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hap0206

05/08/05 3:58 PM

#107007 RE: goodluck #106985

well -- The primary reason in 1954 for our actions was to prevent the USSR from expanding into Iran --

My thinking on the 15 centuries is that Islam has been at war with the west throughtout their history

Bin Ladin referred to it in several of his speeches -- following is a summary of Islamic thinking:

The book is published by The Centre for Islamic Research and Studies, a company set up by bin Laden in 1995 with branches in New York and London (now closed). Over the past eight years, it has published more than 40 books by al Qaeda "thinkers and researchers" including militants such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's No. 2.

Al-Ayyeri first made his name in the mid '90s as a commander of the Farouq camp in eastern Afghanistan, where al Qaeda and the Taliban trained thousands of "volunteers for martyrdom."

Al-Ayyeri argues that the history of mankind is the story of "perpetual war between belief and unbelief." Over the millennia, both have appeared in different guises. As far as belief is concerned, the absolutely final version is represented by Islam, which "annuls all other religions and creeds." Thus, Muslims can have only one goal: converting all humanity to Islam and "effacing the final traces of all other religions, creeds and ideologies."


all of it here:

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/4879.htm




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niteowl

05/08/05 9:48 PM

#107033 RE: goodluck #106985

The Coup That Changed the Middle East
Mossadeq v. The CIA in Retrospect

7 pages at link, first page below

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj02-2/Zahrani.pdf


"Few upheavals in the Middle East have had
wider aftershocks than the 1953 coup that
overthrew the Iranian nationalist leader Mohammed
Mossadeq. As seen by Mossadeq
and his National Front Party, the chief issue
was Iran’s right to nationalize a British oil
giant that held exclusive rights to drilling
and selling the country’s petroleum. As seen
by the incoming Eisenhower administration
in Washington, something very different
was at stake—a possible Soviet takeover in
Tehran, its way prepared by Tudeh, the
Iranian Communist Party.

But to many Iranians,
the United States betrayed its own
values by covertly joining with Britain to
depose an elected leader, and then abetting
the imperial ambitions of Shah Mohammed
Pahlevi. For Americans, the unintended result
was the rise of political Islam, leading
to the 1979 revolution and the present continuing
impasse in Iranian-U.S. relations.

Containing communism was the justification
for the coup, but by the coldest reckoning
the price was excessive. The Shah’s legitimacy
was irreparably compromised by
owing his throne to Washington. It is a reasonable
argument that but for the coup Iran
now would be a mature democracy. So traumatic
was the coup’s legacy that when the
Shah finally departed in 1979, many Iranians
feared a repetition of 1953, which was
one of the motives for the student seizure of
the U.S. embassy. The hostage crisis, in
turn, precipitated the Iraqi invasion of Iran,
while the revolution itself played a part in
the Soviet decision to invade Afghanistan.
A lot of history, in short, flowed from a
single week in Tehran.

With this in mind, it is worth looking
again at what happened in August 1953,
when the Shah dismissed Mossadeq as prime
minister, and then fled the country after
National Front demonstrators took to the
streets. This was followed by counterdemonstrations
promoted by the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence
Service, and when it appeared
that Operation Ajax was succeeding, the
Shah returned to reclaim the Peacock
Throne. Once back in his palace, the Shah
thus thanked Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of
Theodore and head of the CIA’s Middle East
Department: “I owe my throne to God, my
people, my army—and to you!” Or so Roosevelt
quoted him in his 1979 memoir,
Countercoup.

Yet nothing about the 1953 events was
that simple. This essay will attempt to explore
the complex factors—the people, the
countries, and the parties—that played a
part in what was hardly an inevitable outcome.
What is striking is that until the final
months Washington resisted joining
with Britain to unseat Mossadeq, and that
even within the CIA, the Tehran station chief
was reportedly opposed to “putting U.S.
support behind Anglo-French colonialism.”

The Background

First, the essential background. Exclusive
rights to explore and exploit oil in Iran’s
southern provinces were granted in 1901 to
William Knox D’Arcy, a British-born investor
who had gained a fortune in the Australian
gold rush..........."