Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Mossadegh, a man looking after the economic interests of the people who voted him into power, did not like the fact that outside powers controlled the oil that flowed within Iran.  He decided to nationalize Iran's plentiful oil supply.

A plan was hatched to use of the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency that had been created under President Harry Truman as the successor of the Office of Strategic Services that was the government's international intelligence instrument during the World War Two period.

The most popular politician in the nation, Mohammed Mossadegh was elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1951.  His major election plank was nationalization of the only oil company operating in the nation at the time, British Petroleum, a measure implemented into law by unanimous passage by the Iranian Parliament.

As Mark Zepezauer stated in "The CIA's Greatest Hits", "Though Mossadegh offered BP considerable compensation, his days were numbered from that point on.  The British coordinated an international economic embargo of Iran, throwing its economy into chaos.  And the CIA, at the request of the British, began spending millions of dollars on ways to get rid of Mossadegh."

Archie Roosevelt, the grandson of former president Theodore, late in his life confessed his involvement in the overthrow of a leader holding the support of the majority of the Iranian people and his replacement by the reliable young Shah of Iran, Reha Pahlavi.  

In 1953, with the CIA supplying needed clout, Mossadegh was removed from office.  When demonstrators filled the streets supporting Mossadegh, the Shah fled for Rome.  

The CIA sought to restore control on the side of British Petroleum and the oil global order by providing pro-Shah demonstrators.  Some of them seized a radio station, proclaiming that Mossadegh had been deposed and that the Shah would be shortly returning.

A nine hour tank battle erupted in the streets of Tehran in a successful effort to remove Iran's popularly elected leader.  The Shah returned from Italy while Mossadegh was compelled to spend the rest of his life under house arrest.

SAVAK, the CIA-trained security police of the Shah, by 1976 was cited by Amnesty International for possessing the worst human rights record in the world.  The savage torture techniques SAVAK employed are reminiscent of what have been more recently employed by U.S. government functionaries at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Meanwhile a radical Islamic cleric living in exile in Paris awaited the right moment.  When unpopularity of the Shah and his vicious SAVAK agents reached its peak a revolution occurred and the formerly exiled Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran to take control.

So what is the complaint against Iran today? -- That it has a radical Islamic fundamentalist government.

How many analysts transport us back to the roots of change that occurred after a popularly installed leader was removed from office in a CIA-orchestrated coup?  Could there just possibly be a correlation between events of then and now?

Does the mainstream media wish to do a documentary on the CIA, British Petroleum, and the link between those events of the early fifties and what transpired in the better than two generations that transpired in Iran?