The monarch wasn't installed in that there was a monarch in the Iran before 1953, and it wasn't really all that much of a democracy at the time. Its not like Iran was a well running democracy, then the US overthrew it's president and set up a monarch. I'm not defending the US's actions,just pointing out your comment seems to be implying Iran didn't have a monarch and then the US installed one. It's more like the US supported one part of the government in not undertaking necessary reforms, even though those reforms were popular, which then shifted power away from another part of the government.

The Shaw had tried to take back power that had passed to the democratically elected portion of government earlier in 1953. This was unpopular, and he was forced to flee. After the US and UK led coup removed Mosadedeq, they brought the Shaw back to Iran, and installed him as ruler. In return, the Shaw repealed the legislation that Mosaddeq had spearheaded to nationalize Iran's oil fields.

The Shaw was in exile at the time of the US and UK led coup.

You're leaving out the fact that Mosaddegh was trying to set himself up as the dictator of Iran.

In 1952, he began invoking emergency powers and arresting his opponents, and in 1953, shortly before the coup that put the Shah back in power, he dissolved the Iranian Parliament, justified by a referendum in which 99.9% of votes were in favor (probably because votes were cast in public and voters were intimidated - no fair election has an outcome like that).

That was the start of the power struggle and the CIA wasn't even involved yet. The Shah issued a royal order dismissing Mosaddegh as Prime Minister (an action legally allowed by the Iranian constitution at the time), but Mosaddegh refused to step down and arrested the commander of the Shah's Imperial Guard, who had delivered the royal order.

That's when the Shah fled to Baghdad and accepted US help. So you see, he was not in "exile" when the struggle began (in fact, he was only out of the country for a few days); he fled only after Mosaddegh arrested the commander of his Imperial Guard.

You also left out the fact that the actual coup was carried out by Iranian citizens and Iranian military forces whose leaders were loyal to the Shah.

The CIA assisted, but their role in the whole thing has been exaggerated. Some portray the CIA as an omnipotent mastermind responsible for everything that happens in the world, but usually, as in this case, they're simply taking sides in existing power struggles.

You are correct. Iran’s first attempt at a democracy was in 1905. But that was also overthrown by British influence and Islamic cleric support.

It was later in 1953 that they had pseudo democracy.

The monarchy hadn't stopped, and the Shah was still the monarch before, during and after Mosaddegh's time as Prime Minister. The Shah got more powers concentrated on him during the coup d'état, but you make it sound like the monarchy hadn't existed before 1953.

It was still a monarchy during the 1953 ousting of Shah.

The Shah was the monarch and wasn't ousted until 79.

The 1953 coup replaced the system where a democratically elected head of government, Mosaddegh, ruled under the head of state, Shah Pahlavi, with a system where the Shah appoints the head of government.

The Shah was ousted by Mosaddegh supporters in 1953 and fled all the way to Baghdad before he gained the upper hand.

Gotcha. You're right, but that requires even more knowledge of the event to understand, and I read "oust the Shah" as "dissolve the monarchy," which didn't happen until 79.

How can a monarch and a separate head of government exist at the same time? Sounds like the Shah called the shots.

Roughly the same way King Charles III is the head of state for the United Kingdom while Rishi Sunak is the head of government.

As far as I understand, King Charles exists for the purposes of being a tourist attraction, and has no power. Was it the same with the Shah?

If a monarch can overrule the “head of government”, then the head of government is not really the head, right?

No, that's not correct. The king of England has the right of Consent (as far as I understand, King's consent to bills is required), along with the veto right.

That's the idea of a functional constitutional monarchy: the long-reigning monarch counterweights the short-governing government.

> As far as I understand, King Charles exists for the purposes of being a tourist attraction, and has no power.

No, the monarchy has veto power over parliament, and has secretly used the threat of it to shape British law. Apparently most new legislation is run by the ruling monarch's office to make any changes they'd like before it hits the parliament floor for debate. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...

The Shah needed the military to help him remove the head of government in 1953. He was technically at the top, but really the prime minister held more power until the coup

King Charles has little actual power, but a ton of theoretical power. If he somehow convinced the military to back him (and he would probably need all of NATO's support) he could do whatever he wanted in the UK too.

A democracy that was turning into a dictatorship, just like under Allende, Chavez or Castillo.

And a monarchy isn't incompatible with a democracy.

Claiming that Allende was destroying democracy is totally ahistorical.

Didn't he shoot himself with a gun given to him as a gift? By a certain Fidel Castro? Who was something of a totalitarian dictator?

I mean, the leader of a democratic country having a totalitarian dictator as a dear fried doesn't prove he was plotting to destroy democracy, but it's kinda suggestive. And almost inevitably, by the time you get real proof, it's going to be too late to do anything about it.

This was the “if you can fog glass and are anti-communist we support you” era.

A lot of the bad stuff from the 20th century stems from hysterical overreaction to communism.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" might be one of the most common and yet painfully misguided pillars of statecraft.

To wit: this is a natural outcome of a belief that there are Good Guys and Bad Guys because in that case "good == !!good".

But the world is much more in thrall to Interests, which have higher dimensionality than a singular axis of Goodness, and besides, very few people (and fewer states) self-identify as "evil".

See also: "Are We The Baddies?"

There were certainly awful communists. Problem is we supported a lot of anti-communists who were no better.

Also I don’t think you can draw moral equivalence between Castro and Pol Pot. One of these was far far worse than the other.

Fierce anti-communism led to Franco, Pinochet, and Osama bin Laden. We can call it even.

Communists fought the Khmer Rouge, and these Khmers were backed by the US first.

Well, I guess since the US did a bad thing one time we'd better give these nice religious authoritarians a pass, huh?

Though I'll agree the way it's phrased in the submitted article is misleading, your comment mostly comes off as needless whataboutism.

Why do "we" (you) even think you have the right to meddle with other countries on the other side of the planet, despite an overwhelming evidence of so many instances of it going clusterfuck wrong?

What kind of chauvinism is that?

I'm not sure I said that I think the US has that right. I referred to what happened in Iran as a "bad thing."

I am criticizing the Iranian government on its own terms for being oppressive. The US's conduct doesn't enter into it, and is used a distraction and a false equivalence.

I love how people downvote this, avoiding asking themselves some tough questions and giving a straight answer.

This is not a rhetorical question: how and why do people think they have this right?

> we'd better give these nice religious authoritarians a pass

> we

> give a pass

You are clearly implying that this is somehow your (collective) business and it is up to you to "give a pass" (also implying that the contrary is an option) to a country that is world away from you.

Imagine someone in Iran/Russia/China saying "we shouldn't give a pass to the US for all the arrests and even a murder during the Capitol riots" - how would that FEEL like? I know empathy doesn't cross western cultural borders, but stepping in someone's shoes is a simple exercise.

"We" means "the Hacker News community discussing this topic."

You don't even know that I'm American. (I am, but you had no way of knowing that when I wrote my post.)

This is a website for discussing things and having opinions. That's kind of the point.

You're the one who assumed the collective pronoun was nationally based.

I am under no obligation to turn a blind eye to anybody's bad behavior simply because they live in a different country. Nor have I said anywhere that anyone else ought to treat me differently.

If a Russian person wants to critique the US response to Jan 6th, let them. I suspect there would be facts in need of clarifying if they think it's equivalent to Iran, but they're entitled to their opinion.

> You don't even know that I'm American.

I don't and I've never implied this in any of my comments, although I definitely suspected it - some cultural things really stick out, no offense.

> This is a website for discussing things and having opinions. That's kind of the point.

Yes it is, and this is me challenging you point. Don't take it the wrong way.

> You're the one who assumed the collective pronoun was nationally based.

I certainly did not, definitely not national, but rather cultural.

> I am under no obligation to turn a blind eye to anybody's bad behavior simply because they live in a different country. Nor have I said anywhere that anyone else ought to treat me differently.

Nobody is under any obligation to do anything towards anybody, obviously. I just try do deconstruct you reasoning and understand why does your whole attitude screams that this whole deal is for you (plural) to manage. No other culture does that even when people completely shit over some other countries governments. Is this just purely a linguistic thing then?

> I suspect there would be facts in need of clarifying if they think it's equivalent to Iran, but they're entitled to their opinion.

You have completely missed my point regarding stepping in someones shoes, but unfortunately I don't have much examples of other nations meddling with some western countries internal affairs tangibly enough to be representative.

You might be right that this is a cultural difference, but to me it seems like our approaches are:

Me: "Something bad is happening. We should try to stop bad things from happening and instead encourage good things to happen, even if "

You: "Something bad is happening, but because it doesn't involve me or people culturally related to me, it's none of my business."

I really don't mean this with any animus - I see why a reasonable person might take one approach or the other. And in different contexts, I might take a different approach. It's unlikely that either of us is in favor of the arbitrary detention and execution of protestors, for example, so it's a matter of what we are willing to ignore on the grounds that it's none of our business.

The things that are happening in Iran are over that line for me. I think there is a moral imperative to speak out against, and preferably to act against, actions that are bad enough to cross that line. And while the line is certainly different for different people, I think a lot of people from a lot of different cultures, including the Iranian culture itself, agree with me on this.

> No other culture does that even when people completely shit over some other countries governments. Is this just purely a linguistic thing then?

I don't think this is true. I think I could go to RT or Xinhua or the Times of India and find lots of people criticizing other countries' governments AND cultures. One of the major points that Vladimir Putin loves to make is how degenerate the West is, in his view. India is constantly dunking on Pakistan, and vice versa. Everybody criticizes everybody else.

And that's bad, but what does it have to do with oppression by Iran against its own people?

Someone says that part of the blame of what is happening in Iran lies with USA as they derail democracies that don't follow their agenda which leads to what we are seeing in Iran. Another guy said that USA might have made a mistake in the past but I replied that they are still doing the same stupid shit ie what is happening in Pakistan. Where a democracy that was taking root was derailed because the political party in power did not want to fight wars or allow other countries to use it soil for such ie USA. Now Pakistan is at a ledge where if the Pakistan military which is being supported by the US in removing a popular democratic leader. Hundreds of ordinary people were arrested and tortured but no noise from the west and they are moving towards a similar situation that is happening in Iran and US has its hands in it.

The Shah was dying of cancer, his own officials thought he was weak and vacillating

the Shah