OBAMA WRONG ON IRANIAN COUP
Yes, the US instigated a coup against Iranian prime minister Mosaddeq but President Obama was wrong to assert that"the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government." Far from it, the US overthrew a wannabe dictator who came to power because his predecessor was assassinated by Islamists, yes Islamists and following an election he suspended for fear he would lose it. Does anyone in the administration have access to the internet? I found much of this on a most obscure source known as Wikipedia:
In March 1951 the Shah appointed General Haj-Ali Razmara as prime minister. Four days later he was assassinated by Khalil Tahmasebi, a member of an Islamist terrorist group Fadayan-e Islam:
Fadā'iyān-e Islam (Persian: فدائیان اسلام), also spelled as Fadayan-e Islam or in English"Fedayeen of Islam" or"Devotees of Islam", was an Iranian Islamic fundamentalist or Islamic terrorist secret society founded in 1946, by"a charismatic" 22 year-old"theology student" named Navvab Safavi. Safavi sought to"purify Islam" in Iran by ridding it of `corrupting individuals` by means of carefully planned assassinations of certain leading intellectual and political figures.
The Shah then APPOINTED Mosaddeq and the petrified"elected" Majlis (parliament) confirmed him. Safavi,t he man who enabled Mosaddeq's elevation to PM, is currently celebrated in a special stamp. That maybe the reason, Ahmadinejad demanded that Obama apologize for his removal. Obama, of course, essentially acceded to that request in his speech.
Apropos elections, in his book, Landlord and Peasant in Persia, Babak Khandani explains that members of the parliament were mainly landlords, who were elected by their peasants."The most famous of this kind of politicians is Mohammad Mossadegh, a Qajar aristocrat and a chief landlord of his era."
But back to the"democratic elections." Mosaddeq's anti-Western policies made him popular in the urban areas, especially with leftist students. He was less so in the provinces. To improve the balance in his favor, he tried to disenfranchise the peasants by outlawing votes of illiterates (yes, literacy test!). The majlis defeated his"reform" bill. What did Mossadeq do? He organized a new elections but"stopped the voting as soon as 79 deputies – just enough to form a parliamentary quorum — had been elected." The urban areas votes first. He demanded that the Majlis state that there was"foreign" manipulation of the voting. It refused. The result?
The elections were postponed indefinitely and since the Majlis refused to tow his line, Mosaddeq ruled though"emergency powers."
Well, this is certainly a version of democratically elected government Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak would recognize but before the defender of the faith, Barack Hussein Obama, no American president would. It is a small wonder, Middle Eastern liberals were so disheartened by his speech. Clearly Obama threw them under the bus.
It does get more and more crowded under the Obama bus. In addition to his own grandmother, one can find there an increasing number of democratic American allies such as Poland, Czech republic, Israel, Germany, India and France. Trust me, he has only just begun. But US anti-democratic enemies could not be more delighted. His definition of democracy suits them just fine.