An
On-Line Publication of the Anonymous Anything Society
PART TWO
OF IRAN: Petroleum and Politics
Last week, we mentioned the election in 1951 of a progressive Prime
Minister to head the civil government of Iran. Mohammad Mosaddegh
successfully persuaded the Iranian government to nationalize the entire
petroleum resources in their country in order to fund various civic
projects intended to benefit the notably impoverished people of Iran,
instead of investors in British and American Oil companies that were
operating lucrative, growing extraction operations of vast amounts of
petroleum there.
The British and American Secret services were ordered by
their respective heads of government to prevent Moseddegh’s plan from
succeeding. They did it by financing a coup that returned Iran
from being a western-style democracy to again being led by a monarch.
The cost of buying, coercing and imprisoning office holders’ in the
Iranian legislature was great but it succeeded. The American
part of the campaign was led by Allen Dulles, head of the CIA and brother
of the Secretary of State in the Eisenhower administration. Soon, U.S. and
British petroleum interests were flourishing again in Iran.
What none of the principals knew at the time was that the
handsome young man, the Shah (king), was soon to suffer the throes of
terminal cancer. Before he sought a cure in the USA, his SAVACK
secret service imprisoned and brought about the deaths of Mossaddegh and
many of his followers.
None of this escaped the attention of the religious
leaders of Iran, the Muslim clerics (Ayatollahs) who took control of Iran
and continue to do so even as I write this.
Next, we ought to review the long hostage situation,
President Carter’s failed rescue attempt, the great Iranian/Contra arms
deal and the rise of Iranian military ops throughout the region.
Finally, we hope to reiterate the danger posed by the
determination of the Ayatollahs to have ICBM’s with nuclear warheads.
I remember a song from the darkest days of America’s horrible misadventure
in southeast Asia: “It’s time to give peace a chance.”
“Those who disregard history are doomed to repeat it. “- Philosopher
George Santayana.
-Phil Richardson, Storyteller and Observer of the Human Condition.
Tommy Ross follows
his older brothers to be an apprentice in the hazardous trade of
mining coal. It is doubly dangerous, for his father has been
sent to organize a local union in a "company owned" coal camp.
"The Prosperity Coal Company" is a novel based on actual events
that occurred all across the coal belt, when America was on the
cusp of the great depression, and union wars raged.
Born
to
an addicted prostitute in a crime-ridden barrio, a man finds a
love that transcends all obstacles and opens a new pathway to
life beyond working for the Jefe of one of Mexico's brutal drug
cartels. (In English)
"A
roller-coaster
ride of subterfuge and violence through the highways and byways
of the drug trade in the US/Mexico desert borderlands."
(reader's review on Amazon)