British intelligence MI6 worked with the US CIA to commit this atrocity. Mohammad Mossadegh was a prominent figure in Iran’s secular democracy and resistance to colonialism. He nationalized the oil industry and implemented radical measures like land reform, social security and wealth redistribution.
His popular policies directly threatened Western interests, and the response of the US and British intelligence to Mossadegh in “Operation Ajax” is a manual that has been repeated against anti-colonial and anti-imperialist leaders of the Global South many times since.
CIA ran campaigns to portray him as a dictator
That’s a mild way to put it. They hired paid actors to pretend to be members of the communist party (part of the government coalition) and to burn private property and businesses to create unrest against communism and the coalition. They literally paid the local mafias to organise and mobilize fake parades and protests against the government (in the climate of an embargoed country with a suffocated economy that made people suffer), and bribed the religious authorities to become anti-Mosaddegh. But who puts it better than released memos directly (this one referring to Cuba, but the same deal):
“…a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government”
Imagine being so comically evil, it’s literally cartoon-villain levels
There’s also this diplomatic memo about Allende’s government.
Frei should know that not a nut or bolt, will be allowed to reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty, a policy designed for a long time to come…
Were the sanctions the type where anyone doing business with Iran would also be sanctioned regardless of their own policies?
