Talk:1953 Iranian coup d'état

Edits of November 12

November 12 my tag was reverted by Kurdo with the edit summary "if you removed the sources you claim do not support the citations, then why are you still adding this tag?" (i.e. ignoring my explanation above) and restoring the totally bogus cite (Kinzer, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (John Wiley & Sons, 2003), p.166) which (as explained above) says not a word about Mosaddegh government being democratically elected, or that the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States overthrew it. BoogaLouie (talk)

Sadly the problem with this article is that a lot of sources seem to be fake and not saying what they are supposed to be saying. This article is heavily biased. See my comment below. --Tondar1 (talk) 17:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Adding subsection about Iranian support for the 1953 coup

Currently the 1953 coup in Iran article about the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq has no mention of the motivation of Iranians who opposed Mosaddeq. [Actually it has little mention of Iranians who opposed Mosaddeq at all except to say they were bribed by the CIA and included mobsters, "prostitutes and thugs."] Who were these Iranians and why did they oppose Mosaddeq? I found this (below) in a book about "the quest for democracy in Iran" since the 1906 constitution, and thought it might be summarized and added.

"The opposition to Mosaddeq, led by the Shah, conservative politicians such as prime ministers Ahmad Qavam and General Ali Razamara .... and commanders of the military, most notably General Fazlollah Zahedi (d.1963), also believed that the British position was unjust and illegal. However, they thought that Mosaddeq's idealism had led to a Don Quixote foreign policy. ..."

"Regardless of the merits of Iran's position, it was unrealistic that the country would be able to win its case; in `charging the windmill,` Iran was more likely to jeopardize its national interests. Only five years after the Soviet attempt to separate Azerbaijan and Kurdistan from Iran, the monarchy and its allies believed that Iran's interests lay in close ties with the West to ward off the Soviet threat. Where as Mosaddeq saw Britain as the foreign devil, they saw Britain and its imperialism as the lesser evil. ..." (p.53, Democracy in Iran: history and the quest for liberty, By Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Oxford University Press, 2006.

--BoogaLouie (talk) 20:29, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposed subsection

Iranian coup supporters

Iranian opponents of Mosaddeq have been described as including "religious leaders and preachers and their followers, as well as landlords and provincial magnates"; "conservative politicians such as prime ministers Ahmad Qavam and General Ali Razmara .... and commanders of the military, most notably General Fazlollah Zahedi ... led by the Shah." They have been described as forces that would "have been crippled without substantial British and later U.S. support," while authors Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr say "it would be mistaken to view the coup as entirely a foreign instigation with no support" in Iran.

Observers differ on the opponents motivation for supporting the coup. Mark J. Gasiorowski describes them as "very ambitious and opportunistic." Another author calls Mosaddeq's Iranian opponents elites "determined to retrieve their endangered interests and influence, and unconcerned with the lasting damage to Iranian patriotic sensibilities and democratic aspirations." Money was involved with the US CIA paying out $150,000 after March 1953 to "journalists, editors, preachers, and opinion members", giving Zahedi $135,000 to "win additional friends", and paying members of the majlis $11,000 a week.

Other authors (Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr) describe the opponents as agreeing with Mosaddeq that the "British position was unjust and illegal," but believing that after the 1946 attempt by the Soviets to separate Azerbaijan and Kurdistan from Iran, "Iran's interests lay in close ties with the West to ward off the Soviet threat." --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Comments

• Actually the article currently dismisses Iranian opposition/coup supporters as Nazis, Nazis, hard-core Nazis, mobsters, prostitutes and thugs. Yeah, a little balance is needed here. LoveUxoxo (talk) 22:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
  [moved this comment from above to put in comment section]

I agree completely with the comments of Rich and Noleander below. LoveUxoxo (talk) 01:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• There should be such a section, I think, and really the position of all major groups is worth documenting, as those that chose to stand to one side also had an effect on the outcome. Ideally these should be woven through the article, but as it stands a new section would be an substantial improvement over glossing the concepts completely. I do also note that the chronological flow of the article breaks up at the end of the post-war section and the beginning of the 1950s section. Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC).
  
• Question: I'm not familiar with the subject, so regarding Gheissari and Nasr, how controversial are they? As far as random, anonymous "reviews" on teh internetz go, I thought this was quite interesting regarding the source material: LoveUxoxo (talk) 22:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Must be read with a grain of salt, as it's written by two "democracy means the rise of the middle class" political scientists who cite Huntington and Fukuyama without irony. With that said, I have found no more comprehensive treatment of Iranian political economy over the course of the 20th century. Unfortunately, this is what Dabashi's new book should've been, minus Gheissari & Nasr's repugnant politics.[1]

• Reply: Here are some reviews, or abstracts of reviews: (no mention of "repugnant politics" I could find.)
  • In the first instance, the authors identify both the heavy-handed developmentalist ideology of Reza Shah and his son, forever placing "order and progress" before any decentralization of power, and also the impact of Left thought on the Islamic and secular opposition to the Pahlavi monarchy, as sidetracking the intellectual milieu of two generations of Iranians away from democratic principles.
    review of Democracy in Iran by Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr. from Harris, Kevan. The Middle East Journal 64. 4 (Autumn 2010): 660-662.
  • This book treats the last century of Iranian history, organized around the theme of how the country "has responded to the challenge of balancing state-building with democracy-building." The point of departure is the era that brought into being the 1906 constitution and ended five years later with the Russian occupation and the reversal of reforms. This period of promise followed by setback serves to illustrate that Iran has long wrestled with issues of representation and constitutionalism, and it continues to do so today. At the same time, Iran has been caught up in the task of putting in place a modern and strong state. There were many more ups and downs in that search for a balance between strength and democracy through the time of the Pahlavis, ending in 1979, and thereafter during the Islamic Republic. This thematic framework for making sense of the complex interplay of rulers and ruled, ideologies and material interests, provides a perceptive interpretation of Iran's past century.
    review of Democracy in Iran by Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr. from Brown, L. Foreign Affairs, 86. 2 (Mar/Apr 2007): 178.
  • Iran's march toward building a democratic system is at least a century old. In fact, the country's constitutional revolution of 1906 represented the first modern efforts by the Iranian people to build a democratic society and hold leaders accountable for their actions. Although the goal of establishing democracy in Iran has yet to be achieved, political developments in the country have led to the creation of a complex set of social forces that may indeed turn the Iranian people's quest for liberty into reality. In this sophisticated yet accessible volume, two scholars of Iranian origin, Gheissari (history & political science. Univ. of San Diego; Iranian Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century) and Nasr (Middle East politics. Naval Postgraduate Sch.; The Shut Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future), trace the trials and tribulations of state building and democratization in Iran over the past century. Utilizing both Western and Persian-language sources, the authors place contemporary Iranian politics within a historical framework. The book's first part covers the period between 1906 and 1979, while the second part concentrates on the post-1979 period and the era of the Islamic Republic. The authors' explanations of elections as a vehicle for the distribution of power in Iranian politics and the continuing tension between state building and democratization are especially informative. Highly recommended for academic and especially public libraries.
    review of Democracy in Iran by Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr. from: Nadir Entossar, Sprint Hill Coll, Mobile, Al in Library Journal, 131. 11 (Jun 15, 2006): 87.

-- BoogaLouie (talk) 20:56, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, include motives - Yes, by all means the article should discuss the motives and goals of the opponents. I'm not much of an expert in Iran, so I cannot comment on the adequacy of the specific sources named above. Naturally, WP:NPOV requires that the motives be described in a balanced way, so make sure that sources from a variety of biases/viewpoints are incorporated. Also, consider identifying the source(s) in the article prose if the sources may be biased (see WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV). --Noleander (talk) 19:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment. Why don't I throw in an excerpt from one of the books I've cited (Democracy in Iran: history and the quest for liberty, Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr) to preempt the question of whether that source is too pro-Shah: "Economic development in Iran in the 1960s was largely based on Import Substitution Industrialization. ... it also resulted in political and economic challenges in the long run.... uneven development, rapid urbanization, and income inequality. ... bias in the ruling regime in favor of urbanization and industrialization, which prevented it from building a support base among the peasantry that had benefited from land reform ... " (p.62)
• The article absolutely should include information about the Iranians who supported the Shah. They were not minor characters, or low numbers. Their various motivations are relevant material for this article. Binksternet (talk) 02:29, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
• Opposed. The need for such sub-section is a matter of debate, which I'm open to. But the proposed changes, as they are, appear to be yet more WP:Cherry-picked quotes by BoogaLouie, to advance a certain POV that he strongly believes in, that would clearly violate WP:UNDUE. Kurdo777 (talk) 05:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • What do you mean? What are the cherry-picked quotes? What is the POV being advanced? What is UNDUE? Binksternet (talk) 05:40, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Kurdo if the proposed changes are cherry picked, where are the non-cherrypicked quotes that prove that the changes "clearly violate WP:UNDUE"?? I've asked you this over and over to no reply. --BoogaLouie (talk) 17:21, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. Dear BoogaLouie. Improving article from different aspect is good. But I see a small problem in your proposal. The sources you mentioned are talking about Opposition to Musaddiq while I see your proposal presenting something else in the name of Iranian supporter of the coup; In my opinion, presenting sources' contents identical to their authors opinions and ideas is an important point missed in your suggestion. --Aliwiki (talk) 16:08, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Not sure what you mean by "presenting sources' contents identical to their authors opinions and ideas is an important point missed in your suggestion", but if you mean that when the authors of the source (Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr) talk about opposing Mossadegh they don't necessarily mean they supported the coup, that's not true. The discussion of the opposition was in the context of the coup: Although the American CIA and the British MI6 were instrumental in the success of the coup, it would be mistaken to view the coup as entirely a foreign instigation with no support -- albeit tacit -- among various social and political groups in Iran. In many regards, the Iranian military was more important to the coup than was the monarchy.(from Democracy in Iran)
• Comment. Perhaps the proposed text could be modified somewhat; I think that the long quotes aren't necessary, and that some of these statements and positions can be paraphrased in the interest of encyclopedic style. All that said, I think the text is quite important. It is no surprise that any coup, or this in particular, made use of and involved social and political divisions within Iran, even when we accept that the coup was planned, supported, and largely executed by foreign intelligence agencies. Documenting those layers of Iranian society who supported the Shah is important from the perspective of Wikipedia's encyclopedic project, and gives support neither to the coup, nor to those who opposed or oppose it. If this section is not created, I think that it would be worthwhile to incorporate the text into the article. -Darouet (talk) 04:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I should note that BoogaLouie's proposal has no obvious political orientation, as far as I can tell, beyond describing a historical phenomenon. -Darouet (talk) 04:56, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose . As I said before, current highlighting of a group among religious leaders and some nationalist's like Nasr , as the Iranian supporters of the coup , gives weight to a relatively unimportant section compared to very powerful forces like Tudeh party and other pro-Soviet groups that at least indirectly supported the coup.If the balance between forces is correctly mentioned in the section , I think the subsection would be of use in the article .--Alborz Fallah (talk) 09:06, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for link to the previous discussion. It seems from that discussion, and this one, that consensus would entail describing the Tudeh Party's failure to mobilize against the coup, along with including BoogaLouie's material. -Darouet (talk) 20:47, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

• Yes and this should be obvious. I've always posited that the story as told by some that Mossadegh had virtually unanimous support and his pro-Shah oppositions' motivation was being purchased for a pittance by CIA handled US dollars is really an insult to the Iranian people, portraying them as a nation who would see a treasonous minority upset the majority through cheap treachery. It's not balanced viewpioint and borders on the absurd. I understand Mossadegh himself later conceded it was his own disastrous policies that led to his downfall, surely as they unfolded the people would have been upset that they weren't going as well as they'd hoped. Batvette (talk) 02:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the proposed edits are neither blaming Mossadegh's policies nor justifying his overthrow; they are merely pointing out that certain sections of Iranian society, which was large and complex, supported the coup. This always happens when there's a coup, for better or worse. -Darouet (talk) 23:49, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, but to clarify my comment was not so much to blame Mossadegh as offer there would have been sound rationale for Iranians to oppose him, if it were seen that his policies were not the success story they believed they'd be. Batvette (talk) 00:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Adding subsection about "Long-term Effects"

I'm proposing adding subsection about the "Long-term Effects" of the coup. Most historians and scholars who discuss the coup, also debate the long-term effects of the coup on Iranian civil life, Shah's militarization and radicalization of the Iranian society which led to the 1979 revolution, Shah's human rights abuses, the long-term effects on Iranians' push for democracy, as well as the unintended consequences for America in the region. This video sumps it all up. I propose a sub-section discussing those details. Kurdo777 (talk) 05:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

RfC Comments

• Comments - Sure, that sounds like a good idea. It is common in articles on major events to have sections on "aftermath" or "impact" or "legacy" or "consequences" etc. For example, see the section 9/11_attacks#Long-term_effects. The key requirement, of course, is that you utilize WP:Reliable sources which specifically discuss the "long term effects". I suspect (though I'm no expert in the Middle East) that the long term effects include things like (a) impact to internal politics within Iran; (b) impact to relationships with other Middle Eastern countries; and (c) impact to relationship between US and Iran. If the effect/impact is in any way controversial, be sure to take extra efforts to keep it neutral, as required by the WP:NPOV policy. After you finish the draft text for the section (it looks like you will be doing so, above), notify me and I'll review it, if you want. --Noleander (talk) 21:17, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Again agree with Noleander's comment above, maybe even more strongly: this section is critical. "Legacy" maybe the best title(?), and my American bias has (c) above as aspect I am most interested in - Americans know almost nothing of this (although Obama did directly acknowledge American involvement in the coup a few years back IIRC). However the current state of the article ensures that no American will learn more about these events from Wikipedia, because the article is totally unreadable. Don't let the page view stats fool you: as soon as any given reader sees that morbidly obese Lede and then an extended novella on background THEY TUNE OUT. LoveUxoxo (talk) 01:09, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I still suggest the article be restricted to the direct topic of the article. (see Archive 14, Archive 13, etc.) If we recognize the bloating of the lede, and the all-encompassing nature of accusations, it is clear the current article is non-utile. If one wishes articles coviring the "legacy" then by all means start such an article - bloating this one like a Macy's balloon does not help. My original proposal for the lede in April is at [2]. Note that it removed absolutely no content from the article. Collect (talk) 12:56, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

@Collect: The WP guidelines on sub-topic articles are WP:CONTENT FORK and WP:SUMMARY STYLE. The say that the top-level article is created first, and then - when it gets too large - the sub-topics are split out as new articles. They also suggest that a section remain in the top-level article after sub-topics are split out. So for this article we should (1) add Legacy section to this article; (2) when this article gets too large, create the Legacy article (but keep a Legacy section in this article). The size of this article is 42 kb (readable prose), which is in the mid range of the acceptable sizes posited by WP:ARTICLESIZE. It is not until 100 kb that an article must be split. --Noleander (talk) 13:29, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Of course the article should discuss the aftereffects of the coup, which are many and varied. Binksternet (talk) 15:51, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support The article should cover all aspects of the coup. Darkness Shines (talk) 21:20, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support from high quality, ie: scholarly sources, that specifically cover the coup as their main object of inquiry, similarly journal articles titled along the lines, "Long term consequences of the 1953 coup" etc. Don't write it out of poor quality sources, and follow Collect's advice regarding splitting out areas that could be "over" covered into main articles of their own. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. The "Aftermath" section already contains Long-term as well as short term effects but they're not in chronological order. The problem is the article is (as LoveUxoxo says) totally unreadable and a total mess. Look at the Blowback sub-section. It comes before the Iran sub-section in the Aftermath section, but “Blowback” refers to the 1979 revolution (a long term effect), so chronologically it should come after almost everything in the Iran sub-section which talks about what happened before the 1979 revolution, ... except the last paragraph which duplicates Blowback! But the "Aftermath" section is just one of the sections that need a total overhaul.
  (I also agree with Noleander and disagree with Collect about restricting the article to the direct topic of the coup.)--BoogaLouie (talk) 17:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support--Alborz Fallah (talk) 12:54, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: the already existent section Aftermath serves the purpose. I would also suggest to move the details of the influence on each event to the respective articles, leaving only the most general notes here. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 14:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I don't see a problem with the addition of the section but fear it will only open a hornet's nest of POV agenda pushing. Whose POV will prevail, will we focus on the human rights violations of the Shah's secret police and ignore the fact that during that era Iran saw cultural and societal freedoms unheard of in any other middle east nation? Will it portray its alliance with the United States as all negative and ignore all the Iranians educated here and forget such cultural exchanges are always beneficial to humanity? Will it become a speculative fantasy of portraying what could have been with an image of Iran developing into a model of perfect democracy under Mossadegh and ignore that the repercussions they were to experience through the precedent of seizing investments by outsiders would have stifled the economic development of many similar nations for decades to come? I'm not so sure the most relevant content of the section shouldn't be what ill effects your people will suffer when you are given the opportunity to blame all the problems of your faulty political system on the relatively minor influence of outsiders. The temptation to play victim rather than face accountability for ones own faults is strong in humans, unfortunately it only holds them down and retards their own personal achievements. Batvette (talk) 02:19, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Good points. Two expert Iranian observers, Darioush Bayandor and Abbas Milani, have each written that Iranians have a higher tendency to blame foreigners, even after internal Iran-based fault or guilt is proven. Binksternet (talk) 03:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed cleanup of duplication, contradiction and bad chronology

(As usual) No consensus was reached on the last RfC, so for the last of my planned proposed changes I have tried to do some cleanup. The article has a lot of text that duplicates itself, some that contradicts itself and events that aren’t in chronological order. Below are examples and proposed changes to fix the problem. I've tried to incorporate Kurdo's complaint above.

Why this huge long exposition on all the sloppiness and terrible writing of the article instead of just cleaning up? Because the fight to give it the right political slant has totally overshadowed making a good, NPOV, balanced article, and paralyzed the process, as exampled here in the revert of a totally innocuous edit by myself. --BoogaLouie (talk) 01:04, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

change in format

At the suggestion of editor Dmitrij D. Czarkoff I've temporarily crossed out all but the first suggestion. After we are done with Post-coup management of Iran Oil Company, we can go on to the second suggestion (Eisenhower and the coup) and work down from there. --BoogaLouie (talk) 15:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

On the subject of:

Post-coup management of Iran Oil Company

(In Post World War II section you will find)

The U.S. State Department not only rejected Britain's demand that it continue to be the primary beneficiary of Iranian oil reserves but "U.S. international oil interests were among the beneficiaries of the concessionary arrangements that followed nationalization."

i.e. we were talking about what happened after the coup, long (13 paragraphs) before the section (Execution of Operation Ajax) about the coup itself, and 40 pages before section on what happened after the coup. (Note: the sentence doesn't say the concessionary arrangements were planned before the coup, and in fact they weren't.)

The "concessionary arrangements" are talked about in the Aftermath section here:

Shah agreed to replacing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company with a consortium—British Petroleum and eight European and American oil companies; in result, oil revenues increased from $34 million in 1954–1955 to $181 million in 1956–1957, and continued increasing,[113] and the United States sent development aid and advisors.

Solution: move text to appropriate section

Proposed text to be in Aftermath section. (changed text in italics):

U.S. and European international oil companies were among the beneficiaries of the concessionary arrangements that followed nationalization. The Shah agreed to replace the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company monopoly with a consortium of five American petroleum companies, Royal Dutch Shell, and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, and AIOC (now British Petroleum). Oil revenues increased from $34 million in 1954–1955 to $181 million in 1956–1957, and continued increasing,[113] and the United States sent development aid and advisors.

(note: includes text moved from Execution of Operation Ajax)

Eisenhower and the coup

(Also in Post World War II section)

U.S. reluctance to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1951, when he was elected, faded 28 months later when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House and John Foster Dulles took the helm at the State Department. "Anglo-American cooperation on that occasion brought down the Iranian prime minister and reinstated a U.S.-backed shah."[36]

This happened in the 1950s and should be in the 1950s section (separate from Post World War II section) which, in fact, ends with a sentence about the same issue:

However, in 1953, when Dwight D. Eisenhower became president, the UK convinced him to a joint coup d'état.[30]

Solution: move text to appropriate section

Iran's precoup economy

(In 1950s section you will find)

This …
the Royal Navy's blockading its export markets to pressure Iran to not nationalize its petroleum. The Iranian revenues were greater, because the profits went to Iran's national treasury rather than to private, foreign oil companies.

which contradicts this:
In mid-1952, Britain's boycott of Iranian oil was devastatingly effective. ... "Iranians were becoming poorer and unhappier by the day" and Mosaddegh's political coalition was fraying.

and this:
The British blockade of Iranian seaports meant that Iran was left without access to markets where it could sell its oil. The embargo had the effect of causing Iran to spiral into bankruptcy.

in addition the two non-contradicting statements should be together, not separated by this paragraph (which talks about events just before the coup) :

By mid-1953 a mass of resignations by Mossadegh's parliamentary supporters reduced parliament below its quorum. A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99.9 percent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against.[45]

Solution: get rid of untrue The Iranian revenues were greater ... text and move the non-contradicting statements together

Coup itself

(in Execution of Operation Ajax section is written)
As a condition for restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the U.S. required removal of the AIOC's monopoly; five American petroleum companies, Royal Dutch Shell, and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were to draw Iran's petroleum after the successful coup d'état—Operation Ajax.^{[citation needed]}

Not true. According to Stephen Kinzer (no fan of the US policy in Iran or the US oil industry) the consortium was formed after the coup. This is a paraphrasing of what he says on pages 195-6 of All the Shah's Men (2003):

With the new pro-Western Prime Minister, Fazlollah Zahedi, Iranian oil began flowing again and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which later changed its name to British Petroleum, tried to return to its old position. However, "public opinion was so opposed that the new government could not permit it." Instead, an international consortium under the nationalised name (National Iranian Oil Company) was created, with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company holding 40% of the shares. The consortium agreed to share profits on a 50-50 basis with Iran, "but not to open its books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors."

(from Anglo-Persian Oil Company#Consortium)

Solution: move text to appropriate section i.e. the Aftermath section. (see proposed text above)

Mossadegh after the coup

(in Execution of Operation Ajax section)

Gen. Zahedi replaced the deposed Prime Minister Mosaddegh, who was arrested, tried, and originally sentenced to death.[50][51] Mosaddegh's sentence was commuted to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest until his death.[52]

This happened after the coup was over. Why isn’t this in the Aftermath section?

Solution: move it

CIA documents about the coup

(The coup and CIA records section)

This long (approx. two pages) section, ostensibly devoted to telling what "heavily redacted" CIA document said about the coup (its the only section of the article devoted to just one source), is

1. little mini-article on the coup, rehashing and often duplicating the rest of the article
2. is mostly NOT devoted to CIA documents. Of the 19 footnotes in the section only 3 cite sources from, or talking about, CIA “notes” or “documents” (note 59, 61 and 62). The rest are about the coup in general.

• Some of the duplication:

• • “The coup was carried out by the U.S. administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower in a covert action advocated by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and implemented under the supervision of his brother Allen Dulles, the Director of Central Intelligence”
    

(we already know from 1950 section: “However, in 1953, when Dwight D. Eisenhower became president, the UK convinced him to a joint coup d'état.[31]”
and from Post World War II: “U.S. reluctance to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1951, when he was elected, faded 28 months later when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House and John Foster Dulles took the helm at the State Department. "Anglo-American cooperation on that occasion brought down the Iranian prime minister and reinstated a U.S.-backed shah."[36])

• • "CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt, carried out the operation planned by CIA agent Donald Wilber. One version of the CIA history, written by Wilber, referred to the operation as TPAJAX.[61][62]"
    

(we already know from Execution of Operation Ajax: “Operation Ajax's formal leader was senior CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., while career agent Donald Wilber was the operational leader, planner, and executor of the deposition of PM Mosaddegh.")

• • "During the coup, Roosevelt and Wilber, representatives of the Eisenhower administration, bribed Iranian government officials, reporters, and businessmen. They also bribed street thugs to support the Shah and oppose Mosaddegh.[63] The deposed Iranian leader, Mosaddegh, was taken to jail and Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi named himself prime minister in the new, pro-western government."

(again should be in Execution of Operation Ajax, aside from the fact it was the shah who named Zahedi PM)

• Some examples of the nothing-to-do-with-CIA-records citations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#cite_note-How_to_Overthrow_A_Government_Pt._1-62 leads to Steven Kinzer,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#cite_note-59 leads to "p.15, "Targeting Iran", by David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky, Ervand Abrahamian, and Nahid Mozaffar"

• Lack of WP:RS in section:

This paragraph:
"Iranian fascists and Nazis played prominent roles in the coup regime. Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, who had been arrested and imprisoned by the British during World War II for his attempt to establish a pro-Nazi government, was made Prime Minister on 19 August 1953. The CIA gave Zahedi about $100,000 before the coup and an additional $5 million the day after the coup to help consolidate support for the coup. Bahram Shahrokh, a trainee of Joseph Goebbels and Berlin Radio's Persian-language program announcer during the Nazi rule, became director of propaganda. Mr. Sharif-Emami, who also had spent some time in jail for his pro-Nazi activities in the 1940s, assumed several positions after 1953 coup, including Secretary General of the Oil Industry, President of the Senate, and Prime Minister (twice).”
is word for word from a short article called "The Day Democracy Died:The 50th Anniversary of the CIA Coup in Iran [2003]" which takes you to a homemade website of Dr. Masoud Kazemzadeh, i.e. not peer-reviewed and while it has footnotes they don’t provide sources for most of the assertions.

Also from the above source is this sentence in the section: “Masoud Kazemzadeh, associate professor of political science at the Sam Houston State University, wrote that Pahlavi was directed by the CIA and MI6, and assisted by high-ranking Shia clerics.[68] He wrote that the coup employed mercenaries including "prostitutes and thugs" from Tehran's red light district.”
It’s a paraphrasing this sentence in the source (Masoud Kazemzadeh's homemade website):

“Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, under the direction of CIA and MI6, and with the help of high-ranking Shia clerics, [1] anti-democratic military officers, and paid mercenary mobs composed of prostitutes and thugs from Shahr-e Nou (Tehran's red light district) attacked our democratic government and replaced it with a brutal tyranny.”
(The footnote provides backing for connections between clergy and the coup and the shah, but says nothing about mercenaries, thugs, and the red light district.)

Then, in an entirely different section (Blowback), there’s a paragraph (actually two paragraphs) on the CIA report:

“On 16 June 2000, The New York Times published the secret CIA report, "Clandestine Service History, Overthrow Of Premier Mossadeq Of Iran, November 1952 – August 1953," partly explaining the coup from CIA agent Wilber's perspective. In a related story, The New York Times reporter James Risen penned a story revealing that Wilber's report, hidden for nearly five decades, had recently come to light.” … which doesn’t have much to do with blowback anyway.

After that is a long blockquote from historian Abrahamian on how sanitized the leaked CIA report is.

Solution: Why not just have a paragraph or two talking about the records and merge the rest of the section (what Eisenhower did, who Fazlollah Zahedi was, how much money the CIA gave Zahedi, etc) with the rest of the article?

• Lack of relevance to the article or section

This blockquote:

"A historian who was a member of the C.I.A. staff in 1992 and 1993 said in an interview today that the records were obliterated by 'a culture of destruction' at the agency. The historian, Nick Cullather, said he believed that records on other major cold war covert operations had been burned, including those on secret missions in Indonesia in the 1950s and a successful C.I.A.-sponsored coup in Guyana in the early 1960s. 'Iran—there's nothing', Mr. Cullather said. 'Indonesia—very little. Guyana—that was burned.'"[73]

… seems fine for a wikipedia article on the CIA, but Guyana? Indonesia? What’s that got to do with the 1953 coup?

Solution: move to CIA article.

This blockquote:

"In early August, the C.I.A. stepped up the pressure. Iranian operatives pretending to be Communists threatened Muslim leaders with savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh, seeking to stir anti-Communist sentiment in the religious community. In addition, the secret history says, the house of at least one prominent Muslim was bombed by C.I.A. agents posing as Communists. It does not say whether anyone was hurt in this attack. The agency was also intensifying its propaganda campaign. A leading newspaper owner was granted a personal loan of about $45,000, in the belief that this would make his organ amenable to our purposes. But the shah remained intransigent. In an Aug. 1 meeting with General Norman Schwarzkopf, he refused to sign the C.I.A.-written decrees firing Mr. Mossadegh and appointing General Zahedi. He said he doubted that the army would support him in a showdown."

tells what happened before and during the coup. Why isn’t it in the US role section?

Solution: move it to US Role section

Motivation for the coup

(in U.S. motives section)

Section contains large chunks of verbage having nothing to do with why the US did what it did in the coup.

Example is this paragraph:

“Tirman points out that agricultural land owners were politically dominant in Iran, well into the 1960s and the monarch, Reza Pahlevi's aggressive land expropriation policies—to the benefit of himself and his supporters—resulted in the Iranian government being Iran's largest land owner. "The landlords and oil producers had new backing, moreover, as American interests were for the first time exerted in Iran. The Cold War was starting, and Soviet challenges were seen in every leftist movement. But the reformers were at root nationalists, not communists, and the issue that galvanized them above all others was the control of oil."[79]

Who’s Tirman? (This is the first and only time Tirman is mentioned in the article.) What do “aggressive land expropriation policies” have to do with why the US organized a coup? That the “reformers were at root nationalists, not communists, and the issue that galvanized them ... was the control of oil," was not disputed by the US administration or CIA.

In addition The paragraph interrupts two paragraphs that giving contrasting explanations for US involvement (by Ervand Abrahamian and Mark Gasiorowski) by scholars who’ve spent much time on the issue of the coup.

solution: delete it

Another example of text having little or nothing to do with the US motivation is:

“The two main winners of World War II who had been Allies during the war became superpowers and competitors as soon as the war ended, each with their own spheres of influence and client states. After the 1953 coup, Iran became one of the client states of the United States. In his earlier book, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran Gasiorowski identifies the client states of the United States and of the Soviet Union between 1954–1977. Gasiorowski identified Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Cambodia, Iran, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, South Korea, South Vietnam, Taiwan as strong client states of the United States and identified those that were moderately important to the U.S. as Greece, Turkey, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Liberia, Zaire, Israel, Jordan, Tunisia, Pakistan and Thailand. He identified Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ethiopia and Japan as "weak" client states of the United States.[85]

“Gasiorowski identified Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Cuba, Mongolia and North Vietnam as "strong client states" of the Soviet Union, and he identified Guinea, Somalia, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and North Korea as moderately important client states. Mali and South Yemen were classified as weak client states of the Soviet Union.”

So what?

Solution: delete it.

What happened after the coup

(Blowback and Iran sub-sections of Aftermath )

The Blowback sub-section comes before the Iran sub-section in the Aftermath section. But “Blowback” refers to the 1979 revolution, so chronologically it should come after almost everything in the Iran sub-section which talks about what happened before the 1979 revolution,… except the last paragraph which duplicates Blowback:

Jacob G. Hornberger, founder and president, of The Future of Freedom Foundation, said, "U.S. officials, not surprisingly, considered the operation one of their greatest foreign policy successes—until, that is, the enormous convulsion that rocked Iranian society with the violent ouster of the Shah and the installation of a virulently anti-American Islamic regime in 1979".[115] According to him, "the coup, in essence, paved the way for the rise to power of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and all the rest that's happened right up to 9/11 and beyond".[115]

Distorted:

“In 2000, Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State, said that intervention by the U.S. in the internal affairs of Iran was a setback for democratic government.[98][99] The coup d'état was "a critical event in post-war world history" that destroyed Iran's secular parliamentary democracy, by re-installing the monarchy of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as an authoritarian ruler.[“(source: BuzzFlash Reader Commentary http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/08/25_shah.html WP:RS?)

Albright didn’t say anything about destroying Iran’s democracy but the quote is duplicated with what Albright actually said in the Internationally section:

“The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. ... But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”

---BoogaLouie (talk) 01:04, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments

• support - Gee! What a great idea! --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:17, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
• Shorten by 50% or more first. Too many flowery verbs and descriptions just for a start. Dulles "took the helm"? Nope - he became Secretary of State -- etc. Collect (talk) 22:37, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Collect, your suggestion to shorten has been made before in these polls and received no support. Do you have any comment on the proposed changes? --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:08, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
    • You asked for a comment - I gave it. My comments therefore are that the changes do not shorten the article sufficiently. Excessive length does not make any article better at all. Collect (talk) 20:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: Some good suggestions there, some not-so-great ones. Which is why the editors should be commenting on the proposed cuts/deletions/changes in a case by case manner under each sub-section, as oppose to doing it in a "either or" and "take it or leave" fashion, which is what the proposal looks like. So I'd recommend creating a comment section under each sub-section above, to discuss the changes in an organized case-by-case manner. Kurdo777 (talk) 02:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I think Wikipedia policy is that new comments should always come at the end of the talk page. I suppose I could have made thses suggestions one by one but they are primarily about good writing not so much content so I put them all together. Anyone is free to to make a comment saying "I like this but not that" about the changes. --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: I would suggest incremental implementation with discussion. That is: implemented #1, discussed #1, (reverted #1 if disapproved), implemented #2. it takes more time, but is less trouble some. If we start discussing all the changes here, it will be an unintelligible mess soon. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 07:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
  • OK, I have crossed out all but the first suggestion. Any reply to the first suggestion? --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I like it, though it needs to be properly merged to the target section. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 22:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Wrote new text for target section. Now how do you like it? --BoogaLouie (talk) 15:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. "US international oil interests" gives undue emphasis on the "US" part since it is clear that the change was far more towards making the arrangements "international" that such wording implies. The main change was expanding from being primarily British to being multi-national with the US favouring multi-national companies. Any wording therefore should not emphasize the "US" part at all. Not to assert that the rest has no problems, but this is a big one. Collect (talk) 15:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
  • US oil companies were a big beneficiary but I have changed the text to accomodate Collect's complaint:

  • U.S. and European international oil companies were among the beneficiaries of the concessionary arrangements that followed nationalization. The Shah agreed to replace the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company monopoly with a consortium of five American petroleum companies, Royal Dutch Shell, and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, and AIOC (now British Petroleum).

--BoogaLouie (talk) 19:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support I like the text. When it says "Oil revenues increased..." I am assuming that is the the total for all the oil companies listed previously. Regarding Collect's concern about emphasis on US vs. other European companies, you group together the 5 US companies before the French, Dutch and British. I guess listing them in order of share of Iranian oil production would be ideal, though that would involve listed all 7 individually. Last sentence is a bit clunky. So, dunno something like this?

U.S. and European international oil companies were among the beneficiaries of the concessionary arrangements that followed nationalization. The Shah agreed to replace the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company monopoly with a consortium of eight petroleum companies including five American, one British, French and one Dutch. Revenues from Iranian oil production jumped from $34 million in 1954–1955 to $181 million in 1956–1957, and continued to increase. The United States sent development aid and advisors.

Biased article

Dear friends,

I have not read this article throughly, but it is very biased. The other side of the story is never shown and not written about, not even a one sentence has been written about the other side of the story. But this article has many problems. Let me take up some examples.

"overthrow of the democratically elected" Mossadegh was never democratically elected, but appointed by the Shah using the consitution of 1906.

"orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States under the name TPAJAX Project" There are a lot of discussion regarding this. There are two sides, those who say this happened (based on a CIA source, which should be written more clearly) and those who do not agree. Of people who do not agree are those who had part in this whole revolt. We will get back to this.

"one who relied heavily on United States support" There is no source for this. I am looking forward to see how USA supported the Shah. Using many and real sources. Is this support good or bad support? Was it food support? money support? Either don't put it in, or when you do precise it.

All of that above is just from the beginning containing of a few sentences. I do not have the time to go through the article right now. But it is biased. The other side of the story has to be taken up as well.

Why do you guys think CIA is a trustworthy source? All those who have written books etc. have gotten their source from CIA as well.

Some things I would like to see on this article:

• Opinion and sayings of Ardeshir Zahedi, whos father had a direct role in all this. See his article here: http://www.aryamehr.org/eng/19august/28mordad.htm which was originally published in The New York Times among others, and on his website www.ardeshirzahedi.org

There are many interesting things here to note, for example: "My father never had any meetings with any CIA agents. One operative has claimed that he spoke to my father in German, ostensibly during secret meetings. The fact is that the only foreign languages my father ever spoke was Russian and Turkish, not German or English." - and there we see a huge "plot hole" in CIAs documents.

• Story of Empress Farah Pahlavi, http://aryamehr.org/eng/19august/shahbanoo.htm

• Richard Helms, long time CIA director, told a BBC television program that the agency did not counter rumours of in Iran because the Iranian episode looked like a success. At the time, of course, agency needed some success, especially to counter fiascos as the Bay of Pigs.

• Even Donald Wilber, the CIA operative whose secret report has been given top billing by the New York Times makes it clear that whatever he and his CIA colleagues were up to in Tehran at the time simply failed.

• Wilbert writes: headquarters spent a day featured by depression and despair… The message sent to Tehran on the night of August 18 said that the operation has been tried and failed and that contrary operations against Mussadeq should be discontinued.

• Barry Rubin writes “It cannot be said that the United States overthrew Mussadeq and replaced him with the Shah… Overthrowing Mussadeq was like pushing an open door.”

• Mossadegh himself never blamed the Americans for his downfall. He was intelligent enough to know why his political career led into an impasse.

• Three years ago the CIA announced that almost all of its documents pertaining to the August 1953 events in Iran had been destroyed in a fire. Was someone trying to cover up the CIA’s most dramatic success story? Or did the documents burn because the good ambiance created by the Iranian myth that had been fabricated by a few individuals with a lot of imagination and very little of scruples?

• Loy Henderson , the US ambassador to Tehran at the time, makes it abundantly clear in his dispatches to the State Department that Mussadeq was overthrown by a popular uprising which started from the poorest districts of the Iranian capital. HendersonÃf(TM)s reports have been published in a book of more than 100 pages, translated into Persian and published in Iran.

There are a lot more. But I am don't have time to go into this anymore today. By posting this I hope I can start a little debate and soon change this article a little bit to make it more neutral and allow the other side to express their opinion too. That would be the best, and let the reader judge.

Take care everyone --Tondar1 (talk) 17:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I've seen it posited that what really happened here is that the CIA's activities had little to no effect on the fall of Mossadegh, it was inevitable as his policies were being revealed to have disastrous results. In the early '60's with the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation and their suspected involvement in the death of JFK, the CIA's head was on the congressional chopping block and they were in real danger of being shut down. At that time Iran and the Shah were seen as a shining success of US foreign policy, so the CIA purportedly doctored all their records and started circulating a story that they were singlehandedly responsible for the Shah's return to power, despite an amazingly small amount of resources. In any event I've tried to introduce Ardeshir Zahedi's account into this article in the past and had it ignored. I think in the interest of a fair and balanced presentation it should be included in some way. It was in fact a direct rebuttal to the NY Times piece most of this story is now dependent upon. I believe the story as it's long been promoted does the people of Iran a disservice by portraying them as weak and able to be bought for a pittance by outsiders. That is not an accurate representation of any of the expatriated Iranians I have known. Batvette (talk) 03:49, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this theory of CIA self-promotion and fabrication should be given a place of greater prominence in the article. Not only Ardeshir Zahedi but Darioush Bayandor and Abbas Milani have given due consideration to this version of events, Bayandor in Iran and the CIA and Milani in The Shah; both books published by Macmillan in the last two years, representing the latest scholarship. Binksternet (talk) 04:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies. Glad to see that I am not the only one here. I also took a look at the past discussions on this talk page and noticed that a lot of people mentioned this without progress. Those two books were interesting, I did not know about them. You can see some parts of it through Amazon website and it looks good.

Hopefully soon some changes can start happening. It is much better to start an discussion about this on the talk page before making any changes.

I also looked up Wikipedia:NPOV dispute and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Therefore I might add the neutrality dispute tag to this article after a while. But first I would prefer some discussion regarding this, especially by those who regulary update this article and made the most edits.

Take care, --Tondar1 (talk) 23:09, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

A little background on the article, Tondar. This article does not read the way it does because there is a consensus about it or satisfaction with it but because of aggressive protection of its POV, principally editor Kurdo777. However in the past Kurdo and others who like the article have not engaged in much discussion until you attempt to rewrite something, and even then all you may get is an edit summary in their revert. So A) do not think that a consensus of those discussing on the talk page means your edit will not be promptly reverted by someone with strong familiarity with wikipedia regulations. B) be prepared for some work and some exercise of patience if you want to change the article (as I am attempting to do). Good Luck, --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:27, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I am aware of that it will not be easy to change this article. I am not completely new to wiki. I have been on wikipedia for a long time even though I haven't had an account. I have also seen how hard it is to change some articles. Since I am mostly interested in the Iran articles; I have especially seen how hard it is to change those, mostly because the of 'the winners write history'.

Hopefully people will join this discussion. If they do not, they will have to blame themselves. By letting some time go from this discussion, if anything happens, this is a good thing to have. For example they can not accuse me of vandalizing or not trying to solve this by debates etc.

I wonder though: What is the best way to publish this? A new section? Bake it into the text? Any ideas?

Thanks again. I am going to wait for a bit and let time pass before making any changes to let everyone see this page. If you guys want, perhaps we can do something together. If so, we could get more people to join us, for example by writing in Iran portal pages and so on. I really hope you guys want to work together so we can create something good. --Tondar1 (talk) 22:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

EDIT: It is quite sad that the foundation of this article is solely based on CIA sources. Basically, those who orginally wrote this article accepted everything that CIA said without any kind of source criticism. Apparently CIA is the most trustworthy organization in the whole world by those who believe this really happened. --Tondar1 (talk) 22:49, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Any interested editor can:

• Change this article directly per WP:BRD.
• Propose article changes on this talk page and work to gain consensus before going 'live' with it.
• Compose a sandbox version of the article—or a section of it—in their own userspace, such as at User:Tondar1/1953Iran or wherever, then return to this talk page and point others to the sandbox with a link. Binksternet (talk) 23:17, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Hey. Yeah. I was thinking about creating a sandbox. I have a question whoever. I do not have much experience. But apparently as you can see here there are two sides. Right now the article is only taking up one side (It can be discussed if it can be called two sides really, because only one can be right, no?).. either way, if I want to start writing about the "other side" - this will mean that the whole article will break, unless I create a section in this article, and creating a little section is stupid because that will indirectly mean as if the other parts of the article based on CIA sources are more trustworthy. Do you have any ideas? In the end it will probably be editwars, unless the article is built in a way that both stories are given the same amount of room. --Tondar1 (talk) 17:53, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Tondar, I'm sure you have observed, as I have, that most of the general public and media sources who accept and promote the CIA account without question, strangely hold them in great contempt and distrust regarding any other historical event they might be involved with. Would the NY Times have published their story in 1976? Batvette (talk) 10:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Very true. --Tondar1 (talk) 17:53, 13 March 2012 (UTC)