The Fall of Mohammad Mossaegh Hist 171 Essay

Submitted By rachelmozzetta
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The
April 30, 2012
Hist 171
The fall of Mohammad Mossadegh Mohammed Mossadegh represented a very deep revolution that swept through Iran during the mid 1900s. This revolution, of course, was none other than the nationalization of Anglo-Iranian-Oil and the elimination of foreign influence. In 1953 he was overthrown from office as prime minister and sentenced to serve three years in prison as well as lifetime sentence under house arrest. Mossadegh argues that the reason for this is because he had been persecuted by his Iranians and foreign enemies because he nationalized Iranian oil and removed the economic and political influences of Britain. While his reasonings are correct, there are also many more underlying and complex reasons that had lead to him being overthrown. Other factors such as the Cold War era and the fear of the spread of communism were far more important in attributing to his fall as prime minister. In 1947 U.S. president Harry Truman proposed a foreign policy that came to be known as “containment.” This was a strategy designed in which the U.S. would essentially “contain” communism in areas that it already controlled, thus preventing the influence to further spread to other countries. The U.S. feared that if any country were to fall to the influences of communism that they would be subject to a fateful alliance with the Soviet Union which consequently would undermine the West. The American government was forced to interfere and take action against Iranian politics when Mossadegh took serious steps in nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian-Oil Company in 1947. Although Mossadegh was not a communist himself, he drew support from Iran's communist Tudeh party, which at the time, was growing in power and popularity. Another concern that many Americans had was that Britain was considering invading Iran if Mossadegh achieved his goal of nationalization. Critics warned that such an invasion would split up the free world and would produce a chaotic situation in which the Iranian government would be forced to turn to the Soviet Union for help, Truman was worried that this might bring a quick outbreak of WWIII. Because these issues surrounding Britain and Iran were occurring during the Cold War era, it only made Americans even more fearful of communism and as a result Truman’s policy of “containment” was practiced accordingly. The U.S. and Britain had slightly different interests for implementing the coup to overthrow Mossadegh. While it may appear that Britain ultimately carried out the coup because of economic ideals, there was more to it. British emissaries argued that allowing Iran to nationalize the oil company “would be widely