Dollars Talked, Once. . .Now Only Blood Will Be Heard

“Iran’s religious clerics enjoy overwhelming power and influence over the majority of the Iranian population. This is the case for two reasons. The first being Islam is a politico-religious system that blends the realities of the secular world with the holy. The second reason is the traditional role of the religious community in Shia Islam who serve as interpreters of the Quran and hadith and perform essential services for the community. For many Iranian people, the word of their Ulama members is law and since there were a significant number of these religious elites who were involved in the coup, of which there may very well have been more than we have record of, their contributions towards the outcome is immeasurable. I therefore conclude that the 1953 Coup D’état in Iran would not have been possible without the direct participation and complicity of Iran’s religious leaders backed by the leadership, guidance, finances, and organizing abilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA needed the Ulama, just as much, if not more than the Ulama needed the CIA. Were it not for the “grey” and “black” propaganda of the CIA, financial bribes offered by them, the fake phone calls to the clerics by the Tehran station, the destruction of certain Mosques, and the creation of street demonstrations, all involving and motivating the Ulama to act, the outcome in Iran may well have been a very different one. Had the CIA not had the direct or indirect cooperation of the Ulama in Iran, Mossadeq may have stayed in power, the Shah may have never had the chance to become a dictator much to the detriment of Iran’s people for 26 years. It is then conceivable that the 1979 fundamentalist Iranian Revolution, headed by Ayatollah Khomeini, would have never gained traction or been necessary in the first place. 

Perhaps the most valuable information that is provided from studying the 1953 Iranian coup is the blueprint created by the CIA and MI6 that would be replicated time and again the world over. The CIA would go on to create a pattern of covert regime change in countries all around the world. Starting in Guatemala only one year later in 1954, the CIA began an operation known as PBSUCCESS where they successfully removed the democratically elected President Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and installed military leadership which lead to the deaths of over 100,000 Guatemalan citizens.136 The CIA then moved on to the Congo in 1961 where they facilitated the removal of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the implementation of a pro-US leader. Then again where the CIA took part in creating the conditions which lead to the 1973 Chilean coup which removed President Salvadore Allende and replaced him with the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet. Indeed, as of early 2019, all the signs and symptoms of US backed regime change are present yet once again in Venezuela. The US continues to use economic warfare through sanctions and by pressuring allies into not dealing with Venezuela in order to force their hand, seemingly, and once again, for an opportunity to control their most valuable resource: oil.” – Anthony Lucey, an excerpt from, “Iranian Ulama & the CIA: The Key Alliance Behind the 1953 Iranian Coup D’état” History In The Making, Vol. 12, Article 8, January 2019.