Fariba Amini Informed Comment
In the 1975 film Three Days of the Condor, the late Robert Redford played Joe Turner, a disenchanted CIA field officer who was being chased by rogue higher-ups within the Company. The Redford character asks Joubert, the CIA man who was pursuing him, “So it was all about oil?” Joubert says in reply, “Yes of course it always has been.”
They wanted Turner dead.
August 19, 1953, brings back memories. The CIA and MI6, in an unholy alliance, staged a coup d’etat in Iran. They brought down Mossadegh’s government.
In March 1953, in preparation for the coup, General Mahmood Afshartoos, the head of Mossadegh’s gendarmerie was kidnapped and tortured. He was then murdered. His body was left in a cave. It was alleged that this was done with the approval of MI6 by pro-monarchist individuals.
The nationalization of oil was suggested by the youngest foreign minister of Iran Dr. Hossein Fatemi, the editor of the journal Bakhtar-e Emrooz. He was stabbed viciously by the pro-monarchist goons or perhaps by a member of the fundamentalist Fedayeen-i Islam group. In that feeble state, just after the Coup, he was executed by the coup d’etat regime. Just before his death, he looked at his executioners and said,
“Mr. officers, these are the last moments of my life. There is no room for hypocrisy. Between my life and death there is very little time. We ruled this country for twenty some months and all we wanted to do was to tell the people that they are they are their own servants, but the court did not allow it.”
Fatemi was executed by a firing squad at Qasr prison at 6 am on November 10, 1954, in Tehran.
The 1953 coup remains one of the most pivotal years in the Iranian psyche. To this day, the feud between the two camps, the pro-monarchy and the nationalist liberals remain as contentious as before. Neither the Shah nor the current regime in Tehran saw Mossadegh as a man and a politician who stood up to the two superpowers for the benefit of his country and its people.
They both failed Mossadegh and his ideals.
Mossadegh wanted an oil less economy. He also relied on the Americans and asked the Truman administration to give him a hand. It is questionable whether a democratic administration or a Republican one would have acted differently.
Nevertheless, the notorious Dulles brothers did everything to undermine his government. They were the brothers in arm to make sure no government in pursuit of the interest of its people would remain in power. So was the case in Guatemala which under Arbenz had nationalized its main resource. Arbenz was toppled in 1954. The Dulles brothers were lawyers for the United Fruit Company, which the Arbenz government had fought against.
Now, the oil in Venezuela is being extracted for the benefit of U.S. companies. Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world, has become the next profitable country for America under the Trump administration. Marco Rubio is now the new viceroy of the country.
Through the Strait of Hormuz, an average of 20.3 million barrels of petroleum and crude oil or roughly 25 percent of the world maritime oil trade passes. Now because of the war, the oil shipments have been disrupted which has had an enormous effect on oil prices through the entire world.
Since the start of the war on Iran, two major oil companies have made close to 2.6 billion dollars. The war is for profit as has always been the case.
“Mosaddegh at Ahmadabad: A Life in Internal Exile,” forthcoming film produced by Fariba Amini
But it is not just oil that companies want. It is now other minerals. Thus Greenland comes to mind.
The tech companies want minerals from the Congo, Greenland, and other rich filled countries who have enormous resources.
Iran is also one of them. Iran has gas and oil combined and many more resources.
In a few months, seventy-three years will have passed since the government of Mohammad Mossadegh fell.
After three years of confinement in a military prison, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh was forced into internal exile for the rest of his life where he died at his estate in Ahmadabad in 1967.
Without a question, he remains the most admired politician of modern Iran.
Fariba Amini is a freelance writer and journalist. She has interviewed many scholars of Iran and former U.S. diplomats throughout the years. Her research on The Most Successful Iranian-Americans was published by the U.S. Department of State. She is the editor of Letters from Ahmad Abad (in Persian). Her father was the mayor of Tehran and personal attorney to Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
Editor’s Note: At a moment when the once vaunted model of responsible journalism is overwhelmingly the play thing of self-serving billionaires and their corporate scribes, alternatives of integrity are desperately needed, and ScheerPost is one of them. Please support our independent journalism by contributing to our online donation platform, Network for Good, or send a check to our new PO Box. We can’t thank you enough, and promise to keep bringing you this kind of vital news.
You can also make a donation to our PayPal or subscribe to our Patreon.