed, Roosevelt sent two of his Iranian agents to assure the shah that the plot was a good one and certain to succeed. Still the shah vacillated. Finally, Roosevelt summoned General Norman Schwarzkopf, a dashing figure who had spent years in Iran running an elite military unit - and whose son would lead the Desert Storm invasion of Iraq four decades later - to close the deal.
"The shah received Schwarzkopf in a ballroom at the palace, but at first refused to speak. Through gestures, he let his guest know that he feared that microphones were hidden in the walls or ceiling. Finally the two men pulled a table into the center of the room and climbed on top of it. In what must have been unusually forced whispers, Schwarzkopf made clear that the power of both Britain and the United States lay behind this plot, and that the shah had no choice other than to cooperate. Slowly the shah gave in. The next day he told Roosevelt he would sign the firman, but only on condition that immediately afterwards, he could fly to his retreat on the Caspian Sea...
"That was not a resounding committment to the coup, but it was good enough for Roosevelt. He secured the firmans and, on the afternoon of August 14, gave the one dismissing Mossadegh to an officer who was part of the plot, Colonel Nematollah Nassiri, commander of the Imperial Guard. Late that night, Nassiri led a squad of men to Mossadegh's house. There he told the gatekeeper that he needed to see the prime minister immediately. Then, much to Nassiri's surprise, a company of loyalist soldiers emerged from the shadows, surrounded him, and took him prisoner. Mossadegh had discovered the plot in time. The man who was supposed to arrest him was himself arrested...
"Roosevelt, however, was not... discouraged. He had built up a far reaching network of Iranian agents and had paid them a great deal of money. Many of them, especially those in the police and the army, had not yet had a chance to show what they could do. Sitting in his bunker beneath the American embassy, he considered his options... [H]e summoned two of his top Iranian operatives and told them he was determined to make another stab at Mossadegh.
"These two agents had excellent relations with Tehran's street gangs, and Roosevelt told them he now wished to use those gangs to set off riots around the city. To his dismay, they replied that they could no longer help him because the risk of arrest had become too great. This was a potentially fatal blow to Roosevelt's new plan. He responded in the best tradition of secret agents. First he offered the two agents $50,000 to continue working with him. They remained unmoved. Then he added the second part of his deal: if the men refused, he would kill them. That changed their minds. They left the embassy compound with a briefcase full of cash and a renewed willingness to help.
"That week, a plague of violence descended on Tehran. Gangs of thugs ran wildly through the streets, breaking shop windows, firing guns into mosques, beating passersby, and shouting 'Long Live Mossadegh and Communism!' Other thugs, claiming allegience to the self-exiled shah, attacked the first ones. Leaders of both factions were actually working for Roosevelt. He wanted to create the impression that the country was degenerating into chaos, and he succeeded magnificently.
"Mossadegh's supporters tried to organize demonstrations on his behalf, but once again his democratic instincts led him to react naively. He disdained the politics of the street, and ordered leaders of political parties loyal to him not to join the fighting. Then he sent police units to restore order, not realizing that many of their commanders were secretly on Roosevelt's payroll. Several joined the rioters they were supposed to suppress...
"Roosevelt chose Wednesday, August 19, as the climactic day. On that morning, thousands of demonstrators rampaged through the streets, demanding Mossadegh's resignation. They seized Radio Tehran and set fire to the offices of a progovernment newspaper. At midday, military and police units whose commanders Roosevelt had bribed joined the fray, storming the foreign ministry, the central police station, and the headquarters of the army's general staff.
"As Tehran fell into violent anarchy, Roosevelt calmly emerged from the embassy compound and drove to a safe house where he had stashed General Zahedi. It was time for the general to play his role as Iran's designated savior. He did so with gusto, riding with a group of his jubilant supporters to Radio Tehran and proclaiming to the nation that he was 'the lawful prime minister by the shah's orders'. From there he proceded to his temporary headquarters at the Officers' Club, where a throng of ecstatic admirers were waiting.
"The day's final battle was for control of Mossadegh's house. Attackers tried for two hours to storm it but were met with withering machine-gun volleys from inside. Men fell by the dozen. The tide finally turned when a column of tanks appeared, sent by a commander who was part of the plot. The tanks fired shell after shell into the house. Finally resistance from inside ceased. A platoon of soldiers gingerly moved in. Defenders had fled over a back wall, taking their deposed leader with them. The crowd outside surged into his house, looting it and then setting it afire...
"In the days that followed, the shah returned home and reclaimed the Peacock Throne he had so hastily abandoned. Mossadegh was placed under house arrest. General Zahedi became Iran's new prime minister." (pp 123-128)
Puts those "demonstrators loyal to Hosni Mubarak" in a new light, no?
To understand something of its dimensions, it is well to bear in mind my adaptation of Dr Phil's immortal advice: the best indicator of present American skullduggery is past American skullduggery.
Which brings us to the need for a working knowledge of Operation Ajax, the successful CIA-engineered coup against the democratically-elected government of Iranian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. Needless to say, the only real difference between Tehran then and Cairo today is that, in the former, Mossadegh represented the will of the people, and was therefore the target of the coup, whereas in the latter the people themselves are the target.
The following account is from Stephen Kinzer's wonderful book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (2006):
"After the National Security Council meeting in March, planning for a coup began in earnest. [CIA director] Allen Dulles, in consultation with his British counterparts, chose a retired general named Fazlollah Zahedi as titular leader of the coup. Then he sent $1 million to the CIA station in Tehran for use 'in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh'. [Secretary of State] John Foster Dulles directed the American ambassador in Tehran, Loy Henderson, to contact Iranians who might be interested in helping to carry out the coup.
"Two secret agents, Donald Wilber of the CIA and Norman Darbyshire of the British Secret Intelligence Service, spent several weeks that spring in Cyprus devising a plan for the coup. It was unlike any plan that either country, or any country, had made before. With the cold calculation of the surgeon, these agents plotted to cut Mossadegh away from his people. Under their plan, the Americans would spend $150,000 to bribe journalists, editors, Islamic preachers, and other opinion leaders to 'create, extend and enhance public hostility and distrust and fear of Mossadegh and his government'. Then they would hire thugs to carry out 'staged attacks' on religious figures and other respected Iranians, making it seem that Mossadegh had ordered them. Meanwhile, General Zahedi would be given a sum of money, later fixed at $135,000, to 'win additional friends' and 'influence key people'. The plan budgeted another $11,000 per week, a great sum at that time, to bribe members of the Iranian parliament. On 'coup day', thousands of paid demonstrators would converge on parliament to demand that it dismiss Mossadegh. Parliament would respond with a 'quasi-legal' vote to do so. If Mossadegh resisted, military units loyal to General Zahedi would arrest him. 'So this is how we get rid of that madman Mossadegh!' Secretary of State Dulles exclaimed happily when he was handed a copy of the plan...
"The American press played an important supporting role in Operation Ajax, as the Iran coup was code-named. A few newspapers and magazines published favorable articles about Mossadegh, but they were the exceptions. The New York Times regularly referred to him as a dictator. Other papers compared him to Hitler and Stalin. Newsweek reported that, with his help, Communists were 'taking over' Iran. Time called his election 'one of the worst calamities to the anti-communist world since the Red conquest of China'.
"To direct its coup against Mossadegh, the CIA had to send a senior agent on what would necessarily be a dangerous clandestine mission to Tehran. Allen Dulles had just the man in Kermit Roosevelt, the 37-year-old Harvard graduate who was the agency's top Middle East expert. By a quirk of history, he was the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, who half a century earlier had helped bring the United States into the 'regime change' era.
"Roosevelt slipped into Iran at a remote border crossing on July 19, 1953, and immediately set about his subversive work. It took him just a few days to set Iran aflame. Using a network of Iranian agents and spending lavish amounts of money, he created an entirely articial wave of anti-Mossadegh protest. Members of parliament withdrew their support from Mossadegh and denounced him with wild charges. Religious leaders gave sermons calling him an atheist, a Jew, and an infidel. Newspapers were filled with articles and cartoons depicting him as everything from a homosexual to an agent of British imperialism. He realized that some unseen hand was directing this campaign, but because he had such an ingrained and perhaps exaggerated faith in democracy, he did nothing to repress it...
"At the beginning of August, though, Mossadegh did take one step to upset the CIA's plan. He learned that foreign intelligence agents were bribing members of parliament to support a no-confidence motion against him, and to thwart them, he called a national referendum on a proposition that would allow him to dissolve parliament and call new elections. On this occasion he shaded his democratic principles, using separate ballot boxes for 'yes' and 'no' voters. The result was overwhelmingly favorable. His enemies denounced him, but he had won a round. Bribed members of parliament could not carry out the CIA's plan to remove him through a 'quasi-legal' vote, since there no longer was a parliament.
"Roosevelt quickly came up with an alternative plan. He would arrange for Mohammad Reza Shah to sign royal decrees, or firmans, dismissing Mossadegh from office and appointing General Zahedi as the new prime minister. This course could also be described as 'quasi-legal', since under Iranian law, only parliament had the right to elect and dismiss prime ministers. Roosevelt realized that Mossadegh, who among other things was the country's best-educated legal scholar, would reject the firman and refuse to step down. He had a plan for that, too. A squad of royalist soldiers would deliver the firman, and when Mossadegh rejected it the soldiers would arrest him.
"The great obstacle to this plan turned out to be the shah. He hated Mossadegh, who was turning him into little more than a figurehead, but was terrified of risking his throne by joining a plot. In a series of meetings held late at night in the backseat of a car parked near the royal palace, Roosevelt tried and failed to persuade the shah to join the coup. Slowly he increased the pressure. First he arranged to fly the shah's strong-willed sister, Ashraf, home from the French Riviera to appeal to him; she agreed to do so after receiving a sum of money and, according to one account, a mink coat. When that approach failed, Roosevelt sent two of his Iranian agents to assure the shah that the plot was a good one and certain to succeed. Still the shah vacillated. Finally, Roosevelt summoned General Norman Schwarzkopf, a dashing figure who had spent years in Iran running an elite military unit - and whose son would lead the Desert Storm invasion of Iraq four decades later - to close the deal.
"The shah received Schwarzkopf in a ballroom at the palace, but at first refused to speak. Through gestures, he let his guest know that he feared that microphones were hidden in the walls or ceiling. Finally the two men pulled a table into the center of the room and climbed on top of it. In what must have been unusually forced whispers, Schwarzkopf made clear that the power of both Britain and the United States lay behind this plot, and that the shah had no choice other than to cooperate. Slowly the shah gave in. The next day he told Roosevelt he would sign the firman, but only on condition that immediately afterwards, he could fly to his retreat on the Caspian Sea...
"That was not a resounding committment to the coup, but it was good enough for Roosevelt. He secured the firmans and, on the afternoon of August 14, gave the one dismissing Mossadegh to an officer who was part of the plot, Colonel Nematollah Nassiri, commander of the Imperial Guard. Late that night, Nassiri led a squad of men to Mossadegh's house. There he told the gatekeeper that he needed to see the prime minister immediately. Then, much to Nassiri's surprise, a company of loyalist soldiers emerged from the shadows, surrounded him, and took him prisoner. Mossadegh had discovered the plot in time. The man who was supposed to arrest him was himself arrested...
"Roosevelt, however, was not... discouraged. He had built up a far reaching network of Iranian agents and had paid them a great deal of money. Many of them, especially those in the police and the army, had not yet had a chance to show what they could do. Sitting in his bunker beneath the American embassy, he considered his options... [H]e summoned two of his top Iranian operatives and told them he was determined to make another stab at Mossadegh.
"These two agents had excellent relations with Tehran's street gangs, and Roosevelt told them he now wished to use those gangs to set off riots around the city. To his dismay, they replied that they could no longer help him because the risk of arrest had become too great. This was a potentially fatal blow to Roosevelt's new plan. He responded in the best tradition of secret agents. First he offered the two agents $50,000 to continue working with him. They remained unmoved. Then he added the second part of his deal: if the men refused, he would kill them. That changed their minds. They left the embassy compound with a briefcase full of cash and a renewed willingness to help.
"That week, a plague of violence descended on Tehran. Gangs of thugs ran wildly through the streets, breaking shop windows, firing guns into mosques, beating passersby, and shouting 'Long Live Mossadegh and Communism!' Other thugs, claiming allegience to the self-exiled shah, attacked the first ones. Leaders of both factions were actually working for Roosevelt. He wanted to create the impression that the country was degenerating into chaos, and he succeeded magnificently.
"Mossadegh's supporters tried to organize demonstrations on his behalf, but once again his democratic instincts led him to react naively. He disdained the politics of the street, and ordered leaders of political parties loyal to him not to join the fighting. Then he sent police units to restore order, not realizing that many of their commanders were secretly on Roosevelt's payroll. Several joined the rioters they were supposed to suppress...
"Roosevelt chose Wednesday, August 19, as the climactic day. On that morning, thousands of demonstrators rampaged through the streets, demanding Mossadegh's resignation. They seized Radio Tehran and set fire to the offices of a progovernment newspaper. At midday, military and police units whose commanders Roosevelt had bribed joined the fray, storming the foreign ministry, the central police station, and the headquarters of the army's general staff.
"As Tehran fell into violent anarchy, Roosevelt calmly emerged from the embassy compound and drove to a safe house where he had stashed General Zahedi. It was time for the general to play his role as Iran's designated savior. He did so with gusto, riding with a group of his jubilant supporters to Radio Tehran and proclaiming to the nation that he was 'the lawful prime minister by the shah's orders'. From there he proceded to his temporary headquarters at the Officers' Club, where a throng of ecstatic admirers were waiting.
"The day's final battle was for control of Mossadegh's house. Attackers tried for two hours to storm it but were met with withering machine-gun volleys from inside. Men fell by the dozen. The tide finally turned when a column of tanks appeared, sent by a commander who was part of the plot. The tanks fired shell after shell into the house. Finally resistance from inside ceased. A platoon of soldiers gingerly moved in. Defenders had fled over a back wall, taking their deposed leader with them. The crowd outside surged into his house, looting it and then setting it afire...
"In the days that followed, the shah returned home and reclaimed the Peacock Throne he had so hastily abandoned. Mossadegh was placed under house arrest. General Zahedi became Iran's new prime minister." (pp 123-128)
Puts those "demonstrators loyal to Hosni Mubarak" in a new light, no?
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