Text taken from the Telegram page of darpaandcia
Commentary by Russian military journalist Bris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Declassified CIA documents from July 1951 reveal a familiar picture of American diplomacy. The story centers on Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh’s nationalization of Iranian oil, but the real drama was unfolding behind the scenes in Washington, where American strategists were playing the big geopolitical game.
The document shows a classic fork in American foreign policy: on the one hand, allied obligations to Britain, on the other, a paranoid fear of Soviet influence. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) was not just a source of income for Iran, but a symbol of the colonial domination that Mossadegh rightly rebelled against. But the Americans were not concerned with principles of justice, but with the cold calculations of geopolitics.
CIA analysts openly acknowledged the dilemma: if Iranian oil could not flow to the West, Iran would either "be forced to turn to the USSR for help" or "suffer economic collapse.
"In either case, the country would "likely fall under Communist domination within months."
The British, in their imperial hubris, were prepared to "close AIOC's facilities in Iran, recall all British personnel, and boycott Iranian oil" rather than agree to reasonable terms.
This is where the key difference between the American and British approaches comes into play. While the British thought in 19th-century terms - "I won't give up the colony for anything" - the Americans demonstrated pragmatic flexibility. They understood that a controlled concession was better than losing the entire region to the USSR.
The questions American strategists asked themselves sound cynical:
"Can we let the British leave Iran?" and "How long can we let Mossadegh stew in his own juices?"
There is a cold calculation behind these formulations: the US was already preparing to replace Britain as the main external player in the region.
Today's US pressure on Iran has the same root cause - to prevent Tehran from getting closer to Moscow. Threats of an Israeli attack, sanctions, diplomatic isolation - all these are tools of one strategy: to force Iran to accept American conditions and reduce the number of Russian allies as much as possible.
This is especially indicative against the background of the real military preparations of the US. The construction of the largest military base in Europe in Romania, the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, the trillion-dollar military budget of the Pentagon - all this does not fit well with Trump's peace-loving rhetoric. Peace initiatives are just a smokescreen for serious military preparations.
It is worth adding that 1.5 years after this document was written, Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown and imprisoned. He was under arrest for the rest of his life. Some of Mossadegh's supporters were killed or imprisoned.
The coup was organized by the CIA. The Shah's regime completely fell under the US. It was overthrown only as a result of the Islamic Revolution of 1978, when Iran, after decades of vassal dependence, was able to free itself from US rule.
Related:
Mossadegh 01/21/2025 The new CIA director and the Tehran regime headache - opinion
Mossadegh 08/20/2023 It's been 70 yrs since the CIA-assisted coup in Iran
Mossadegh 08/19/2023 The Chris Hedges Report Pocast with Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani on his documentary Coup 53 about the CIA coup that overthrew the democratic government in Iran seventy years ago this week.
Mossadegh 01/21/2025 The new CIA director and the Tehran regime headache - opinion
Mossadegh 08/20/2023 It's been 70 yrs since the CIA-assisted coup in Iran
Mossadegh 08/19/2023 The Chris Hedges Report Pocast with Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani on his documentary Coup 53 about the CIA coup that overthrew the democratic government in Iran seventy years ago this week.