Iran: history of struggle for democracy

This is a video about prime minister Mossadeq of Iran, deposed by CIA coup d’etat.

From British daily The Morning Star:

Turbulent century

(Monday 24 July 2006)

Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty by Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr
(Oxford, £17.99)

GEOFF SIMONS reads a history of Iran’s democratic struggle.

THIS book presents a chronology of the struggle for democracy in Iran over a full century.

At the end of the 19th century, the characteristic European efforts to dominate Iran’s economy stimulated an indigenous political response that yielded the constitutional revolution of 1906.

The reform movement, the first of its kind in the Muslim world, established an accountable and representative government, creating strong state institutions while protecting the rule of law and many individual rights.

Hence, Iran achieved its first parliamentary system almost exactly 100 years ago, an event that inevitably produced a countervailing response.

On June 23 1908, various military factions combined to attack the Majlis (parliament) and to restore autocratic rule.

A year later, Tehran was regained by the constitutionalist forces and parliamentary government re-established.

There then followed decades of turmoil, stimulated, as always, by the imperial and mercenary ambitions of foreign powers – primarily Russia, Britain and the United States – the turbulent impact of Islam and the fluctuating claims of monarchy.

In 1951, a popular campaign resulted in Mohammad Mosaddeq becoming prime minister and the ratification by the Majlis of an oil nationalisation bill.

This development, curtailing the power and revenues of Western corporations, was plainly unacceptable to Washington and London.

The CIA and MI6 helped the Iranian military and monarchist elements to stage a coup against Mosaddeq’s National Front government and to restore the deposed Shah.

The 1979 anti Shah revolution: here.