Thank you for your message. You argue that I “seem overly inclined to assume a negative view of Mossadegh’s govt. based on scant evidence.”

This is not the purpose of the article. What I have tried to do in this article is to debunk four myths about Mosaddeq or the coup and each one of them I clearly list. I do not offer my own view of his government.

Thank you for Arash Norouzi’s response to Milani’s article in The New Republic. I do not believe there is really anything in that article that contradicts my own article. I have previously seen that site and dismissed it out of hand as Norouzi makes the ludicrous claim that Barry Rubin belongs to the group of “Coup-Deniers.” There is nothing in Barry Rubin’s book, Paved With Good Intentions: The American Experience in Iran (Oxford University Press, 1980) nor in any of his subsequent comments on Mosaddeq that I have seen that suggests that this is so. Indeed, as can be seen by the acknowledgements to my article, I asked Barry Rubin to read the final version prior to publication. Given that I make it clear that it is a “Myth” to say that there was no coup, if he was a coup-denier as claimed, I am sure he would have suggested to me that I was wrong about that. He did not do so.

This error by Norouzi is just one more reason why I do not rely upon questionable websites for facts.

If the revisionism of Abbas Milani in The New Republic impressed you, have you read this very thorough response? It addresses much of what you write about here–

Their Myths—and Ours: A Response to Abbas Milani’s “The Great Satan Myth” by Arash Norouzi – The Mossadegh Project

-Dean

Thank you for your comment and I shall be interested to see your response.

I will make an observation about my article that I have thought about since Rostam Farrokhzad made his comment to this thread on 7 February 2010, 2:59 am. This observation was reinforced after I received a communication from someone else in another method. This observation is as follows:

What I set out to do was not to write an article about Mosaddeq but myths that have surrounded him. I selected four things and I wrote solely about these with as little extraneous detail as I felt necessary. This was written as a blog post and at close to 3,000 words, I was very concerned about the length. I did not want to write 10,000 words.

I feel that I managed to do what I set out to accomplish. What I now realise is that there is a side effect to this. This side effect is that in total, without any further background and looking at this post in isolation, the picture I present of Mosaddeq is not one that is rounded. Even though I stand by what I have written, I think that this is a fair criticism of my piece.

I note that you are critical of one of my sources: Clawson and Rubin. Your criticism of them does not seem to be on what they have written about Mosaddeq but about their general political views. You mention that Clawson and Rubin “have no reputation among the scholars of Iran.” It can be pointed out that Dr. Houman A. Sadri, an Associate Editor of the Journal of Iranian Research & Analysis (JIRA) and the MESA Bulletin, wrote a review of Clawson and Rubin’s Eternal Iran for Middle East Journal (Volume 60, Number 3, Summer 2006, pp. 583-5.) He said that Clawson and Rubin’s book managed to “summarize Iranian history effectively.”

You may not like the views of these authors and that is your prerogative, but even if that is so, I only used their book for a small piece in my article and that was really to back up something that I quoted from Kenneth Pollack.

I will say that I only quoted Ardeshir Zahedi to dispel his view that he published as an advertisement in the New York Times. I did not at any point rely on his account of the fall of Mosaddeq.

Regards,

Michael Ezra

Now, quoting people like Clawson and Rubin is not the best thing to do ; we know whose policies they condone and we know that they have always promoted war against Iran. They have no reputation among the scholars of Iran.

Quoting my own father who was PM Mossadegh’s personal attorney and mayor of Tehran: ” Kianouri (Tudeh Party chief) came to Mossadegh that we know they are planning a coup against you, give us arms and we will stop it. Mossadegh says in reply, cut the hands of a PM who will give arms to you to shoot innocent people.”

Mossadegh was the embodiment of Non-violence, of the rule of law, of Free Press and demcratic principle.

Also, Mr Ezner should be very careful to quote Ardeshir Zahedi, the guy is not educated; just read his op-ed piece in the NY Times ; it is full of mistakes. He like his father was a womanzier, notorious for having lavish parties in Washington for the rich and famous, dancing on tables (there is a picture of him in the style section of the Post at the time he was Ambassador) and the son of a Nazi sympathizer who was bought with CIA money ( General Zahedi was first targeted by the British, they were going to kill him–later they thought he is a good choice as a replacement)

I suggest to Mr. Ezner to quote more reputable people and read our history, that is the Iranian history from all sides not such one side.

Mossadegh was a democrat who believed in Constitutional Monarchy, what you have in GB and in many Western European countries. He believed that the Monarch should reign and the PM should govern.

Or America with it’s political and oil interests.

Quite. Which is just what Zkharya has said. As I have pointed out earlier the issue of oil is not just that of aquisition for consumptionbut most importantly about control of supply.

Because it did have oil.

By the time Mosaddeq was in power in 1951 he was pretty much set on nationalisation of Iranian oil. For him it had become a matter of principle. It wasn’t 50/50 or any other deal that mattered, what concerned him was that in his view that oil under Iranian soil belonged to Iran. He was an Iranian nationalist and he did not want foreign powers such as the British having control of this resource.

It is certainly true that what became known as the “Supplemental Agreement” (a 1949 supplement to the 1933 oil agreement) did not satisfy the desires of the Iranian Majlis. The British were not particularly flexible on this and if they had come up with a 50/50 split earlier then perhaps things would have been different, maybe Mosaddeq would not have even got in power. Mosaddeq was likewise inflexible when he was in power and had he been able to come to a compromise with the British, then the same British may not attempted to get rid of him via a coup or otherwise.

Mosaddeq also had relatively poor judgement in international affairs. He looked at Iran as an Iranian nationalist and did not seem to realise the effects of the Cold War and how America and USSR viewed Iran. By his toleration of the pro-Soviet, Communist, Tudeh, he was providing the Americans with a fear that the Tudeh may ultimately take control. Whether this fear was well founded, as I mentioned to Rostam, I simply do not know.

What you must understand is that Mosaddeq was not a Communist. He was a nationalist and he did not want Iran to be under the influence of any foreign power, be it British with oil or the Soviets with their local Communist parties that followed the Stalin line.

Iran was was in very poor economic shape coming out of the 19th century. On top of that, the pre-Pahlavi dynasty had made many disadvantageous concessions to foreign powers (mostly the British and French) in return for what was often personal gain.

Russia was looking to expand southwards, and some Iranian land had already been lost – some kind of partnership with a ‘Great Power’ was seen as an exixstential neccessity.

The US & the Russians had armed forces in Iran during WW II. While the US promptly withdrew their forces after the conflict, the Russians didn’t – it was only with US pressure that they finally left – an uncomfortable period for Iranians.

Mossadegh was an admirable man, and pro-democracy, but his obstinate refusal to compromise with Britain & America cost Iran.

Mossadegh may have despised socialism, but he was in power with the backing of the far-left, more-or-less communist Tudeh party.

The US was the best and most beneficial ally that Iran had, until President Carter came along.