Oil, Power, and Principle: Iran's Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath

An impressive work of scholarship by an Iranian economist and former diplomat, this volume analyzes the events leading up to the 1951 nationalization of British oil interests in Iran by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq, and explores its consequences.? as is, first sentence is exasperatingly long? Elm shows how oil nationalization led to an Anglo-American-sponsored coup in 1954, which forced Mossadeq out of office, reinstalled the Shah, and resulted in the formation of a U.S.-dominated consortium. In his view the CIA-orchestrated coup, followed by U.S. backing of the dictatorial Shah, planted the seeds of the 1978 Iranian revolution, which in turn gave rise to Islamic fundamentalism with its doctrinaire hatred of the West. The author, who witnessed some of the 1951-1954 events described here, paints an admiring portrait of Mossadeq and his bravely uncompromising fight against British colonialism. Based on newly uncovered material, the study reveals how the CIA's dirty-tricks campaign destroyed this popular nationalist leader to make way for the Shah. Elm's book goes a long way toward explaining why Ayatollah Khomeini referred to America as ``Great Satan.'' (May)