On the 58th death anniversary of the former Iranian Prime Minister, and 72 years since the 1953 Iranian coup, Mohammed Mossadegh, often hailed the Patriot of Persia, can be remembered for the legacy he and his government left behind. Mossadegh served as Iran’s Prime Minister in the early 1950s and was responsible for the attempted nationalisation of the country’s oil, its most precious asset. Mossadegh, at the head of a newly elected nationalist government in 1951 nationalised the Iranian Oil Industry which up until then had been controlled by the Anglo-American Iranian oil company, known today as British Petroleum (BP), which since 1908 had been producing enormous revenues for London and was a key component of the British empire financial machinery.
In 1951, Mossadegh was democratically elected as head of the National Front Party and Prime Minister of Iran. In the interest of a free and independent nation, his political mandate introduced wide-ranging social reforms and the move to nationalise assets of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company on the basis that no country was independent or self-sufficient until it first achieved economic independence. This idea to nationalise Iran’s oil assets was put in motion on a participatory basis with a national bill passed through both a commission and a senate.
With the British Government having long acquired a majority stake in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company prior to Mossadegh's nationalisation movement, this step was seen as a major threat to British imperialism and created fear among American foreign policymakers who saw such liberty as potential breeding grounds for communism given the cold war era. The events that unfolded were the workings of a British-American orchestrated coup where the MI-6 and CIA intelligence services staged a series of propagated events that succeeded in overthrowing the progressive democratic government.
This crusade had also pulled in pro-Shah forces where mass protests were held with the support of the police and a pro-Shah army. A military coup and the dismantling of the government in 1953 saw Mossadegh trialed as a traitor under a military tribunal court. With much accord of British and American powers and a shrewd foreign policy to protect oil interests in the region, Mossadegh was ousted and the dictatorial regime of Mohammed Raza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran was steered into power. Many of the West’s political problems in the Middle East today can be traced back to the overthrowing of Mossadegh’s government via a military coup supported by foreign forces. One may add also that the 1979 Islamic revolution of Ruhollah Khomeini was also a consequence and after-effect of this orchestrated derailment of Mossadegh and his government.
Since 2013, declassified documents released under the US Freedom of Information Act and other sources have revealed details of Operation TPAJAX which sought regime change using anti-Mossadegh propaganda, bribed politicians and high-ranking officials which fuelled the dismantling of the government. In the modern era, US Presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have also publicly acknowledged the role of the US in the Iranian coup. Such released accounts, and with the advent of independent social media, have revealed that this toppling of Mossadegh’s democratic government was approved by the US President at the time, Dwight Eisenhower. Of course, political movements and the transformation of power in any nation are never a black-or-white affair and multiple forces are at play.
Aside from the role that the Anglo-American secret services and corrupt officials may have played in the overthrowing of Mossadegh’s government, it is now increasingly evidenced that also at play was a clerical religious nexus prompted by Ayatollah Burujardi, the highest religious authority in Iran at the time, which had conspired to bring down Mossadegh’s government. Added to the mix was the lack of willingness on Mossadegh’s part to accept the backing of Ayatollah Kashani and the Tudeh Party. Such a move would have carried the potential to save the civic-nationalist movement and would have countered the forces that led to a military coup. To suggest therefore that foreign powers only or entirely subverted Iran and Mossadegh’s elected government would be rather simplistic and ignorant of the tensions which existed between the nationalist-modernist and religious-traditionalist forces in Iran at the time.
If Mossadegh's legacy has taught Iran and its leaders anything, then it is to value sovereignty and national interest above everything else when dealing with powerful nations, even if this comes at the price of socio-political turmoil, sanctions, and earning the tag of an oppressive regime
Even though Mossadegh was sentenced to death for treason under a military tribunal while being held in jail for three years, fate would have it that he spent the remainder of his life under house arrest in his ancestral village of Ahmed Abad, where he passed away in 1967 at the age of 85.
A decade after the fall of Mossadegh in 1953, a strong-minded socialist leader, Z.A. Bhutto, was in the making next door in Pakistan. One cannot help but think that Z.A. Bhutto at some stage in the development of his political acumen, must have been inspired by Mossadegh's political ideology and resolve. Bhutto’s economic reforms and nationalisation policies in the early 1970s in the areas of education, agriculture, and banking in Pakistan bear much political and social resemblance to that of Mossadegh. The inflicted downfall of Bhutto also bears resemblance to that of Mossadegh, except that Bhutto was more ill-fated to have been sent to the gallows.
Interesting also is the similarities found in the role that the mullah brigade had to play in the toppling of both these socialist leaders. Just as Mossadegh was weakened by a religious nexus prompted by Ayatollah Burujardi, Bhutto too was outdone and diminished by the Jamat-e-Islami-led nexus of Mian Tufail Mohammed, which is insecure and threatened by Bhutto’s socialist modernisation program, appealed to the army to overthrow Bhutto’s government and afterward went onto support General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization program which changed the very fabric of Pakistani society over the 1980’s. The mullah brigade some years earlier was also responsible for the politicising and banishing of the Ahmadiyya community of Pakistan when Bhutto gave in to the demands of Jamat-e-Islami and passed a constitutional amendment declaring them as non-muslims.
The story of Mossadegh and the 1953 coup serves as a notable example to demonstrate the notion of oil driving global political change. It is also perhaps a major event in 20th-century political history that highlights the aggression of foreign policies interested in economic gain even if it means treading over democratic principles. Like the revelations of Mossadegh’s overthrowing which have come forth in the last decade, we shall hopefully witness revelations of a similar kind that may shed light on the engineering of Z.A. Bhutto’s downfall, who as a popular socialist leader of the Muslim world threatened and challenged the global imperialist order with his nationalist mindset and protectionist policies.
Intelligent nations learn from their history. And if Mossadegh's legacy has taught Iran and its leaders anything, then it is to value sovereignty and national interest above everything else when dealing with powerful nations, even if this comes at the price of socio-political turmoil, sanctions, and earning the tag of an oppressive regime. Mossadegh’s story may be one that demonstrates the meddling of superpowers in shaping other countries, but his political legacy is a much larger one that is gaining validation, especially in today’s emerging political landscape. The present-day political landscape entails the rise of populist political movements the world over and nationalist economic reforms that are increasingly becoming critical and weary of free-market economic models. These populist political movements have emerged because of decades of globalisation and financial market systems which have created social divides and have furnished enough evidence over time to suggest that only the wealthy are truly benefiting while the poor are certainly worse off. That the distribution of wealth model promised by leaders of the free market was just a façade and has failed. The masses have caught on to the follies of democracy and capitalism and are uniting in frustration.
With the rise of populist right and left parties across the political arena which are gaining popularity in countries like Sweden, Romania, Italy, Finland, the UK, France, Germany, and many others, Mossadegh’s nationalist political ideology and protectionist economic policies are being revisited and validated as populist parties seek to overhaul the free-market system, protect their national interests and aim to regain economic sovereignty. While the means of these populist parties can be seen as hate-fuelled and socially divisive, what drives them ideologically and wins them public sentiment and support at the ballot box is the agenda to protect the interests of citizens.
They offer hope to the masses that the status quo can change and things can improve for the common person. That they can shield nations from the forces of a global economic system that has crippled their livelihoods and has compromised the ability of countries to take decisions over pressing issues such as migration, technological advancement, trade policy, and widening socio-economic inequality. Playing this very tune is also what has enabled President Trump to return to the Oval Office with an overwhelming public mandate. It is an uprising up of sorts in the desire to take back control. Even if community division is the price to pay in taking on the global world order. Mossadegh’s nationalist ideology seems more relevant than ever and stands revived.