Comment by icar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by icar | Hacker News Reader

In 1953, Iran was a secular and democratic country. They had elected a prime minister who decided to nationalize the oil industry. The US didn't like this and overthrew him. They imposed a brutal monarchical dictatorship. Popular discontent led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The ayatollahs, to a large extent, existed because of US interference.

The same is true for all the instability in the Middle East, entirely manufactured by the West.

Action-reaction, cause-effect: You never know how a story will end. And after the 1979 revolution, the CIA and British MI6 provided the ayatollahs with lists of communists to exterminate, which they did. Imperialism always prefers to deal with theocracies rather than communists. https://www.declassifieduk.org/how-britain-helped-irans-isla...

> In 1953, Iran was a secular and democratic

That glosses over a huge amount of details. Calling it democratic is a huge stretch.

> They had elected a prime minister

The election of 1952 were rigged (seemingly by both sides) and not free at all. The vote was even stopped early and almost half the seats left empty.

Mosaddegh was also already in power (being appointed by the Shah) before these “democratic” elections and his reforms were already underway.

> The US didn't like this and overthrew him.

sure, US invested resources, and new government decided to take it for free by force. Why wouldn't you wrap this as original action?

This is skimming over the important details, "democratic" is really stretching it.

I also liked the idea that oh look Iran was this liberal country and whatnot but unfortunately it's just not true.

> Imperialism always prefers to deal with theocracies rather than communists.

Communist regimes are also a form of theocracy (proof can be found in the writings of any communist leader). It's just that, unlike other theocratic regimes, other countries have to deal with millions of starving refugees (because the communist faith requires banning food production or something like that, I don't know much about their religion).

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