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Summary into Lead suggestion - National Geographic

The August 2008 issue of National Geographic had this to say about the coup:

Oil was at the root of a 1953 event that is still a sore subject for many Iranians: the CIA-backed overthrow, instigated and supported by the British government, of Iran's elected and popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had kicked out the British after the Iranian oil industry, controlled through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP), was nationalized, and the British had retaliated with an economic blockade. With the Cold War on and the Soviet bloc located just to the north, the U.S. feared that a Soviet-backed communism in Iran could shift the balance of world power and jeopardize Western interests in the region. The coup - Operation TP-Ajax - is believed to have been the CIA's first. (Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., Teddy's grandson, ran the show, and H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of the Persian Gulf war commander, was enlisted to coax the shaw into playing his part. Its base of operations was the US Embassy in Tehran, the future "nest of spies" to the Iranians, where 52 US hostages were taken in 1979). Afterward, the shaw, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was returned to power, commerical oil rights fell largely to British and US oil companies, and Mossadegh was imprisoned and later placed under house arrest until he died in 1967.

I think that this would be a nice summary for the intro section. It includes/combines the diverging views on this page - the argument that only the oil was responsible and the argument that Cold War mentality was to blame. So, I think it's a nice compromise and would be my suggestion as this is really, in my opinion, how the majority of the historians view the events of the coup. --RossF18 (talk) 20:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

"the shaw"? --BoogaLouie (talk) 21:24, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no question to me that the intro is too long. It needs trimming. Colipon+(Talk) 19:06, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

edits of 10-29-10

Kurdo's latest edits have a couple of problems.

• tags questioning it's neutrality and factual accuracy were removed with no discussion (and the assertion that "no evidence to support either tag")
• A number of references to the controversy over the constitutionality of Mosaddeq's referendum (giving him the legislative power of the Iranian parliament's) were deleted:
  • "Despite lacking constitutional authority to do so, and while controlling the voting, Mosaddegh submitted to voters a referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law ..." The italics words were deleted (with the criptic summary "rv POV edits")
  • Prime Minister's dismissal while he still had the confidence of the Parliament, following the conventions of the Westminster System; however, the Iran Constitution of 1906 then in force only formally prescribes "ART. 46. The appointment and dismissal of Ministers is effected by virtue of the Royal Decree of the King... ART. 49. The issue of decrees and orders for giving effect to the laws is the King's right, provided that under no circumstances shall he postpone or suspend the carrying out of such laws".

I'm sure the wording of these passages could be improved and repetition removed but the issue is important to the article. --BoogaLouie (talk) 16:54, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Do not title discussion page headers in a way that's directed at another editor. This is considered incivil, and you have been told this by several admins in the past. Please do not do it again. Kurdo777 (talk) 18:21, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

As for your false claim that "tags questioning it's neutrality and factual accuracy were removed", the dispute here has always been about the neutrality of the article, and the appropriate neutrality tag remains untouched. Factual accuracy tag is a different animal, and has no place on this article, as the basic facts (ie there was a coup in Iran in 1953) are neither inaccurate nor disputed. As for the rest of you comment about the legality/constitutionality of Shah's dismissal of Mossadegh or Mossadegh's referendum , this issue was discussed in details in the past. We will not repeat ourselves here, this game that you like to play ,ie "I will just repeat/copy-paste the same stuff/arguments every week hoping/fishing for a better reception from the community", is not going to work. Every time you do that from now on, you will simply be referred to the the archives. Kurdo777 (talk) 18:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Do not title discussion page headers in a way that's directed at another editor. This is considered incivil, and you have been told this by several admins in the past.

Well you make the edits, did you not? Where does wikipedia say it is uncivil to mention the name of the editor in a header refering to the editors edits?

As for your false claim that "tags questioning it's neutrality and factual accuracy were removed",

My mistake. It was the citecheck tag and not the neutrality tag that was removed by you. Why did you remove the citecheck tag? --BoogaLouie (talk) 19:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I did explain why the "false citations" tag is not appropriate for this article. Please pay more attention to what others have to say as well. These discussion pages are for a dialogue, not a monologue. Kurdo777 (talk) 20:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't you at least test a few citations to check their accuracy and then say "I found nothing wrong so I removed them"? --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The burden of proof is on the person placing the tag in the article. If the article does indeed "contain inappropriate or misinterpreted citations which do not verify the text", please list them one by one, and we'll either substitute the sources, or replace them with an in-line fact tag. Kurdo777 (talk) 00:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Does that mean you Kurdo can't place tags on articles without proof of their flaws? :-)

Here are some bad citations I've found so far, three in the lead and one in the rest of the article. They are pretty bad. Totally wrong or dishonest, not just sloppy.

• The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, on August 19, 1953 (and called the 28 Mordad coup d'état in Iran), was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States. Source given: Kinzer, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (John Wiley & Sons, 2003), p.166

but page 166 makes no mention of whether Mossaddegh's regime was democratic or if "intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States"' were the ones that over threw the regime. It's only five lines long and just gives a small part of the narrative of the coup talking about Colonel Nasiri's coup failing and CIA agent Roosevelt deciding "to try again".

• The crushing of Iran's first democracy launched 25 years of dictatorship under Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi, who relied heavily on U.S. support to hold on to power until he was overthrown in February 1979. Source given: ref>Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran,(Harvard University Press, 2005) ISBN 978-0674018433 p.122</ref>.

page 122 describes a December 1978 demonstration and says not one word about the coup (The book cited mentions 1953 coup twice very briefly in passing).

• With a change to more conservative governments in both Britain and the United States, Churchill and the U.S. administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to overthrow Iran's government though the predecessor U.S. Truman administration had opposed a coup. Source given: ref>U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran by Mark J. Gasiorowski (Cornell University Press: 1991) p. 74.

But a search of the book via google books http://books.google.com/books?ei=cYjZTITnFc-Snwe81b3rCQ&ct=result&id=JE3PYfjBStAC&dq=U.S.+Foreign+Policy+and+the+Shah%3A+Building+a+Client+State+in+Iran+by&q=churchill&safe=active finds no hits for Churchill, no mention of Eisenhower's role in the coup, and no mention of Eisenhower on page 74.

• In the Iranian constitutional monarchy, the Shah had no constitutional right to issue an order for the elected Prime Minster's dismissal without Parliament's consent. source Elm, Mostafu (1994). Oil, Power, and Principle: Iran's Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath, p 333. Syracuse University Press

This is stated as a fact, but the source simply states that this was Mosaddeqh's argument against the procescution at his post-coup trial. http://books.google.com/books?id=VoU4AI-yq7UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Oil,+Power,+and+Principle:+Iran's+Oil+Nationalization+and+Its+Aftermath&hl=en&ei=I4bZTI7WI6rvnQfzgdmcCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=constitution&f=false

Kurdo can you give any reason why the Template:Citecheck=April 2010 tag should not be restored? --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:51, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Hearing no reply and given the high number of bad citations I've found after checking only the lead a small part of the rest of the article, I'm going to put the tag back. --BoogaLouie (talk) 00:36, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

2010 book Iran and the CIA

A new book by Darioush Bayandor must be incorporated into the article. The book, Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mosaddeq Revisited, analyzes the coup in frank terms, and examines in great detail the unfolding historiography of the coup, how different versions, different truths and myths came into being over time. He describes how new information reached observers, each time reshaping the appreciation of what happened.

Bayandor is, according to his publishers, "currently an Iranian analyst and scholar living in Switzerland. Born Iranian, the author served as a diplomat in senior capacities in New York and Tehran in 1970s. He was the director of the regional bureau for Americas in the foreign ministry and served two Iranian prime ministers as foreign-affairs advisor. In 1980 he joined the United Nations where he headed several UN humanitarian offices in different countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. He has contributed articles to newspapers, journals and other publications in US and France." He is a reliable source, an expert source.

The book was reviewed 13 May 2010 in The Economist and 15 June in Iranian.com. It was reviewed in July/August 2010 World Affairs. It's a notable book. Binksternet (talk) 20:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

No, it must NOT be incorporated into the article. Darioush Bayandor is a royalist, who worked for Shah's regime as a deputy prime minster and acting foreign minster as well as "the regional bureau for Americas in the foreign ministry". Such partisan character who fled Iran along with Shah (and for all we know, was probably a CIA asset or agent too) is by no means a neutral observer or source on this topic. No Shah or Mossadegh minster/deputy minster should be used as a source on an impartial article. Kurdo777 (talk) 01:12, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages policy does not agree with your assessment. We as editors have to be neutral but our sources do not. Your dislike of Bayandor does not reduce his notability or expertise in the matter of the coup. I will be bringing Bayandor's viewpoint into the article as appropriate per WP:WEIGHT without replacing other viewpoints. I will be following the guideline at WP:NPOV which states that conflicting expert opinions must be not be represented as facts, that each opinion must be attributed to those who hold it. Binksternet (talk) 01:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Darioush Bayandor was the Condoleezza Rice of Shah's regime. Using him as a source here would be equivalent to using a book by Condoleezza Rice as an academic source on the Iraq War article. Kurdo777 (talk) 01:35, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Kurdo. Darioush Bayandor was a paid agent of Shah's regime. We should stick with neutral sources with no bias or conflict of interest. --Wayiran (talk) 01:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Again, it does not matter the dislike you may have for Bayandor. His highly placed positions as senior diplomat and foreign affairs adviser in and for Iran make him an expert source. This article will follow WP:NPOV to the letter, and conflicting expert opnions will be attributed. Binksternet (talk) 01:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Why can't he be identified as a "former diplomat under the Shah" or something similar? Is anyone who worked as a diplomat or equivalent level in the Shah's government a "paid agent of Shah's regime"? Was Hossein Fatemi a "paid agent of the Mosadegh regime"? As for the Condoleezza Rice analogy, Darioush Bayandor was not as high level as her, but if Rice had 30 years of post-Bush experience as an analyst and working in non-partisan areas like the UN I don't think she would be disqualified as a Reliable Source for an article on some element of American foreign policy. BoogaLouie (talk) 02:24, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The source is fine - it is published by Palgrave MacMillan. While the author is not neutral (no author is), we can expect based on the publisher that the facts would be accurate and complete and that it would provide a good summary of the various interpretations of the events as well as explaining the degree to which scholars have accepted different views. We must not however give undue weight to his own interpretations. Since his book is new and challenges previous interpretations, we must wait and see what acceptance if any his views receive. The Rice example is poor - it is hard to imagine her writing a scholarly book about events in which she participated. She would have to explain how her actions were perceived by informed opinion, and find a rational argument to defend her actions that would pass peer-review. Here is a link to the book at Amazon. You can read the beginning and see that it could be useful. TFD (talk) 03:55, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

No, the source is not fine, we use discretion when using sources. Repeating yourselves will not change anything . The day you could use a book by a former Nazi regime official, on an article about Nazis on Misplaced Pages, is the day you will be allowed to use Darioush Bayandor on a article about Shah's regime. Not going to happen. Kurdo777 (talk) 05:40, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Edits of November 12

November 12 my tag was reverted by Kurdo with the edit summary "if you removed the sources you claim do not support the citations, then why are you still adding this tag?" (i.e. ignoring my explanation above) and restoring the totally bogus cite (Kinzer, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (John Wiley & Sons, 2003), p.166) which (as explained above) says not a word about Mosaddegh government being democratically elected, or that the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States overthrew it.

Other problems

Lead

too long and unencyclopedic

The lead is one of the longer leads I've seen in wikipedia and ...
reads as though it was an essay titled, "Why the 1953 coup was unjust and predatory", rather than being an encyclopedic summary of the coup in general.

• For example, AIOC's "Iranian workers were poorly paid and lived in squalid conditions." Did the poor working conditions contribute to the coup?
• "Hossein Fatemi, was executed by order of the Shah's military court. The order was carried out by firing squad on October 29, 1953." Do we need to know the exact date of his execution in the lead?

repetitive writing

• about the Democratic-ness of the government ...
  • was the overthrow of the democratically elected government
  • crushing of Iran's first democracy
  • underhanded methods to overthrow a democratically elected government
• ... about the importance of the AIOC ...
  • the British government's single largest overseas investment
  • Britain was unwilling to negotiate its single most valuable foreign asset,

bad organization

• Lead talks about significance of the coup in two different places -- at the beginning ...
  "For many Iranians, the coup demonstrated duplicity by the United States, which presented itself as a defender of freedom but did not hesitate to use underhanded methods to overthrow a democratically elected government to suit its own economic and strategic interests", the Agence France-Presse reported.
  ... and at the end:
  The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which deposed the Shah and replaced the pro-Western royal dictatorship with the anti-Western Islamic Republic of Iran.
  ... why not in the same place?

• With a change to more conservative governments in both Britain and the United States, Churchill and the U.S. administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to overthrow Iran's government though the predecessor U.S. Truman administration had opposed a coup.
  Bad writing. This is the only mention of Truman in the lead. And why all the mention of the boycott in the lead? Did it make the coup easier? How? Could it have been by hurting the economy and undermining domestic support for Mosaddegh? Could it be there's no mention of this because it would suggest there were other reasons for the success of the coup besides CIA bribes an lies?

Bias and inaccuracy

The worst problem with the lead is in the substance:

• The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, on August 19, 1953 (and called the 28 Mordad coup d'état in Iran), was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States.
  The Coup was an overthrow "by", rather than "orchestrated by" or "organized by". It makes it sound as though CIA agents were driving the tanks and shelling Mosaddegh's house. But where is there a reliable source stating this? The use of this little preposition makes a huge difference in the article.
  • The verb Kinzer uses is "staged" ("coup d'etat staged by the Central Intelligence Agency", p.ix, All the Shah's Men, ) **Gasiorowski uses "sponsored" ("the United States-sponsored coup d'etat in Iran of August 19, 1953 has emerged as a critical event in postwar world history" "The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran" International Journal of Middle East Studies, Mark J. Gasiorowski, Page of 261-286) ]

• The U.S. spy agency tried to persuade Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to dismiss Mosaddegh, and at first he refused. The Central Intelligence Agency pressured the weak monarch while bribing street thugs, clergy, politicians and Iranian army officers to take part in a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh and his government.
  [Pressured the weak monarch ... So what did the "weak monarch" do? Did he give in? Presumably the Firman edict appointing Zahedi is how the Shah did give in to the CIA - so why no mention of it? Could it possibly be because that might make the coup sound more legitimate, more constitutional?

• At first, the coup appeared to be a failure when on the night of August 15–16, Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri was arrested while attempting to arrest Mosaddegh. The Shah fled the country the next day. On August 19, a pro-Shah mob, paid by the CIA, marched on Mosaddegh's residence.
  The mob overthrew Mosadegh? No. The mob was fought off by guards at Mosaddegh's home, it was the pro-coup military that broke Moss's defenders and made the coup successful. Abrahamian talks about he tanks led by Zahedi that won the battle at Moss's house and dismisses the mob as providing "acoustical effects" for the coup.

• In the wake of the coup, Britain and the U.S. selected Fazlollah Zahedi to be the next prime minister of a military government, and Shah Pahlevi made the appointment but dismissed him two years later.
  Not true. According to Kinzer: "A goodly number [of mid-ranking officers supporting the coup had been persuaded to join the coup by the authority of the firman naming Zahedi as prime minister." (p.180), i.e. Zahedi was designated Prime Minister before the coup took place:
  And BTW why no mention of the firman

• "Mosaddegh's supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed. ....
  The source for this is Kinzer's book (which is short on sources I might add. I believe it says: The triumphant Shah (Pahlavi) ordered the execution of several dozen military officers and student leaders who had been closely associated with Mohammad Mossadegh."). But the Iranian-born and speaking scholar Abrahamian says: "With the exceptions of Fatemi, who was executed, and Lufti, the justice minister, who was murdered, the other National Front leaders received lenient treatment - often prison terms no longer than five years."
  why no mention of this? A small matter except when added to the rest of the slant.

• The tangible benefits the United States reaped from overthrowing Iran's elected government was a share of Iran's oil wealth
  Was this a motive of the US for the coup? If so, says who? If not, why is this in the lead?

• ... as well as resolute prevention of the slim possibility that the Iranian government might align itself with the Soviet Union, although the latter motivation produces controversy among historians as to the seriousness of the threat.
  Says who? "the slim possibility that the Iranian government might align itself with the Soviet Union, although the latter motivation produces controversy among historians as to the seriousness of the threat".
  Here are 12 sources talking about fear of communism as the US motivation for the coup. One historian that I know of - Abrahamian - has questioned the seriousness of the threat. And is quoted at length in the article.

Rest of article

Concerning the article in general I haven't had time to go through the whole thing but there are ...

Omissions

World War II section talks about Anglo-Soviet invasion/occupation "In 1941, after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the British and Commonwealth of Nations forces and the Red Army invaded Iran, to secure petroleum (cf. Persian Corridor) for the Soviet Union's effort against the Nazis on the Eastern Front and for the British elsewhere"

but in the Post World War II section no mention is made of what happened to the occupation, i.e. the Iran crisis of 1946 http://en.wikipedia.org/Iran_crisis_of_1946

From Kinzer: p.65:
"Tudeh's growing power tempted the Soviet Union to make a daring strike against Iran. During World War II, the three Allied powers had agreed that they would withdraw their occupation forces from Iran six months after the end of hostilities, but when that deadline came in early 1946, Stalin ignored it. Citing vague threats to Soviet security, he declared that the Red Army would remain in Iran's northern province of Azerbaijan. When Tudeh activities there proclaimed a People's Republic of Azerbaijan, he ordered his troops to prevent Iranian soldiers from entering the province to reestablish their authority. Soon a local militia emerged, flush with weapons from Moscow. For a time it seemed that Azerbaijan might secede entirely, perhaps to join the Soviet Union or serve a jumping-off point for a Soviet move against Turkey. But Azerbaijanis remembered Reza Shah and rebelled at the prospect of another dictatorship. Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam, an exceptionally talented statesman, traveled to Moscow and managed to persuade Stalin to step back from the brink of confrontation. He withdrew his soldiers as General Schwarzkopf's gendarmes marched into Tabriz, the provincial capital. ... Jubilant Azerbaijanis celebrated by summarily executing all the Tudeh leaders they could find." (p.65-66 All the Shah's Men)

1. Elm, Mostafu (1994). Oil, Power, and Principle: Iran's Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath, p 333. Syracuse University Press
2. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19, 1987, p.261
3. Kinzer, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (John Wiley & Sons, 2003), p.166
4. Gasiorowski, p.237-9, 243
5. Mohammad Mosaddegh and the 1953 Coup in Iran, Edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, Syracuse University Press, 2004, p.xiv
6. Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, John Wiley and Sons, 2003.
7. Kinzer, Stephen, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Henry Holt and Company 2006). p. 200–201

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