People of Iran: YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO!

People of Iran: YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO!

Many times over many decades.

One of the most enduring lies for the past five decades, believed by not only Iranians but Westerners and the rest of the world, is that Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown by the American CIA and British MI6.

That is a lie.

True, MI6 and CIA were plotting to overthrow Mosaddegh in what they called Operation Ajax. It is also true that they sent great amounts of money into the country with which to accomplish the feat. However, their plan was amateurish at best, and the operative who took the lead in carrying out Operation Ajax knew little about Iran and less about inspiring a popular uprising, which is what actually put Mosaddegh out of office.

In truth, the operative in question, Kermit Roosevelt Jr., couldn’t have found his own arse with both hands cuffed behind his back. The plan relied on Col. Nematollah Nassiri of the Imperial Guard deposing Prime Minister Mosaddegh with an order allegedly from the Shah. The prime minister answered that only the Majlis could unseat a prime minister, then had Nassiri arrested.

With their only card played, Roosevelt and his cronies packed up and left.

That’s when the men who were really behind the coup d’etat made their move. The vanguard of the coup was led by the second and third highest clerics in Iran.

The second highest was Grand Ayatollah Abol Qasem Kashani. Kashani was a strong advocate of the power of the clergy and a former supporter of Mosaddegh. He had long been unhappy that Mosaddegh, leader of the secular democratic National Front, had kept the clergy from influencing the government.

Kashani was also unhappy about some of Mosaddegh’s program, such as voting for women and land reform. The latter was a problem for Kashani and his supporters because many of the clergy were among the largest landowners. He was also a major supporter of the Fedayan-e Eslam.

The third highest was Ayatollah Mohammad Behbehani. Behbehani was an ardent supporter of Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and of the Pahlavi dynasty whose motives need no further explanation.

The highest cleric in Iran, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Tabatabai Boroujerdi, began to turn against the Shah over some of the same reasons as Kashani, programs such as female sufferage and land reform. However, while Tabatabai Boroujerdi likely approved of their plans at least tacitly and may have even helped them covertly, he himself did not actively take part in the execution of the coup d’etat. He felt that as the sole marja-e taqlid in the country he should remain, at least visibly, above the fray.

He also forbade his chief-of-staff, a cleric of the same mindset as Kashani, to take any active part. His assistant was Ayatollah Ruhollah Moussavi Khomeini.

Once Kashani’s and Behbehani’s forces had successfully carried out their mutiny, however, and removed Mosaddegh from office under arrest, Tabatabai Boroujerdi sent congratulations to the monarch for his return to power. He sent his chief-of-staff, Ruhollah Moussavi Khomeini, to hand deliver it to the Shah in person.

The Shah later made the same mistake of miscalculating the greed and ambition of many of the clergy, and their jealousy of their prerogatives and privileges, and found himself in the same position as Mosaddegh. Deposed.

Yes, the people of the same school of thought, often the very same people, who brought to Iran the tyranny of the autocratic regime of the Shah are the same who brought to Iran the tyranny of the Islamic Republic.

Not for revolutionary change. Not for the freedom of the Iranian people. Not for the betterment of the lives of the mostazafin. Only for themselves and those like them.

As then seminarian Hossein Moussavi Khomeini (son of Mostafa, son of Ruhollah) said in August 1981, "The new dictatorship established in religious form is worse than that of the Shah and the Mongols."

He was referring to the “Golden Age” of the Islamic Republic and the ideals of his grandfather to which Mir Hossein Moussavi Khamenei, Mehdi Karroubi, Mohammad Khatami, and the reform movement advocate a return.

"Our aim is to turn enemies of the [Islamic Republic] system into critics and critics into supporters." – Saeed Hajjarian, former Vice Minister of Intelligence and National Security for Political Affairs and leading theorist and strategist of the so-called “reform” movement.

According to Abbas Milani, “Hajjarian…argued that a frontal assault on the country's bastions of power was impractical” and “called for his allies to mobilize the masses and use them as bargaining chips with Iran's rulers.”

The experience of the past two years, indeed since the Followers of the Line of the Imam who now call themselves “reformers” regained the upper hand in the regime chess game, has proven that Milani’s description is dead accurate.

When you go out, do not do so “for the likes of them”. Do so for independence, freedom, and social justice in an Iranian Republic governed by secular democracy.

Rooze ma khahad amad.