Time To Revisit `A People's History of Iran' Again: Part 16

(All the 2012 GOP and Democratic presidential candidates in the USA—except for Ron Paul—apparently support the U.S. government’s current policy of waging economic warfare and covert war against people in Iran and threatening people in Iran with an overt US/Israeli military attack in 2012. Yet most people in the United States know little about the history of people in Iran since foreign imperialist powers began undemocratically and illegally intervening in its internal political and economic affairs in the late 19th century. But here's part 16 of "A People's History of Iran," from a few years ago--bf).

Following the Republican Eisenhower Administration’s 1953 CIA coup, all Iranian political opponents of the Shah of Iran’s monarchical government were immediately repressed. Around 3,000 Tudeh Party members, for example, were either arrested or forced into exile. By January 1954 the number of Tudeh Party members in Iran had dropped to only around 4,000 and 580 Tudeh Party members remained locked up in the Shah of Iran’s prisons.

Backed by the U.S. government, the CIA-installed Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime lasted from late August 1953 until it was finally overthrown by a mass uprising of the Iranian people in early 1979. Friendly relations with the UK imperialist government were also resumed immediately by the Shah of Iran’s government after the 1953 CIA coup in Iran. Under the Shah of Iran’s post-1953 period of rule, the Iranian government also became more closely aligned with the U.S. government and UK governments on a military level, becoming a member of the pro-Anglo-American imperialist Baghdad Pact.

With CIA and U.S. government backing, the Shah of Iran’s regime also set up a more powerful secret police force, SAVAK, to more efficiently repress the various groups that were politically opposed to the Shah of Iran’s dictatorship. By 1958, several advisers to the Shah of Iran from the U.S. were also on duty in Iran. (end of part 16)