First of all, IMO the stuff about the CIA and Iranian oil is crap. Britain was the major purchaser of Iranian oil, not the United States. In the 50's, the United States was probably a net exporter of oil - probably still had the world's largest oil reserves. On top of that, American Companies had operating control of the World's largest oil fields, in Saudi Arabia.
Mossadegh undertook socialist action in Iran (Nationalizing the oil industry), and had as one of his major allies, the Iranian Communist Party. Just a few years earlier, the Soviet troops invaded and occupied northern Iran, setting up a puppet government, and only left because Truman threatened to go to war with the Soviet Union. Further, Truman had politically survived a revolt from progressives and communist sympathizers from the Democratic Party (as well as segregationists), and was trying to purge communist sympathizers and actual Soviet spies out of his Administration. The British may have wanted to overthrow Mossadegh to get back control of the Iranian oil industry, but my guess is that the Americans were more concerned that the Soviets not secure a warm water port with direct access to the Indian Ocean (and do to Iran, what the Soviets did in Eastern Europe).
In the early 50's the Cold War was hot enough, that tens of thousands of American troops were dying in Korea - trying to halt Soviet/communist expansionism. The idea that a Socialist/communist/Islamist dictatorship friendly to the Soviet Union be running Iran was probably deemed unacceptable.
Was the United States Imperialistic (esp. Latin America)? Sure, but Woodrow Wilson, began a change in the United States. During the Cold war, did the United States tolerate brutal regimes as long as they were anti communist? You bet. Did the United States prefer dealing with democratic governments? Yes, but for the United States, confronting communism and communist revolution was a greater priority. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, you may have noticed, that almost all of Latin America have democratic governments. That their military dictators, all were encouraged by the United States to give up power peacefully - and they did.
Indeed, the 20th Century should be remembered as the century that America sent it troops, to die around the world, fighting not for empire, but freedom. Americans troops died in the North Atlantic, the Pacific from the Artic Circle to the South Pacific, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, North Africa, Lebanon, Iraq (in the 90's), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Burma, Japan, the Philipines, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, and now again Iraq - not for expansion of an American Empire, but for the concept of spreading economic and political freedom. To now claim that now, this time, its all about oil (or in the case of Afghanistan, a gas pipeline); to me, rings hollow. |
