With much of the turmoil in the Middle East centered around Iran, it is worth reviewing Stephen Kinzer’s 2008 book “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror” to help understand the nation of Iran as well as find some possible answers.
Iran has become number one on terrorist lists and are principal backers of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. With recent drone attacks on American servicemen from Iranian-backed terrorists and the fighting in Israel, there have been calls for retaliation against Iran with some even calling for direct military action.
Kinzer wrote during a similar time when George W. Bush labeled Iran part of the “Axis of Evil.” Back then, there were calls for military action. But Kinzer’s argument against military action in 2008 may apply just as easily to the present. In “All the Shah’s Men,” Kinzer gives a brief but thorough history of modern Iran while focusing the crux of his book and America’s biggest foreign policy blunder in the 20th century — the coup that overturned Iran’s democratic government in 1952.
In his preface, The Folly of Attacking Iran, Kinzer argues against attacking Iran in 2008 and presumably also at the present. Kinzer writes, “It would turn that country’s oppressive leaders, who are now highly unpopular at home, into heroes of Islamic resistance; give them a strong incentive to launch a violent counter-campaign against American interests around the world; greatly strengthen Iranian nationalism, Shiite irredentism, and Muslim extremism, thereby attracting countless new recruits to the cause of terror; undermine the democratic movement in Iran and destroy the prospects for political change there for at least another generation; turn the people of Iran, who are now among the most pro-American in the Middle East, into enemies of the United States; require the United States to remain deeply involved in the Persian Gulf indefinitely, forcing it to take sides in all manner of regional conflicts and thereby make a host of new enemies; enrage the Shiite-dominated government of neighboring Iraq, on which the United States is relying to calm the violence there; and quite possibly disrupt the flow of Middle East petroleum in ways that could wreak havoc on Western economies.”
While Kinzer claims average Iranians admire America, he also recognizes that every Iranian knows a part of American/Iranian history in which most Americans are unaware: the 1952 Democratic Revolution and America’s part in overturning it. The year before the very popular Iranian leader Mohammad Mossadegh became prime minister, not only was Mossadegh strong enough to take on the shah and implement democratic reforms he also took on the British who had been exploiting Iran for years. Britain had made millions from Iranian oil while the Iranians remained in poverty. When Mossadegh took office, he made the popular decision to nationalize the oil industry and kick out the British. While most of the nation cheered him, the British were furious. They claimed the oil was theirs and took them to the International Court of Justice and the United Nations. Both venues tried to get Britain to compromise with Iran, giving the nation a more equal share in the profits and day-to-day operations. The British refused and both the UN and the World Court sided with Iran.
With their golden goose about to be lost forever, Britain’s only option was to overthrow the democratically elected government and strengthen the power of the shah. The only problem is after they were kicked out, they could not pull off the coup alone, so they turned to their American friends.
In an exceptionally written narrative, Kinzer gives the history of modern Iran and its struggle with democracy, the British, and the shah. He details the fight to achieve a constitutional government and the rise of Mossadegh, a man who finally put Iran’s interest above his own.
Most tragic was how easily the British were able to use America to do their bidding. President Truman tried to convince the British to end their colonial practices in Iran. But once Eisenhower was elected, Ike and the Dulles brothers organized the coup. Once the British told them falsely that Mossadegh was a communist, they were in.
Tragedy compounded, according to Kinzer, because Iranians actually looked to America as their ally and a nation that would come to defend their democracy. Kinzer claims America’s betrayal set up a series of issues, some evident today. First, it allowed the shah back into Iran and for him to become more tyrannical than before the coup.
Second, since the coup was orchestrated out of the American embassy, it led directly to the Iran hostage crisis and the 1979 revolution. Revolutionaries were not going to be betrayed again. This time however the revolution was not a democratic one, but an Islamic fundamentalist one. This revolution drove Iran and America even further apart causing the U.S. to support Iraq in the war between the two nations, strengthening the power of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. This only strengthened the fundamentalists who began to support world terrorist groups like Hezbollah.
Kinzer wrote, “The world has paid a heavy price for the lack of democracy in most of the Middle East. Operation Ajax taught tyrants and aspiring tyrants there that the world’s most powerful governments were willing to tolerate limitless oppression as long as oppressive regimes were friendly to the West and the Western oil companies. That helped tilt the political balance in a vast region away from freedom and towards dictatorship.”
With the world mourning the violence in Israel, it is difficult to not ask questions. What if America would have supported a democratic Iran instead of destroying it? Would a democratic, secular Iran fund an organization like Hamas? And without Hamas and Hezbollah, could it be easier for Israelis and Palestinians to find peaceful reconciliation?
What’s done is done, and we can’t go back and fix our mistakes. However, we can learn from them while also understanding more about Iran’s interesting and complicated history. To understand the situation in Iran and even plot a possible course moving forward, Kinzer’s book is definitely worth a read.
James Finck, Ph.D. is a professor of history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at HistoricallySpeaking1776@gmail.com.
