Operation Ajax
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Operation Ajax (1953) (officially TP-AJAX) was a covert operation by the United Kingdom and the United States to remove the democratically elected nationalist[1] cabinet of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power, to support the Pahlavi dynasty and consolidate the power of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in order to preserve the Western control of Iran's hugely lucrative oil infrastructure[2].
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[edit] Origins
The idea of overthrowing Mossadegh was originally conceived by the British. They asked President Truman for assistance, but when he refused, the British proposed the idea once again to Eisenhower who became president in 1953. The new administration agreed to participate.
Mossadegh reasoned that Iran ought to begin profiting from its vast oil reserves [3] . He took the steps to nationalize the oil industry which had previously been exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later changed to The British Petroleum Company). Britain argued that Iran was violating the company's legal rights and masterminded a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that submerged the country into a financial crisis[3].
[edit] Background
[edit] Early Oil Development
During the British imperial period known as The Great Game, Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar, the Shah of Iran, sought to partially alleviate debts he owed to Britain by granting a 60-year concession to search for oil to William Knox D'Arcy in May 1901 with terms considered disfavorable to Persia.
D'Arcy struck oil in May 1908 which was the first commercially significant find in the Middle East. Due to financial hardships, controlling interest was sold to Burmah Oil Company who incorporated the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909 to exploit this find.
The company grew slowly until World War I when its strategic importance led the British Government to acquire controlling interest in the company, essentially nationalizing British oil production in Iran, and it became the Royal Navy's chief source of fuel oil during World War I. During this period, British troops occupied strategic parts of Iran.
[edit] Post-World War I
There was growing dissent within Persia for the oil concession and royalty terms whereby Iran received 16 percent of net profits which was exacerbated by British involvement in the Persian Constitutional Revolution as well as British Empire's use of Iran to invade Russia in a failed attempt to reverse the October Revolution.
In 1921, a military coup organized by the British placed Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran. Reza undertook a large number of modernization measures, many of which were advantageous to the British such as the Persian Corridor railroads for military transportation.
In the 1930s, Nazi Germany heavily courted the Shah in order to secure access to oil. Reza terminated the APOC concession. The concession was resettled within a year, covering a reduced area with an increase in the Persian government's share of profits.
In 1935, the Shah insisted that the name Iran be used instead of Persia and, so, APOC became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).
In 1941, Britain invaded Iran, exiled the Shah, and secured both Iranian oil production and strategic railways. The British installed Reza's 22 year old son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran.
[edit] Post-World War II
In the constitutional republic of Iran, nationalist leaders were becoming increasingly popular and powerful as they sought to reduce the long-time foreign intervention in their country, including the highly-profitable oil arrangements which profited the British significantly.
A particular point of contention was the refusal of the AIOC to allow an audit of the accounts to determine whether the Iranian government received the royalties it was due. Intransigence on the part of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company led the nationalist government to escalate its demands, requiring an equal share in the oil revenues. A final crisis was precipitated when the oil company ceased operations in Iran rather than accepting the Iranian government's demands.
AIOC and the Iranian government resisted nationalist pressure to come to a renewed deal in 1949.
[edit] 1950s
In March 1951, the pro-western Prime Minister Ali Razmara was assassinated. In April, the Iranian parliament unanimously passed a bill to nationalize the oil industry, under the leadership of western-educated Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, Ph. D, who thought that nationalization was the only way to preserve the sovereignty of Iran against the intervention of the CIA and British Intelligence acting on behalf of western oil companies. By May, Mossadegh had been elected Prime Minister.
The newly state-owned oil companies saw a dramatic drop in productivity and, consequently, exports; this resulted in the Abadan Crisis, a situation that was further aggravated by its export markets being closed when the British Navy enforced a blockade around the country. Even so royalties to the Iranian government were significantly higher than before nationalization.
The United Kingdom took a case against the nationalization to the International Court of Justice at The Hague on behalf of AIOC, but lost the case. However the government of Britain, concerned about its interests in Iran, convinced the US that Iran was slowly coming under Soviet influence. This was the perfect strategy for the British since the US was in the middle of the Cold War. However, U.S. President Harry S. Truman refused to join in imperialist intervention.
After the election of General Dwight Eisenhower to President, the British successfully crafted a Communist scare to convince the American government to join them in overthrowing the democratically chosen Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, and re-establish British control of Iranian oil profits.
This overthrow was named Operation Ajax.
[edit] Planning Operation Ajax
As a condition of restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the U.S. was able to dictate that the AIOC’s oil monopoly should lapse. Five major U.S. oil companies, plus Royal Dutch Shell and French Compagnie Française des Pétroles were designated to operate in the country alongside AIOC after a successful coup.
In planning the operation, the CIA organized a guerrilla force in case the communist Tudeh Party seized power as a result of the chaos created by Operation Ajax. According to formerly “Top Secret” documents released by the National Security Archive, Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith reported that the CIA had reached an agreement with Qashqai tribal leaders in southern Iran to establish a clandestine safe haven from which U.S.-funded guerrillas and intelligence agents could operate.
The leader of Operation Ajax was Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a senior CIA agent, and grandson of the former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. While formal leadership was vested in Kermit Roosevelt, the project was designed and executed by Donald Wilber, a career contract CIA agent and acclaimed author of books on Iran, Afghanistan and Ceylon.
The operation centered around having the increasingly impotent Shah dismiss the powerful Prime Minister Mossadegh and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi, a choice agreed on by the British and Americans after careful examination for his likeliness to be pro-British.
Despite the high-level coordination and planning, the coup d'etat initially failed and the Shah fled Iran. After a brief exile in Italy, however, the Shah was brought back again, this time through a second coup, which was successful. Zahedi was installed to succeed Prime Minister Mossadegh. The deposed Mossadegh was arrested, given a show trial, and condemned to death. The Shah commuted this sentence to solitary confinement for three years in a military prison, followed by house arrest for life.
In 2000 the New York Times made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled, "Clandestine Service History -- Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran -- November 1952-August 1953." This document describes the planning and execution conducted by the American and British governments. This document is critically important to understanding the political relationship between the US and Iran today. Yet the New York Times published this critical document with the names censored. The New York Times also limited its publication to scanned image (bitmap) format, rather than machine-readable text. It was through the actions of Iranians, not the New York Times, that this document was eventually published properly -- in text form, and fully unexpurgated. The complete CIA document is now web published at http://web.payk.net/politics/cia-docs/published/one-main/main.html and http://www.payk.net/politics/mossadeq. The words "Blow Back" for the very first time appear in this document.
[edit] Outcome
On August 19, 1953, the incumbent democratic Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, was forced from office and replaced by Zahedi and the Shah was recalled.
The AIOC became The British Petroleum Company in 1954, and briefly resumed operations in Iran with a forty per cent share in a new international consortium. BP continued to operate in Iran until the Islamic Revolution. However, due to a large investment program (funded by the World Bank) outside Iran, the company survived the loss of its Iranian interests at that time.
[edit] Repercussions
Widespread dissatisfaction with the regime of the reinstalled Shah led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the occupation of the U.S. embassy. The role that the U.S. embassy had played in the 1953 coup led the revolutionary guards to suspect that it might be used to play a similar role in suppressing the revolution.
[edit] Cold war
For the U.S., an important factor to consider was Iran’s border with the Soviet Union. A pro-American Iran under the Shah would give the U.S. a double strategic advantage in the ensuing Cold War, as a NATO alliance was already in effect with the government of Turkey, also bordering the USSR.
In addition, even though the appropriation of the companies resulted in Western allegations that Mossadegh was a Communist and suspicions that Iran was in danger of falling under the influences of the neighboring Soviet Union, Mossadegh refused to back down under international pressure.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ A Very British Coup (English) (radio show). Document. British Broadcasting Corporation (2005). Retrieved on June 14, 2006.
- ^ Kinzer, Stephen; John Wiley and Sons (2003). "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (U)". Journal of the American Intelligence Professional 48: 258. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
- ^ a b The spectre of Operation Ajax (English). Article. Guardian Unlimited (2003). Retrieved on February 4, 2007.
[edit] References
- Kinzer, Stephen (2003). All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-26517-9.
- Kapuściński, Ryszard (1982). Shah of Shahs. Vintage. ISBN 0-679-73801-0.
[edit] External links
- The CIA and Iran: What Really Happened?—alternate view by Ardeshir Zahedi
- 50 Years Later—a look back at the 1953 U.S.-backed coup in Iran
- The C.I.A. in Iran—New York Times report based on uncovered CIA documents
- The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953—Provided by the National Security Archive
- Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran—new book from the National Security Archive reexamines the coup
- How to Overthrow a Government—interview with Steven Kinzer, author of All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
- All The Shah’s Men—interview with Steven Kinzer
- Review of All the Shah's Men by David S. Robarge
- A Very Elegant Coup—critique of All the Shah’s Men
- The spectre of Operation Ajax by Guardian Unlimited
