August 19th marked the 60th anniversary of the coup in Iran which deposed prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh after he restricted the flow of oil to the West.However, it is only now, six decades on, that the CIA has finally admitted that it was behind the revolution, which was one of the most significant landmarks in modern Iranian history.

It has long been widely acknowledged that the U.S. and British authorities were behind Mossadegh’s overthrow – one factor behind the anti-Western sentiments shared by many in Iran which led to the 1979 Islamist revolution in the country.

The operation, codenamed ‘TPAJAX’, was ‘conceived and approved at the highest levels of government’, the documents – entitled ‘The Battle for Iran’ and compiled in the 1970s – reveal.

The agency admits that the coup, which saw the Shah persuaded to sack Mossadegh and replace him with Fazlollah Zahedi, was a ‘last resort’ and a ‘policy of desperation’.It took place on August 19, 1953, after negotiations between Britain and Iran over securing UK access to Iranian oil broke down.

The Central Intelligence Agency had successfully pressured the weak monarch to participate in the coup, while bribing street thugs, clergy, politicians and Iranian army officers to take part in a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh and his government. the agency released documents to the National Security Archive in which it admits that the coup ‘was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy’.

The internal dossier says: ‘It was the potential of those risks to leave Iran open to Soviet aggression that compelled the United States in planning and executing TPAJAX.’ that prospect was apparently unacceptable to the U.S., as it would lead to a Soviet backlash and the West would permanently lose access to Iran’s oil supply.

(And of course a democratically elected government had to be overthrown, because we can let those commies get OUR Oil)

Original Article Here