The Iranian Coup and Revolution

Warm Up:

Directions: Use the Washington Post article below to respond to the question: 

Based on the information presented in Article 1, what can you infer about the US-
Iran relationship today? Why do you think it’s this way? 

Iran demands US ‘repent’ to accept friendly ties

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/09/13/khomeini-declares-terms-
for-freeing-us-hostages/25015807-c293-4b73-8857-2135e77a842c/ 

Iranian President says Tehran is ready to accept friendly relations with Washington if US
apologizes for past wrongs.

TEHRAN - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday his country would be ready to
establish "friendly relations" with the United States if it apologized for past wrongs.

"Our slogan is friendly relations with the whole world," he said.

That would even include "America, if it repents... and apologises for its previous interferences
in Iran, and is prepared to accept the greatness and dignity of the nation of Iran and the great
Islamic Revolution," he said.

"We are still ready to accept America's... repentance despite the fact that for years it has
done injustice to us," he told foreign diplomats in Tehran during a ceremony to mark the 40th
anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution.
During the hostage crisis at Washington's US embassy in 1979, Iranian students had
famously demanded that the US should repent in return for the release of diplomats.

The following year, the two countries cut diplomatic ties, and they have remained estranged
ever since.

In a message marking Persian New Year in March 2009, then-US president Barack Obama
reached out to the Islamic Republic, declaring: "we know that you are a great civilisation, and
your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world."

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded the next day, saying "change and
our attitude will change".

In June the same year, Obama became the first serving American president to recognise that
the US played a role in the 1953 coup that toppled Iran's elected government - but he stopped
short of apologising.

He also insisted that Iran had wronged the US, including over the hostage crisis.

The Obama administration was one of six world powers that signed a 2015 deal with Iran,
easing sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Tehran's nuclear programme.

But the detente was scuppered by Obama's successor Donald Trump, who in May last year
unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear accord and re-imposed sanctions.

Rouhani last week accused the US of being an "oath-breaker", and his hardline opponents have
repeatedly hammered the 2015 deal.
Part I: 1953 Mossdeq Coup

Directions: Use the text to explain how Iran’s sovereignty/self-determination was violated.

1952: Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.

Mohammad Mossadegh was a beloved figure in Iran. During his tenure, he introduced a range
of social and economic policies, the most significant being the nationalization of the Iranian oil
industry. Great Britain had controlled Iran's oil for decades through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
After months of talks the prime minister broke off negotiations and denied the British any
further involvement in Iran's oil industry. Britain then appealed to the United States for help,
which eventually led the CIA to orchestrate the overthrow of Mossadegh and restore power to
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.

Britain and US took from the US for their oil then made it seem like it was Irans fault
August 19, 1953: Massive protests broke out across Iran, leaving almost 300 dead in firefights
in the streets of Tehran. Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was soon overthrown
in a coup orchestrated by the CIA and British intelligence. The Shah was reinstalled as Iran's
leader.

According to Stephen Kinzer, author of the book All the Shah's Men, Roosevelt quickly seized
control of the Iranian press by buying them off with bribes and circulating anti-Mossadegh
propaganda. He recruited allies among the Islamic clergy, and he convinced the shah that
Mossadegh was a threat. The last step entailed a dramatic attempt to apprehend Mossadegh at
his house in the middle of the night. But the coup failed. Mossadegh learned of it and fought
back. The next morning, he announced victory over the radio.

Mossadegh thought he was in the clear, but Roosevelt hadn't given up. He orchestrated a
second coup, which succeeded. Mossadegh was placed on trial and spent his life under house
arrest. The shah returned to power and brutally ruled for another 25 years until the 1979
Iranian Revolution. The 1953 coup was later invoked by students and the political class in Iran
as a justification for overthrowing the shah.
Part II: Causes of Iran’s 1953 Coup of Mohammed Mossadegh

Directions: Use the news article from 1951 to summarize why the British and United States
conspired to overthrow Mohammed Mossadeq.

1951: Nationalist Mohammed Mossadegh becomes prime minister and angers the British by
wresting control of the oil industry.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/052051iran-
britain.html

Mossadeq’s immediate concern was a struggle for control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
(AIOC). By 1950, the British oil concession in Iran, which the Shah had renewed in 1949, was a
sore point in relations between the two countries. In March 1951, when Mossadeq was a
member of the Majlis {the Iranian Parliament), he submitted a bill, which the Majlis quickly
passed, nationalizing AIOC. He signed the bill into law on 1 May 1951, just three days after the
Shah appointed him Prime Minister.

Nationalization went into effect on 2 May 1951 and was made retroactive to 20 March 1951.
AIOC's nationalization brought Mossadeq and Iran into immediate conflict with Britain. The
British government owned half of AIOC' s stock and did not intend to let Mossadeq nationalize
its assets without adequate compensation as required under international Iaw.

May 20, 1951:

British Warn Iran of Serious Result if She Seizes Oil

By CLIFTON DANIEL

ONDON, May 19 -- Britain warned Iran today that any attempt to take over British oil
properties without negotiations would have "the most serious consequences."

For negotiations the British Government offered to send a mission to Teheran. A Minister of the
Government probably would head the delegation.

[The only governmental comment in Teheran was voiced by the closest associate of the present
Premier, who said, "It's the same old nonsense."]

Britain's offer was contained in a note delivered to the Iranian Government by Sir Francis
Shepherd, British Ambassador in Tehran. While it warned the Iranians against applying their law
for the nationalization of the British oil concession in Iran, it did not specify the consequences
or mention the possibility of sending military forces to safeguard British lives and property.
If the Iranians continue to refuse negotiations, Britain will file a complaint before the
International Court at The Hague, the note indicated.
That was the third alternative offered for the settlement of the dispute over the ownership of
the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the two others being negotiation and arbitration. The company
itself has applied for arbitration as provided by the terms of its agreement with the Iranian
Government.

The British note, approved by the British Cabinet and seen in advance by the United States
Government, represented another effort to bring the Iranians to the conference table.
So far all action in the dispute has been unilateral. The Iranians have forged ahead with a law to
nationalize the oil industry, rebuffing all protests, all challenges to their authority and all efforts
to persuade them to negotiate.

The British hope that if the Iranians could only be persuaded to talk they might be convinced of
the economic folly and grave political risks of trying to operate so vast and complex an industry
without the aid of British technicians, managers and financiers, and British transport and sales
facilities.

Britain's note began with an expression of regret that the Iranian Government had not
responded to Britain's earlier proposals for negotiations. It was reinforced by a plea for a
friendly settlement from the United States Government, which shares with Britain the gravest
concern about the possibility that Iranian oil, the biggest supply now available in the Near East,
might be lost to the Western powers.

Part III: 1979: The Iranian Revolution

Directions: As you read, highlight what you believe to be human rights violations occurring as
protestors resisted the Iranian Revolution.
In January 1979, Tehran was rocked by surging protests in support of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, then in exile in Paris.

Through mass arms transfers from the United States, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi built one
of the most powerful armed forces ever seen in the Middle East. His American-trained secret
police, the SAVAK, had been thought to have successfully terrorized the population into
submission during the next two decades through widespread killings, torture and mass
detentions. By the mid-1970s, most of the leftist, liberal, nationalist, and other secular
opposition leaders had been successfully repressed through murder, imprisonment or exile,
and most of their organizations banned. It was impossible to suppress the Islamist opposition as
thoroughly, however, so it was out of mosques and among the mullahs that much of the
organized leadership of the movement against the Shah’s dictatorship emerged.

Open resistance began in 1977, when exiled opposition leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
called for strikes, boycotts, tax refusal and other forms of noncooperation with the Shah’s
regime. Such resistance was met with brutal repression by the government. The pace of the
resistance accelerated as massacres of civilians were answered by larger demonstrations
following the Islamic 40-day mourning period. In October and November of 1978, a series of
strikes by civil servants and workers in government industries crippled the country. The crisis
deepened when oil workers struck at the end of October and demanded the release of political
prisoners, costing the government $60 million a day. An ensuing general strike on November 6
paralyzed the country. Even as some workers returned to their jobs, disruption of fuel oil
supplies and freight transit, combined with shortages of raw materials resulting from a customs
strike, largely kept economic life in the country at a standstill.

Despite providing rhetorical support for an improvement in the human rights situation in Iran,
the Carter administration (the United States) continued military and economic support for the
Shah’s increasingly repressive regime, even providing fuel for the armed forces and other
security services facing shortages due to the strikes.

Under enormous pressure, the oil workers returned to work but continued to stage slowdowns.
Later in November, the Shah’s nightly speeches were interrupted when workers cut off the
electricity at precisely the time of his scheduled addresses. Massive protests filled the streets in
major cities in December as oil workers walked out again and an ongoing general strike closed
the refineries and the central bank. Despite thousands of unarmed protesters being killed by
the Shah’s forces, the protesters’ numbers increased, with as many as nine million Iranians
taking to the streets in cities across the country in largely nonviolent protests. The Shah fled on
January 16, 1979, and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile two weeks later. He appointed
Mehdi Bazargan prime minister, thus establishing a parallel government to challenge the Shah’s
appointed prime minister Shapur Bahktiar. With the loyalty of the vast majority clearly with the
new Islamic government, Bahktiar resigned February 11.

While the revolution had the support of a broad cross-section of society (including Islamists,
secularists, nationalists, laborers, and ethnic minorities), Khomeini and other leading Shi’a
clerics—strengthened by a pre-existing network of social service and other parallel institutions
—consolidated their hold and established an Islamic theocracy. The regime shifted far to the
right by the spring of 1981, purging moderate Islamists—including the elected president
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr—and imposing a totalitarian system.

Exit Ticket:

Directions:
Watch the video link on the United States assassination of Qassem Soleimani under the
Trump administration in Jan. 2020. Then, explain the significance of this assassination in US-
Iranian relations. Use history to support your response.

Submit on Canvas using Text Entry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXARDOeSDyg