Was the call to overthrow the monarchy, which the radical elements of the Tudeh Party and the National Front began to promote during the demonstrations that followed the failure of the first coup attempt, enough to intimidate the street and the army to the extent that they moved quickly to save their king for fear of the coming unknown? Or is it the propaganda in which the clergy played a major role in intimidating the dangers of communism that led the public to take action to save the situation and support the coup movement? Or maybe it is the state of chaos in which the ball gets mixed up in this kind of events, so that it is difficult to accurately determine the responsibilities of each party? And how did it happen that the defenses of Mosaddegh's military supporters collapsed in this way?

In any case, the details of the events in the decisive days of the summer of 1953, which are very similar to the events of a suspenseful movie, should not blind us from seeing the broader contexts of what happened in the end. Mosaddeq's government was subjected to a coup that was orchestrated at night, premeditated and premeditated, by the American and British intelligence services, because it represented a threat to the economic and political interests of the two great powers at the time.

Infrastructure for External Intervention in Iran

Britain had a foothold in Persia since the middle of the nineteenth century, and its role in Iranian politics increased from that time until its occupation of the country in 1941. Through those decades, its apparatus was able to weave a wide network of relations and influence that penetrated sectors of the political, military, bureaucratic and media class, not to mention About the influence that her oil company had on the course of economic development in the country. As for the United States, its interest in Iran began to increase after the Azerbaijan crisis of 1945-1946 and the Soviet army’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1948, as part of its strategy to confront the expansion of Soviet influence in the context of the Cold War.

At the end of the 1940s, the American agencies launched a secret operation in Iran under the name “TPBEDAMN” supervised by Donald Wilber, the central engineer of the coup against Mossadeq and an expert in psychological warfare, in order to attack the Tudeh party and the Soviet Union through a huge propaganda campaign during which articles and cartoons against it were published. For both sides in dozens of Iranian newspapers and widely distributing propaganda books, posters and pamphlets about the miserable conditions of life in the Soviet Union and about the communist threat to Islamic values.

In this sense, on the eve of the nationalization decision, the American and British apparatuses possessed an “infrastructure” that qualified them to undermine stability in Iran and manipulate its internal affairs, leading to the violent overthrow of its government. The capabilities and resources available to the Iranian government were, of course, too modest to confront or contain this type of activity, let alone expose it in the first place.

Interventions through covert operations and behind-the-scenes machinations were not the only approach Britain adopted to weaken Mossadeq. In addition to the economic blockade supported by military and diplomatic force, the British Conservative government took a hard line in its negotiations with Iran regarding the nationalization of the “Anglo-Iranian” company’s assets, rejecting, in fact, all initiatives that would reach a solution, not to mention its rejection of the principle of direct negotiations with the Iranian government. Britain could not comprehend the fact that the Iranian motives behind the nationalization decision stemmed from purely political considerations for the national movement and Mossadeq.

The internal dynamics that facilitated the coup

Despite this, there remains an urgent need to address the internal dynamics that accompanied the external intervention and facilitated its mission, as well as the tactical and strategic mistakes made by Dr. Muhammad Mossadeq that helped in one way or another to bring him down.

Dr. Mossadeq based his calculations on the large relative weight that Iran's oil represented in the global energy supply, and assumed on this basis that stopping Iranian oil production would have an economic impact to the extent that it would push Britain to acquiesce in the conditions of his movement. However, the man was apparently unaware of the developments that the oil industry had reached in neighboring countries such as Iraq and Kuwait, and of the investments made by the “Anglo-Iranian” company to increase production capacity in those countries. Kuwait’s production increased from 12 million barrels in 1950, on the eve of the nationalization decision, to about 42 million barrels in 1953, while Iraq’s production increased from 4 million barrels to 27 million barrels in the same period (2 ) .

There is no doubt that this increase in the production capacity of the countries located on the other side of the Gulf waters, coupled with the increase in refining capacity in oil refineries on the European mainland, played an important role in neutralizing the negative effects that could have resulted from the absence of Iranian oil from the global market and facilitated The task of Britain, in close cooperation with the coalition of American companies, is to prevent its marketing, which put Mossadeq under the pressure of the collapse of the national economy. Dr. Mossadeq relied on the possibility of restarting the oil facilities by contracting with Western technicians, but he did not seem to realize the possibility of Western countries refusing to cooperate with him under the influence of British diplomatic power. Moreover, he assumed that he could maneuver by playing the card of communist influence in Iran in front of the Americans, and that the Americans would accordingly go so far as to prevent Britain from imposing or easing its oil embargo on Iran, but his calculations in this regard were also inaccurate.

In addition, Dr. Mossadeq and his loyal supporters failed to take advantage of the popular momentum that the oil nationalization step enjoyed in order to build a strong organization capable of carrying out the tasks of the political party in recruiting supporters, broadcasting political propaganda, and confronting the campaigns of political opponents in the street and in the press. The National Front, led by Mosaddeq, was a frontal formula that included various political components united by broad principles, foremost of which was the nationalization of oil and opposition to Western hegemony. However, this formula was not coherent to the extent that qualifies it to stand firm until the end in defending the slogans it raised. The front's experience eroded and some of its main components defected from it to move to the camp of Mossadegh's enemies in a record time, participating in his incitement and actively contributing to his overthrow.

Mosaddeq's high moral character and idealistic commitment to the values ​​of democracy and freedom of expression prevented him from taking strict measures against his opponents, even those who were proven involved in conspiring with foreign intelligence against their country's government, or those who participated in assassinations and sabotage operations in order to undermine the foundations of stability and sow chaos in the street. Iranian. It also did not seek to contain the loud and outrageous propaganda campaign that was launched against it since the nationalization decision was taken in the local press. The opposition newspapers of Tehran during his era had reached limits in his satire that exceeded all the values ​​and principles that regulate this field. Dr. Mosaddegh could not leave his traditional world as an old constitutionalist who believed to the fullest extent in the principles of constitutional monarchy as the regulator of political life in Iran.

In the last days of his government, Mossadeq committed two tactical mistakes that contributed to a large extent in weakening his position in the face of the coup movement. The first was his call for a popular referendum to dissolve the parliament. In addition to the fact that this call was strongly opposed by some of his closest aides and parliamentary supporters, which prompted them to abandon him, and that it added fuel to the fire of incitement directed against him by his enemies, who presented it as practical proof of Mosaddegh's dictatorship, the dissolution of the assembly gave way to the Shah ( at the instigation of Western agencies) to use his constitutional powers to remove Mossadeq directly.

Perhaps the continued existence of the Council, even if it was not functioning effectively at the time, would have constituted a balancing force for the coup camp and fortified Mosaddeq's constitutional position. As for the second mistake, it was represented in the decision that Mosaddeq made on August 18, 1953, to ban demonstrations and to order the capital's police to disperse them. This step was a free gift to the putschists, enabling them to regain the initiative to seize the capital after the failure of the first coup attempt. Perhaps the continuation of the pro-Mossadeq demonstrations in the street and their support with more supporters would have formed a popular backing for the government that would prevent the putschists from advancing and succeeding in completing their plan, or at least lead to a delay.

Thus, in his last months, Mossadeq was attracting, for various reasons, the hostility of major components in Iranian politics. The supporters of the royal palace, mostly cooperating with Britain, were preparing him because his movement threatened their traditional interests as an aristocratic class that was able to reproduce the feudal system again through its relationship with the master of the palace and by manipulating the electoral process. Mosaddegh's movement's slogans about democracy, popular sovereignty, and the fight against foreign monopolies contradicted their idea of ​​politics as a practice that takes place in the salons of the elite, away from the rabble of the streets and public squares.

As for the elements of the religious establishment, headed by Ayatollah Muhammad Behbehani - who played a major role in mobilizing against Mossadeq during and before the coup - and to a lesser extent Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim Kashani, they were opposing Mossadeq on the grounds of the religious position, as they saw him with his secular national ideas as a threat to established values. Iranian society and its long-standing traditions based on the code of Shiite Islam, as they saw in its tolerance of the activities of the Tudeh party as a prelude to the communist takeover of power. As for the supporters of the Tudeh party, particularly the radical ones among them, they were hostile to the man on the grounds of his “pragmatic” stance, his policy of “negative neutrality” towards the major powers, and his refusal to make a complete break with the Americans. The party's supporters saw that Mosaddegh's program was not radical enough, and that in essence it sought to eventually replace British hegemony with American hegemony.

Emphasizing the central role played by the American and British agencies in overthrowing Mosaddegh's government is important from a historical point of view, not because the concrete facts of what happened in Iran between 1951 and 1953 confirm it irrefutably, nor because the "TP-AJAX" operation will, in fact, be the impetus for an era A kind of secret US interventions in Third World countries not only, but also because some popular historical treatments of the event try to hold Mosaddegh and his “demagoguery” responsible for the tragic fate that befell him, and try to give Iranian actors a major role in the course of events in a way that shows the American and British roles as catalysts and nothing more. . The aforementioned emphasis has political significance as well, as it clearly reveals the roots behind the course taken by the political history of Iran since then, up to the outbreak of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and behind the slogans and policies adopted by the new regime in Tehran since that time.

After the defeat of the oil nationalization project

The defeat of the oil nationalization project led by the National Front led to a radical restructuring of the energy sector in Iran. The monopoly of the “Anglo-Iranian” company (whose name will become “British Petroleum” since 1954) was dismantled, and a new “consortium” was formed in which the major American oil companies acquired a 40% share of the concession, in return for the British company obtaining the same percentage, while what was distributed Remaining stakes in French, Dutch and other American companies.

Iran has been gradually reintegrated into the global energy market, becoming, over time, one of the largest producers of crude oil in the world. This restructuring process, which was followed by a large financial aid package, came within the framework of a strategic American project in which the new Iran would guarantee the continued flow of energy supplies without disruption, protect the security of the Gulf, and form a strong wall to counter Soviet influence. These new dynamics formed the material basis for the establishment of an authoritarian regime, at the head of which was the Shah, with uncontested authority.

The Shah was obsessed with modernizing Iran in the Western way, and he believed that this goal could be achieved, if the proceeds from the sale of oil were used to buy weapons, technology, expertise, and Western goods, and to spend on major projects to accelerate development and industrialization. However, this modernization pattern linked the fate of the Iranian economy to a greater extent with oil and its price fluctuations. By focusing on huge arms deals and major projects, he drained Iran's financial resources, fueled the fire of inflation, failed to create new job opportunities, and split Iranian society horizontally between the impoverished majority that began its march from the countryside to the outskirts of cities, and the rising class of affluent members of the military and civil bureaucracy. And groups of technical experts and brokers and the entourage of the Shah and his family.

لم تستطع قبضة النظام الأمنيّة التي أصبحت أكثر سطوة وتشعبًا بفضل المساعدة الأمريكيّة والإسرائيليّة أن تمنع جيلًا جديدًا من المناضلين السياسيّين الإيرانيين من البزوغ، ولم تستطع البهرجة التي أحاط بها الشاه مشروعاته وخططه الكبيرة أن تمحو من الذاكرة الوطنيّة حركة التأميم التي كانت القابلة التي سمحت بولادة أوسع حركة تسييس في إيران في النصف الثاني من القرن العشرين مُمهدة الطريق للزلزال الكبير الذي سيطيح بالنظام الملكيّ مرّة واحدة وإلى الأبد في العام 1979. لقد تجرّع الدكتور محمّد مصدّق مرارة الهزيمة لكنّه ارتاح على الأقل في تراب بلاده، أمّا الشاه فقد خرج من إيران جارًّا ذيول الخيبة باحثًا عن منفى يأويه مُطاردًا بأشباح مُصدّق حتّى آخر أيّام حياته (3).