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Every account I've read of the coup tells of how foreign diplomats and officials thought Mosaddeq was unstable. We should include something about that in the article. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 19:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
In his book Countercoup, CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt describes Secretary of State John Foster Dulles as saying `so this is how we get rid of that madman Mosaddeq`, after being shown the CIA's version of a plan for a coup. [1] Various British and American officials complained to each other that the Iranian prime minister was "impervious to reason", "a sick leader", posessing "megalomania ... now verging on mental instability," and "one of" Iran's "most sick leaders.` [2] This has been attributed to their unfamiliarity with Iranian culture and with Mosaddeq's "visionary political modus operandi" [3] but also to Mosaddeq's "inability or refusal to understand how the world looked to Western leaders." [4]
How is the documented fact that BBC Persian broadcast the go-code for the coup a "fiction work"? Why was the paragraph about BBC's role in the coup deleted? -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 20:08, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Besides the BBC article, is there ANY other source that states the BBC broadcast the go-code? I couldn't find any. If there are no other sources, then it's at best trivia.-- Work permit ( talk) 00:09, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The latest edits by BoogaLouie and Binksternet are very biased and selective. They're removing sourced information about the post-coup repression of ordinary people or BBC's role, while adding OR/POV qualifiers like how Fatemi had called for a republic, and that somehow excuses why he was mob-lynched and excuted. (this is called synthsizng) Or implying that Shah was "lenient", his agents did not torture anyone, and only killed one person after the coup (100% false, as already proven on this talk page). These edits go against WP:OR and WP:NPOV. -- Wayiran ( talk) 21:17, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
1. Mohammad Mossadegh: political biography by Farhad Dība, p, 13: "Mossadegh was sentenced to imprisonment and then house arrest at Ahmadabad. where his wife only visited."
2. Iran: the illusion of power by Robert Graham: "Mossadegh was given three years' imprisonment. He then was allowed to live in his country house near Tehran in what amounted to house arrest until his death"
3. Iran and its place among nations by Alidad Mafinezam, Aria Mehrabi, p, 29: "Mossadegh was imprisoned for three years, and lived afterward for over ten years under house arrest."
And 609 more sources saying the same thing here. The academic consensus is that he was under house arrest. Weather or not, he could visit the neighborhood grocery store in his village, is irrelevant to the fact that he was under house arrest. Aung San Suu Kyi can, and does leave her house too, under the regime supervision, but nobody has ever claimed that she is not under house arrest because of that. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 22:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
I've tagged the article for inappropriate or misinterpreted citations which do not verify the text. As we work through the article, citations should be checked to verify they reflect the text in the article.-- Work permit ( talk) 04:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
The article and the lead are now as bad as they've ever been. What was the reason for the coup? There's not one word about fear of Soviet expansion. But there is this line: "The tangible benefits the United States reaped from overthrowing Iran's elected government was a share of Iran's oil wealth.[19]"
There is a huge quote from a 1979 edition of Foreign Policy magazine
"... the shah's regime reflected American interests as faithfully as Vidkun Quisling's puppet government in Norway reflected the interests of Nazi Germany in World War II. The shah's defense program, his industrial and economic transactions, and his oil policy were all considered by most Iranians to be faithful executions of American instructions. Ultimately, the United States was blamed for the thousands killed during the last year by the Iranian army, which was trained, equipped, and seemingly controlled by Washington. Virtually every wall in Iran carried a slogan demanding the death of the "American shah."[20]
The quotation marks are screwed up, but the main problem is it was written in the heat of the 1979 revolution (`Virtually every wall in Iran carried a slogan demanding the death of the "American shah."` must have been a wall or two that didn't.) not as part of project devoted to the coup like the Kinzer or Gasiorowski books. In short its WP:UNDUE
The lead is huge and packed with excitable anti-shah prose "pressured the weak monarch while bribing street thugs, clergy, politicians and Iranian army officers .... Mosaddegh's supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed" [one was murdered one was executed] "cruel and authoritarian."
And some is just not accurate "In the wake of the coup, Britain and the U.S. selected Fazlollah Zahedi to be the next prime minister of a military government," no they planned for him to be PM before the coup. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 21:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Richard Cottam is used as a source in the lead section, to support a direct quote taken from his 1979 magazine article in Foreign Policy. Cottam is a fine source, but the 1979 article must be seen as one of Cottam's 'pop' pieces, written in a non-scholarly manner for a wider audience, at an inflammatory time. In his mid-twenties, Richard W. Cottam was a Fulbright scholar studying in Tehran for one school year 1951–1952, and after earning his PhD he wrote propaganda news pieces for the CIA in 1953, to be published in Iranian newspapers preparatory to the coup.
Cottam died in 1997 after a long career as a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh. An obituary characterized him as "a scholar of Iranian politics ... and an advocate of political liberalization in Iran." Also, "he told his superiors that the coup was a serious mistake." After the coup, Cottam was stationed at the American embassy in Tehran for two years 1956–1958 for the purpose of keeping in touch with National Front people he had befriended earlier, and to try and sway the Shah toward benevolent treatment of the NF and its liberal ideas. Among other quotes we can take from Cottam, there is this shocker:
This quote, if used, would shift the tone of the article. I believe it should be used. Binksternet ( talk) 19:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
As my header says, the lead is just horrible and depressing. Horrible for all the required citations backing up confused, stitched together, POV polemics. Depressing that not even the most basic facts can be agreed upon without citations to specific authors (much less just citations). Should we tackle it now, or should we tackle it after tackling the rest of the article? Ideally, the article will start to state objective facts (like when the coup happened) without all the bylines and quotes that the rest of the article still seems to require. At the very least, the lead should NOT introduce "facts not in evidence" in the main article.-- Work permit ( talk) 02:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
In the 1950s section is really bad. There is no mention of the big fight over the War Minister that lead to the vast increase in Mossy's power (see here) and there is an embarassing factual mistake confusing the spring/February 1952 majlis/parliament election and the 1953 referendum. Here it is:
In the summer of 1953, Mosaddegh announced a referendum on the question of whether the majlis should be dissolved and another election held. [5] Gasiorowski later wrote "The referendum was rigged which caused a great public outcry against Mosaddegh".<ref name="Gasiorowski"/> Kinzer, however, wrote that "Mosaddegh was legally entitled to take this step as long as the eighty seated members did not veto it, which they did not. He could also claim a measure of moral legitimacy, since he was defending Iran against subversion by outsiders. Nonetheless, the episode cast him in an unflattering light. It allowed his critics to portray him as undemocratic and grasping for personal power.
Kinzer's line that "Mosaddegh was legally entitled to take this step as long as the eighty seated members did not veto it," refers not to the 1953 referendum but to his shutting down voting before the provincial returns were in in the 1952 election.
What did Kinzer say about the 1953 election? That it was "a disastrous parody of democracy" ...
Mossadegh announced that he would hold a referendum on the question [of disolving the Majlis] and pledged to resign if voters did not vote to oust the existing Majlis. The referendum, hurriedly convened at the beginning of August, was a disastrous parody of democracy. There were separate ballot boxes for yes and no votes, and the announced result was over 99% in favor of throwing out the Majlis. The transparent unfairness of this referendum was more grist for the anti-Mossadegh mill. Mid-August found Roosevelt and his team of Iranian agents in place and ready to strike." (Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Stephen Kinzer, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.165)
I propose a subsection Political crises to rewrite at least part of the 1950 section. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 18:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
There is no need for a "replacement". The chronological error, can be corrected by simply switching the two sentences. I have fixed it.-- Kurdo777 ( talk) 03:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
It's well written and clear. I support adding it. Rather then its own section, it could simply replace paragraphs In the Majlis election through In the summer of 1953, . There are grammatical changes (for example, "overwhelmingly positive response). I agree the current section is poorly written, with too many hodge podge quotes.-- Work permit ( talk) 04:29, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I replaced the subsection. if there are any other facts that should be introduced, feel free to add it.-- Work permit ( talk) 08:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)O
NO, POV is when you try to push your point of view on an article, by any means possible, and that includes writing an essay using out-of-context one-lines from someone like Abrahamian to make conclusions he does not make, or citing the opinion of an unknown author like Frederick L. Shiels as a fact, or citing a primary source. Here is a list of the main issues with Booga/your proposed section:
1. Who is Frederick L. Shiels and why is his opinion presented as a fact? -- Kurdo777
2. Fadayian Islam were never a part of National Front. -- Kurdo777
3. Why is the opinion of an unknown and minor figure named Qonatabadi given any prominence? -- Kurdo777
4. Why is Abrhamian's work cherry-picked and put together, to leaf the reader into conclusions that he does not make? -- Kurdo777
5. Why is a news clip from 1950's ( a primary source) cited as a source? -- Kurdo777
Please give a satisfactory rational for to all these issues/questions raised, and get a clear consensus for these edits, before attempting to restore the questionable edits. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 21:25, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Words cannot convey my appreciation of the work, you, work permit and binksternet, have done on the article.
Here is a suggestion for a couple of sentences on the pre-coup cia mischief to be added to the Emergency powers section before the last paragraph on "Worried about the UK's other interests in Iran ..."
contributing to an unknown degree [6] to the alienation with Mosaddeq's policies was Operation TPBEDAMN, a CIA program originally designed in the late 1940s to `counter` (what the CIA called) `the vicious covert activities of the USSR.` TPBEDAMN employed both "grey propgaganda", in the form of "newspaper articles that portrayed the Soviet Union and the Tudeh as anti-Iranian or anti-Islamic, described the harsh reality of life in the Soviet Union, or explained the Tudeh's close relationship with the Soviets and its popular-front strategy;" [7] and "black" operations, such as bribes to "right-wing nationalist organizations" and religious figures, and even more unsavory actions such as "provoking violent acts and blaming them on the communists, and hiring thugs to break up Tudeh rallies." [8] By at least summer of 1952, however the Tehran CIA station had targeted not only the Tudeh but Mosaddeq and the National Front, despite the Truman administration's policy of supporting Mosaddeq. The Tehran-based CIA believed "Mosaddeq's refusal to settle the oil dispute" with the British "was creating political instability in Iran, making a Tudeh takeover increasingly likely." [9]
While Mosaddegh attempted to cope with the loss of support by interest groups and subversion by the CIA, Britain's boycott had cut off revenue to the Iranian government and devastated Iran's economy. Iranians were "becoming poorer and unhappier by the day". [10]
(the last sentence is a rewritten version of the sentence currently in the article.) The source of the information is the Gasiorowski book: Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, Edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, Syracuse University Press, 2004
(The "unknown degree" is based on this comment by Gasiorowski:
"It is not clear how much of an impact these activities or the parallel activities carried out by the Rashidians had in undermining Mosaddeq. Kashani, Baqai, Makki and other National Front leaders had begun to turn against Mosaddeq by the fall of 1952, and they had conclusively broken with him by early 1953 ... this was precisely the time in which these activities were being carried out. However, these individuals were very ambitious and opportunistic and clearly had their own motives for breaking with Mosaddeq. Although new sources of financial support and hostile articles in the press may have contributed to their decisions to turn again Mosaddeq, it seems unlikely that they were as important in this regard as the personal motives of these individuals. Moreover, the CIA officers who carried out these activities disagreed among themselves about their impact..." (Gasiorowski, p.243-4)
What do you think?
PS: Kurdo I am going to keep asking you, what is the evidence that I have written a "synthesized/POV-ridden proposed section that is a violation of WP:COATRACK"???? -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 17:44, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Replies
I restored Kennett Love's bit about voting booths, which appeared in the New York Times. It was deleted by Skywriter with the edit summary "Removing suspect primary source. CIA coup plotter admitted to heavily influencing & controlling what appeared in daily newspapers." The source article, "Mossadegh Voids Secret Balloting", is a secondary source, a newspaper article, and is quite suitable for our use. If anybody has a source saying that such voting booth practices were not employed, bring that source forward and rebut the newspaper account. Don't delete the newspaper just because its author was involved. Binksternet ( talk) 14:50, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
(unindent)Bink, if you continue to feel strongly about this, find it in one of the detailed histories written on this topic. Newspaper articles are the first draft of history and are not to be relied upon for events that occurred more than half century ago. Skywriter ( talk) 17:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
This edit re-introduces a block quote that is irrelevant to the coup and re-introduces error with the clam that the election was 1951 and not 1952. http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&diff=355547048&oldid=355473780
I intend to remove the block quote again and to correct the date again. This is an opportunity for anyone who believes this should not be done to state the factual reasons here. Thanks. Skywriter ( talk) 17:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Currently the article has no mention of the motivation of Iranians who opposed Mosaddeq. I found this (below) in a book about "the quest for democracy in Iran" since the 1906 constitution, and thought it might be summarized and added.
"The opposition to Mosaddeq, led by the Shah, conservative politicians such as prime ministers Ahmad Qavam and General Ali Razamara .... and commanders of the military, most notably General Fazlollah Zahedi (d.1963), also believed that the British position was unjust and illegal. However, they thought that Mosaddeq's idealism had led to a Don Quixote foreign policy. ..."
"Regardless of the merits of Iran's position, it was unrealistic that the country would be able to win its case; in `charging the windmill,` Iran was more likely to jeopardize its national interests. Only five years after the Soviet attempt to separate Azerbaijan and Kurdistan from Iran, the monarchy and its allies believed that Iran's interests lay in close ties with the West to ward off the Soviet threat. Where as Mosaddeq saw Britain as the foreign devil, they saw Britain and its imperialism as the lesser evil. ..." (p.53, Democracy in Iran: history and the quest for liberty, By Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Oxford University Press, 2006. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 19:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Iranian opponents of Mosaddeq have been described as including "religious leaders and preachers and their followers, as well as landlords and provincial magnates"; [11] "conservative politicians such as prime ministers Ahmad Qavam and General Ali Razmara .... and commanders of the military, most notably General Fazlollah Zahedi ... led by the Shah." [12] They have been described as forces that would "have been crippled without substantial British and later U.S. support," [13] while authors Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr say "it would be mistaken to view the coup as entirely a foreign instigation with no support" in Iran. [14]
Observers differ on the opponents motivation for supporting the coup. Mark J. Gasiorowski describes them as "very ambitious and opportunistic." [15] Another author calls Mosaddeq's Iranian opponents elites "determined to retrieve their endangered interests and influence, and unconcerned with the lasting damage to Iranian patriotic sensibilities and democratic aspirations." [16] Money was involved with the US CIA paying out $150,000 after March 1953 to "journalists, editors, preachers, and opinion members", giving Zahedi $135,000 to "win additional friends", and paying members of the majlis $11,000 a week. [17]
Other authors (Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr) describe the opponents as agreeing with Mosaddeq that the "British position was unjust and illegal," but believing that after the 1946 attempt by the Soviets to separate Azerbaijan and Kurdistan from Iran, "Iran's interests lay in close ties with the West to ward off the Soviet threat." [12]
-- BoogaLouie ( talk) 20:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Once more, we are seeing an over-reliance on huge quotes. Huge quotes are often a cop-out—they are being used in this way to present one observers words when many observers have published their words. Several problems exist with block quotes: they tend to turn off the reader, who may well skip over the quote, they take up space with a level of detail perhaps unnecessary to the article, and they present one writer as the last word. We need to chop up these quotes and do some honest copy editing. I have begun some of this work; there is more to do. Binksternet ( talk) 20:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
There is a huge US Role section which gives some background on the cold war as the US motivation. But the cold war is as much a part of the background to the coup as oil (motivation for Iran to nationalise and for the UK to plot against Mosaddeq), or Iran being "trapped between the advances of two great imperial powers." Shouldn't something about the cold war (AND the Iran crisis of 1946!!) be in the Background section? And why a huge US role section but no Iranian supporters section or UK role section? I haven't time to work on this now. More Monday. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 23:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
The following critique refers to this edit [5] which may or may not have been originally placed by this particular editor. This is material quoted directly from this edit, and then fact-checked.
In July 1952 Mosaddegh resigned after the Shah refused to accept his nomination for War Minister, a position traditionally filled by the Shah. Mosaddegh appealed to the general public for support and received an overwhelmingly positive response. citation needed (And then what happened? Did Pahlavi appoint a new prime minister. Yes. Why was this left out? Answer: non- NPOV text based on ideology not reliable sources. Street rebellions took place because the Pahlavi appointed a new prime minister. Why was this left out? Answer: same as above: non- NPOV) After five days of mass demonstrations, 29 killed in Tehran, and "signs of dissension in the army," the Shah backed down and asked Mosaddegh to form a new government (and agreed to allow the civilian government to appoint its defense minister. Why was this left out? Answer: same as above: non- NPOV) <Ref>Abrahamian p.270</ref><ref>Mackey p.187-210</ref> This was an enormous personal triumph for Mosaddegh over the Shah, and Mosaddegh capitalized on it (this is non-neutral wording that leaves out enormously significant detail. e.g. What exactly was Britain doing at the time? Why was this left out? Answer: see above: non- NPOV Was this cause and effect as the editor who entered this has written? NO Inconvenient facts that do not follow the party line are left out.) by asking the majlis for "emergency powers for six months to decree any law he felt necessary for obtaining not only financial solvency, but also electoral, judicial, and educational reforms. ("What was the context? what was going on in Iran at the time? The historians tell us but the editor who added this bunk does not. Why not? As above: non- NPOV) <ref>Abrahamian, 1982, p.273</ref> In this way, Mosaddegh dealt his opponents the Shah, the military, "the landed aristocracy and the two Houses of Parliament ... a rapid succession of blows." <ref>Abrahamian, 1982, p.272</ref>
The above makes it sound as though the PM had a spat with Pahlavi, quit, appealed to the public (which he definitely did not. According to Kinzer, he was entirely silent) and after the fictitious appeal by Mossy that is entirely made up by Wikipedia editor, rioting occurred. This is so far from the truth, it is (fill in your own metaphor). What was left out of the context made up much larger sections of the history that historians considered important--by writing extensively about it-- than what is included above. Context is crucial and the way the article now reads, in the early 1950s section is misleading and out of context.
All that is absent from the entry above explains the history of what transpired and yet, the biased view now in Wikipedia leads readers to draw very different conclusions. So long as selective facts, biased pieces of information, are entered into this article that do not tell the full story the way historians tell it, but instead the way certain editors with very strong ideological viewpoints want it to be told, Wikipedia loses credibility. Remember that the entire world can read this article and that the facts can be verified. p. 137 from Chapter 9 of Kinzer's All the Shah's Men is quoted where convenient, and then the circumstances entirely left out, making it sound as though Mossadegh was an undemocratic dictator. How did that happen? Chapter 9 has a lot of hard facts that are left out of this account. It is the view of certain people editing this article who have voiced their personal opinions that Mossy was a communist dictator. Do the historians who are the subject matter experts share that view? Absolutely not. They say Mossadegh's brief, 28-month long government is the only democracy Iran has ever known. Certain editors of this article substitute their own personal viewpoints for that of historians, reliable sources, and as a result, what transpired over those 28 months is skewed in Wikipedia beyond all recognition.
We have talked on this page about the bias certain editors have against Mossadegh and one editor even justified that bias by claiming bias brings balance to the article. No, it does not, and no, it does not meet Wikipedia criteria for neutral editing. How do we know of this bias? Easy one editor built a page with every negative remark he could find about Mossadegh and is steadily adding it to this article.
More than a year ago, the argument was about whether oil was a factor in the coup. It was a fierece fight and now, finally, the role of oil is somewhat represented. Previously it was buried in an avalanche of anti-communism. Some editors claim the primary motive was opposition to communism, and for a very long time, this article did not progress thanks to that strong ideological viewpoint. Is that non-NPOV viewpoint still a big factor in why this article is as bad as it is? Yes.
Here's an example from this talk page.
Now here, the editor wants to add text to the article and to anonymously quote the CIA in a controversial manner without identifying the source. That is a variation on highly selective choosing of what facts to include and which to leave out in order to press a non- NPOV.
The question remains. In light of the bias and the flagrant non- NPOV over a long period of time, how can anyone who does not share the non- NPOV but who reads the history books maintain wp:good faith? Skywriter ( talk) 03:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with you that a timeline -- a chronology -- would tell this story logically and factually so long as the role of all of the players is examined, unlike what exists currently. Mossadegh didn't resign because he wanted to be a defense minister. Mossadegh argued to Pahlavi that the civilian government and not the monarchy should control the Iranian military. Shortly after the popular rebellion that forced Pahlavi to fire Qavam, who was prime minister for four days, the British Navy seized the oil tanker, Rose Mary, which was carrying Iranian oil to Italy.
The book edited by Gasiorowski and Byrne (Mohammad Mossaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran) consists of analytical articles by an array of historians. The history of the coup that Gasiorowski wrote is titled U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran (Cornell University Press: 1991). As I wrote in the Bibliography section, this book, "Traces the exact changes in U.S. foreign policy that led to the coup in Iran soon after the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower; describes "the consequences of the coup for Iran's domestic politics" including "an extensive series of arrests and installation of a rigid authoritarian regime under which all forms of opposition political activity were prohibited." Documents how U.S. oil industry benefited from the coup with, for the first time, 40 percent post-coup share in Iran's oil revenue."
This book contains the most detailed explanation of the changes in foreign policy from Truman to Eisenhower administration. And I apologize for not adding it several weeks ago when I said I told you I would. Forest fires have gotten in the way.
The other most widely accepted historical accounts by scholars of this subject are:
The ready-to-eat paragraphs processed by editors on separate pages -- or at various points in the history of this talk page-- are suspect in that they are selected passages taken grotesquely out of context. The editors who created those pages have not built trust over the last few years and instead, have repeatedly attacked editors who object to the lack of neutrality in those selections, much like the paragraph I took apart at the beginning of this section. Contrary to the attacks, which I expect to begin very soon, this is not about personalities, it is about content and non-neutral additions of selected text that sides with a particular viewpoint to the exclusion of the detailed histories that tell the full story. Skywriter ( talk) 08:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
PS: What is the reference to which you refer here? "I think there's a bit too much Gasiorowski, and we should include information from Gavin and Steve Marsh's article instead"
Which citations to Gasiorowski are "too much"? What would you take out? Skywriter talk) 08:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I am restoring the original version. There was no WP:consensus for any of the POV-laden changes to the 1950's section. The section in its current form violates several Wikipedia core polices like WP:NPOV, WP:Cherry, and WP:UNDUE. Using questionable cherry-picked material and giving undue weight to a single aspect of a subject to push a POV, is not OK in Wikipedia.-- Kurdo777 ( talk) 05:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Skywriter, instead of a long rant on the non-NPOV of some editors ("NO Inconvenient facts that do not follow the party line are left out" ... "The ready-to-eat paragraphs processed by editors ... are selected passages taken grotesquely out of context. The editors who created those pages have ... have repeatedly attacked editors who object to the lack of neutrality in those selections" ),
why don't you simply put on the talk page what you think is missing from the article (e.g. mention of the new prime minster appointed by Mosaddeq), and give the sources that support it. Why don't you try to persuade editors instead of accusing them of non-neutrality? If the editor ignores you or gives a lame excuse, then you might have grounds for accusing.
I for one am certainly happy to add (at least some of) what you complained was left out of the edit. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 15:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Here you are accusing me:
- Here's an example from this talk page.
- These words are in single quotes in the above submission. `counter the vicious covert activities of the USSR.` Whose words are they? Skywriter (talk) 17:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
- Gasiorowski is quoting the CIA. --BoogaLouie (talk) 14:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
- Now here, the editor wants to add text to the article and to anonymously quote the CIA in a controversial manner without identifying the source. That is a variation on highly selective choosing of what facts to include and which to leave out in order to press a non- NPOV.
Why not just say: "You haven't made it clear that it was the CIA talking and you should."? You would be right and I would have changed it. (You did ask who it was talking but didn't complain it was important to add the source.) -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 17:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
As for
The ready-to-eat paragraphs processed by editors on separate pages -- or at various points in the history of this talk page-- are suspect in that they are selected passages taken grotesquely out of context. The editors who created those pages have not built trust over the last few years and instead, have repeatedly attacked editors who object to the lack of neutrality in those selections ... )
I've spent a lot of time pasting and typing up from stratch the quotes from books (sometimes cited by you as proof that greed for oil and not the fear of the Soviets was the motivation for the coup) in hopes that they would be helpful to the editing and prove the points I thought were lacking in the article. Same with the proposed revised article.
So as one who is accusing me of "hav[ing] not built trust over the last few years and instead, have repeatedly attacked editors who object to the lack of neutrality", I ask you Skywriter, how are the quotes "grotesquely out of context"? what is the context they grotesque?
Kurdo, for the umpteenth time, how is "the section in its current form violat[ing] several Wikipedia core polices like WP:NPOV, WP:Cherry, and WP:UNDUE."? How is it "Using questionable cherry-picked material and giving undue weight to a single aspect of a subject to push a POV"? -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 16:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
And please get your facts straight before accusing others:
.... The above makes it sound as though the PM had a spat with Pahlavi, quit, appealed to the public (which he definitely did not. According to Kinzer, he was entirely silent) and after the fictitious appeal by Mossy that is entirely made up by Wikipedia editor, rioting occurred.
Here is a description of "entirely silent" Mossy's "fictious appeal" from Abrahamian (p.270-271, Iran Between Two Revolutions). You didn't even have to get the book, it's available here on the internet:
When the shah refused to accept his nomination, Mosaddeq resigned and appealed over the heads of the deputies directly to the public
In the course of recent events, I have come the realization that I need a trustworthy war minister to continue my national mission. Since His Majesty has refused my request, I will resign and permit someone who enjoys royal confidence to form a new government and implement His Majesty's policies. In the present situation, the struggle started by the Iranian people cannot be brought to a victorious conclusion.
For the first time, a prime minister had publicly criticized the shah for violating the constitution, accused the court of standing in the way of the national struggle and had dared to take the constitutional issue directly to the country.
The appeal received an enthusiastic response. ..." [p.270-271, Iran Between Two Revolutions By Ervand Abrahamian]
-- BoogaLouie ( talk) 16:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand the cross examination. the quote in question is clearly in the link provided. What am I missing?-- Work permit ( talk) 03:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
bottom of p. 139
"In the end the Shah succumbed to British presure, as he was wont to do and accepted Qavam. Foolishly believing that he had won a firm mandate, Qavam immediately began issuing harsh proclamations declaring that the day of retribution had come. He denounced Mossadegh for failing to resolve the oil crisis and for launching "a widespread campaign against a foreign state." Iran, he declared, was about to change. "This helmsman is on a different course," he declared in his first statement as prime minister. Anyone who objected to his new policies would be arrested and delivered into "the heartless and pitiless hands of the law."
Many Iranians did not realize that Mossadegh was really out of power until they heard Qavam deliver this proclamation over the radio. It triggered an explosion of protest. Crowds poured onto the streets of Tehran and other cities, chanting, "Ya Marg Ya Mossadegh!" (Death or Mossadegh!) Qavam ordered the police to attack and suppress them, but many officers refused. Some joined the protesters and were joyfully embraced.
This spontaneous outburst was, above all, an expression of support for Mossadegh's decision to confront the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Many Iranians, however, were also drawn to him because of his commitment to social reform. Mossadegh had freed peasants from forced labor on their landlords' estates, ordered factory owners to pay benefits to sick an injured workers, established a system of unemployment compensation, and taken 20 percent of the money landlords received in rent and placed it in a fund to pay for development projects like pest control, rural housing, and public baths. He supported women's rights, defended religious freedom, and allowed courts and universities to function freely. Above all, he was known even by his enemies as scrupulously honest and impervious to the corruption that pervaded Iranian politics. The prospects of losing him so suddenly, and of having him replaced by a regime evidently sponsored from abroad, was more than his aroused people would accept.
On July 21 National Front leaders called for a general strike to show the nation's opposition to Qavam and support for Mossadegh, "the only popular choice to lead the national struggle." Within hours, much of the country was paralyzed. Ayatollah Kashani, who had learned that Qavam planned to arrest him, issued a fatwa ordering soldiers to join the rebellion, which he called a "holy war against the imperialists." Tudeh militants, still angry at Qavam for engineering the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Azerbaijain in 1947, eagerly joined the fray with cries of "Down with the Shah! We Want a People's Republic."
Qavam and the Shah were shocked by this rebellion and responded by calling out elite military units. Soldiers opened fire on protesters in several parts of Tehran. Dozens fell dead. Young military officers, appalled by the carnage, began talking of mutiny. The Shah had completely lost control of the situation. His only choice was to ask for Qavan's resignation. Qavvam submitted it at four o'clock that afternoon. Upon receiving it, the Shah sent for Mossadegh.
Their meeting was unexpectedly cordial. The Shah said he was now prepared to accept Mossadegh as prime minister and give him control of the war ministry. He asked if Mossadegh still wished to maintain the monarchy. Mossadegh assured him that he did, presuming of course that kings would accept the supremacy of elected leaders.
"You could go down in history as an immensely popular monarch if you cooperated with democratic and nationalistic forces," he told the Shah.
The next day the Majlis voted overwhelmingly to reelect Mossadegh as prime minister. Qavam's term had lasted just four days. His fall on "Bloody Monday" was a huge, almost unimaginable victory for Iranian nationalists. It was an even greater personal triumph for Mossadegh. Without having given a single speech or even stirred from his home, he had been returned to power by a grateful nation.
The next day brought another piece of electrifying news. The World Court had turned down Britain's appeal, refusing to be drawn into the oil dispute. In London, the Daily Express carried the banner headline "Mossadegh's Victory Day." It was that and much, much more." (the preceding is verbatim, leaves nothing out, and ends in the middle of p. 141 of Kinzer's All the Shah's Men
"Under the present circumstances it is impossible to conclude the final phase of the national struggle," he wrote to the Shah. "I cannot continue in office without having responsibility for the Ministry of War, and since Your Majesty did not concede this, I feel I do not enjoy the confidence of the Sovereign and, therefore, offer my resignation to pave the way for another government which might be able to carry out Your Majesty's wishes."
Here is an even more specific link to that quote in Iran Between Two Revolutions. I went to
google books and searched, in quotes, the phrase "appealed over the heads of the deputies directly to the public".
Skywriter, would you please stop this, admit you were wrong, and try not to make reckless accusations in the future! (reposted from above) --
BoogaLouie (
talk)
17:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The article has several paragraphs about the 1952 election, but after all the discussion and attempts to add it ( after this), there's still nothing about major events much closer to the time of the coup: Mosaddeq's nomination for War Minister, the riots that followed, the emergency powers he was given and then extended, why there was a referendum disolving parliament, the fact that the referendum had separately placed ballot boxes for yes or no ballots (something no less a fan of Mossadeq than Elwell-Sutton mentions in Persian Oil, A Study in Power Politics) These facts have been deleted in the name of of WP:Undue, WP:COATRACK and WP:Primary WP:consensus. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 19:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
recent edits by Kurdo.
Wikipedia articles are supposed to have a neutral point of view, WP:NPOV, but these recent edits pad the already over-long article with tangential facts in the serviced of making the coup seem as much like a struggle between good and evil - with no shades of grey - as possible.
More seriously, why did you leave out the context? "By the late 1960s, the number of Tudeh prisoners had dwindled to less than two dozen. Their nucleus was seven military officers who refused to sign the conventional letters of regret. Remaining incarcerated until the revolution, they became--with Nelson Mandela--the world's longest-serving political prisoners." (Abrahamian, 1999, p. 100) Binksternet, what you offer is not a neutral viewpoint and that is part of, as the heading describes, The usual problems When you represent what an author writes, please present the context, and if gray areas are demonstrated, please show them too. It would go far in building trust in the editing of this article. Skywriter ( talk) 06:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Binksternet ( talk) 18:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
What exactly is your point, Binksternet? That Fatemi got what he deserved and torturing people is not so bad as it sounds? Skywriter ( talk) 06:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
As long as the article intends to trace oil back to WWI times, we may as well mention how the British backed Reza Shah in February 1921 and helped him overthrow Ahmad Shah's prime minister, replacing him with Sayyed Zia, and putting Reza Shah in charge of the Cossack Brigade. (Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Stephen Kinzer, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p. 41
Binksternet ( talk) 15:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
The issue was discussed in details at Talk:1953_Iranian_coup_d'état#Selective_editing and the consensus was that version of the section being pushed by Binksternet and Booga violates several Wikipedia core polices like WP:NPOV, WP:Cherry, and WP:UNDUE. Binksternet, however, has ignored the discussion in question and continues to revert to the disputed version without a WP:Consensus. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 16:54, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Weather you agree or not, your opinion has absolutely no weight, you still do not have a WP:consensus to include the disputed section. That's all that matters. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 00:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I attempted to restore the section on Emergency powers deleted by Skywriter and it was deleted less than one minute later by Kurdo with the explanation "Get a WP:consensus for tour edits." Was there any consensus for their deletion? Kurdo do you deny that the Emergency powers given to Mosaddeq in 1952 were an important issue in the history of his administration? If so why? -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 20:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Binksternet has asked for arbitration and those who are interested in this article can participate. Binksternet wrote that I did not show up for his last request for outside help and that was thrown out as a result. I did try to do what I was asked but apparently responded on the wrong page. I have tried to participate in the current arbitration but my contribution was cut by 80 percent. As it contains factual material relevant to the issues associated with this article and arbitrators are primarily looking for behavioral issues, I think the factual material belongs on this talk page and so I am placing it here as follows. (I grant that it is long and I apologize for that though I believe this is relevant to make progress. I believe this is an accurate assessment of the history of this article.
This is not about liberal or conservative battle. It is about using tangential vs. focused sources. The following is a summary of what has transpired on the 1953 coup in Iran page for more than a year. I regret not having the time to shorten this. I have worked in the weeds of this article and its talk page for several years.
On the 1953 coup page, at least one editor spent last spring and summer arguing that oil was a minor to minuscule part of the coup, and that the coup was justified in that it was an effort by the US and UK to save the world from communism. That editor won over several editors, who had dropped in, to that position. That view did not reflect scholarly history of the coup.
The historians, who are [WP:RS]] for this article, have found, in summary, that:
The edits by at least one editor continue to reflect an exaggerated anti-communist bias based on the false claim that Iran was in danger of falling to communism. After a year of other editors providing proof after proof after proof of what reliable sources have written about the fact that the UK wanted to retain its half-century long control over Iran's oil, at least one editor finally stopped arguing that the struggle for Iran's oil was not part of the equation.
Instead he began compiling the anti-Mossadegh page to try to show that the US did the right thing in deposing Mossadegh because Mossadegh was somehow a bad leader. At least one editor picked every single negative thing he could find about Mossadegh and without benefit of context, or even one positive statement about Mossadegh, put it all one page and encouraged other editors to choose from those one-sided quotes to show that Mossadegh was a bad actor who the Iranians did not admire. That editor's POV is essentially that the US did the Iranians a favor by deposing its very first democratically elected leader, and he has won other editors to that position not because that is what reliable sources say but because he has all the time in the world to press that viewpoint.
While it can be argued that Mossadegh might have tried to change the minds of the Iranian people about negotiating its oil concession with western powers because that was the only practical position Iran could adopt at that time given the economic embargo and military blockade, it is speculative to suggest that he might have succeeded. Despite the effort by certain editors to try to make the claim that Mossadegh was a "dictator"-- a point of view that no WP:RS supports, Mossadegh was a wily politician who did what a politician inn Iran needed to do to continue in power for a fleeting 28 months. For every moment of the time he was in office, the UK and then the US were plotting and arranging his downfall. The Dulles brothers convinced Eisenhower to approve coup-planning within two weeks of Ike's election to succeed Truman.
The problem with, first, the anti-communist and then, the anti-Mossadegh viewpoint is that it directly contradicts what every major historian has written. That Mossadegh was a drama queen, there is no question. Mossadegh was also the dominant figure in the early 1950s in Iran and throughout the Middle East, and he did represent the national will and Middle Eastern aspirations to drive out westerners. He is fondly remembered throughout the Middle East as the nationalist leader who stood up to the oil grab by westerners. The US/UK won temporarily for the next quarter of a century by propping up the monarchy but that western-supported regime was so intolerably repressive, it was thrown out in 1979, and a reactive and repressive Islamic republic installed in its place.
This article is important because the events did set the stage for the reaction and for much of what has transpired in the last half century. Wikipedia editors have an obligation not to insert their personal viewpoints into articles, and to stick with the facts scholars present and especially not to take sentences out of context. For more than a year, two editors have consistently pushed their personal viewpoints, first anti-communist, now anti-Mossadegh, to the detriment of the article and of Wikipedia. They need to get their personal views out of it and faithfully reflect the spirit and facts of what historians have written. At least one of them ought to stop coloring his views of Muslims, Iranians, and the Middle East through a hostile lens.
The anti-Mossadegh page is recent; And there was not one editor who defended that page as either fair or unbiased; the editor who compiled it did not deny it was biased. That discussion is recorded here on this talk page.
I take issue with Binksternet's claims [12] as, for the most part, they do not reflect the universe of knowledge on what is generally accepted as true among historians and political scientists concerning the 1953 coup. Binksternet's claims are not factual. For example, in trying to make the case that the scholar George Lenczowski is relevant to the 1953 coup in Iraq, Binksternet alleges that Kinzer cites Lenczowski. Well yes, Kinzer does source Lenczowski exactly once in the text and once in the extensive bibliography, not on a point relevant to the coup but to reference a fact about the monarch whose regime ended in 1941. The Kinzer reference to Lenczowski concerns the last shah's father and not the shah/monarch who was propped up after the coup. [13] Similarly, Binksternet alleges that Abrahamian cites Lenczowski and for that reason Binksternet argues that Lenczowski should be central to the article. But Abrahamian footnotes Lenczowski only once and not on the subject of the coup but on an unrelated matter that occurred in 1945, eight years before the coup. [14] Lenczowski was not a scholar of the coup and didn't write much about it. I continue not to understand Binksternet's extensive and distracting attempts[ [15]] to elevate Lenczowski to the rank of a central reliable source for this article.
Ervand Abrahamian devotes 13 pages of a 551-page book, written in 1982, to Mossadeq as prime minister pp 267-80. Those pages solely address the politics of social conflict in 20th century Iran until the fall of the shah in 1979 and do not reference Iran's struggle with western powers. Abrahamian offers a limited account of the coup in his book Iran Between Two Revolutions, which is extensively quoted in the article, perhaps too much so because Abrahamian has not written a book about the coup though one is in progress, as is stated on his faculty page. [16] Therefore, I would argue that Abrahamian's views on the coup are of limited use until his book on the coup is released. His views on the internal politics of Iran are of some interest.
So, who are --and who should be-- the central sources for this article?
Scholars who have written books specifically about this subject should be the central sources They have done the most work, given the most thought to, and are therefore the most reliable sources. I have added them all to the article Bibliography and have annotated some and plan to continue to annotate each resource as time allows.
Finally, it is difficult to add content by scholars who wrote entire books about the article subject due to the insistence on the use of a parade of obscure and arcane writers. [18] At one point, however, there was a glimmer of hope. After arguing for more than a year that one of this parade of obscure resources, (O'Reilly, author of a prohibitively expensive and remotely available junior high school textbook) should be in the article lead, Binksternet and comrades finally conceded, by not reverting an edit, that the junior high text and a tourism guide (!) are inappropriate. It took too long and too many arguments for this silliness to recede.
The cure for all of this is to rely on reliable sources-- the scholars who have written books about the article topic.
Instead of focusing on minors who might have off-the-cuff opinions but who have done no real research in the form of substantive books about the 1953 coup, the article editors need to explore the works of historians who have. The most reliable secondary sources who have written the most on-topic books are: Stephen Dorril, Mostafa Elm, L.P. Sutton, all three books by Gasiorowski, Mary Ann Heiss, and two books by Kinzer. Next in historical importance is Manuchihr Farmanfarmaiyan. The full references for all of these I have placed in the Book section.
This Wikipedia article will not improve until the editors focus on the work of scholars who have written extensively about the coup rather than those who have written about it tangentially. The article will also not improve until a few editors stop searching for obscure sources to press viewpoints unsupported by scholars who have written extensively on the coup. Skywriter ( talk) 18:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Skywriter ( talk) 19:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Due to the enormously controversial nature of the Iranian/Western relationship, it is perhaps a little bit deceptive to refer to Mossadegh as the "democratically elected" prime minister without also pointing out the the previous "democratically elected" prime minister had just recently been assassinated. A cursory reading of the article could leave the reader with the impression that Mossadegh had been elected by a some kind of ground-breaking general plebiscite, which was not the case, as he had been elected by a majority parliamentary vote, as had likewise the late (pro-Western) prime minister Ali Razmara. After the parliamentary vote, Mossadegh's position had to be ratified by the Shah, and subsequently had to be again - after Mossadegh's deposal and reinstatement. Pontificateus ( talk) 02:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC).
Okay, so I see that Kurdo777 has responded twice on my talk page rather than here. This is what has been said on my talk page:
My answer is that a simple nay-saying negation is not an argument. How can you complain that the article does not fairly represent the "democratically elected" position when it states it FOUR times? Binksternet ( talk) 04:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
One further observation is that I do not need a consensus to edit the article. The article cries out for improvement, with its prominent tag saying that it has multiple issues, which it has. Are you saying that the article should continue in its flawed state? Binksternet ( talk) 04:31, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | → | Archive 15 |
Every account I've read of the coup tells of how foreign diplomats and officials thought Mosaddeq was unstable. We should include something about that in the article. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 19:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
In his book Countercoup, CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt describes Secretary of State John Foster Dulles as saying `so this is how we get rid of that madman Mosaddeq`, after being shown the CIA's version of a plan for a coup. [1] Various British and American officials complained to each other that the Iranian prime minister was "impervious to reason", "a sick leader", posessing "megalomania ... now verging on mental instability," and "one of" Iran's "most sick leaders.` [2] This has been attributed to their unfamiliarity with Iranian culture and with Mosaddeq's "visionary political modus operandi" [3] but also to Mosaddeq's "inability or refusal to understand how the world looked to Western leaders." [4]
How is the documented fact that BBC Persian broadcast the go-code for the coup a "fiction work"? Why was the paragraph about BBC's role in the coup deleted? -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 20:08, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Besides the BBC article, is there ANY other source that states the BBC broadcast the go-code? I couldn't find any. If there are no other sources, then it's at best trivia.-- Work permit ( talk) 00:09, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The latest edits by BoogaLouie and Binksternet are very biased and selective. They're removing sourced information about the post-coup repression of ordinary people or BBC's role, while adding OR/POV qualifiers like how Fatemi had called for a republic, and that somehow excuses why he was mob-lynched and excuted. (this is called synthsizng) Or implying that Shah was "lenient", his agents did not torture anyone, and only killed one person after the coup (100% false, as already proven on this talk page). These edits go against WP:OR and WP:NPOV. -- Wayiran ( talk) 21:17, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
1. Mohammad Mossadegh: political biography by Farhad Dība, p, 13: "Mossadegh was sentenced to imprisonment and then house arrest at Ahmadabad. where his wife only visited."
2. Iran: the illusion of power by Robert Graham: "Mossadegh was given three years' imprisonment. He then was allowed to live in his country house near Tehran in what amounted to house arrest until his death"
3. Iran and its place among nations by Alidad Mafinezam, Aria Mehrabi, p, 29: "Mossadegh was imprisoned for three years, and lived afterward for over ten years under house arrest."
And 609 more sources saying the same thing here. The academic consensus is that he was under house arrest. Weather or not, he could visit the neighborhood grocery store in his village, is irrelevant to the fact that he was under house arrest. Aung San Suu Kyi can, and does leave her house too, under the regime supervision, but nobody has ever claimed that she is not under house arrest because of that. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 22:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
I've tagged the article for inappropriate or misinterpreted citations which do not verify the text. As we work through the article, citations should be checked to verify they reflect the text in the article.-- Work permit ( talk) 04:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
The article and the lead are now as bad as they've ever been. What was the reason for the coup? There's not one word about fear of Soviet expansion. But there is this line: "The tangible benefits the United States reaped from overthrowing Iran's elected government was a share of Iran's oil wealth.[19]"
There is a huge quote from a 1979 edition of Foreign Policy magazine
"... the shah's regime reflected American interests as faithfully as Vidkun Quisling's puppet government in Norway reflected the interests of Nazi Germany in World War II. The shah's defense program, his industrial and economic transactions, and his oil policy were all considered by most Iranians to be faithful executions of American instructions. Ultimately, the United States was blamed for the thousands killed during the last year by the Iranian army, which was trained, equipped, and seemingly controlled by Washington. Virtually every wall in Iran carried a slogan demanding the death of the "American shah."[20]
The quotation marks are screwed up, but the main problem is it was written in the heat of the 1979 revolution (`Virtually every wall in Iran carried a slogan demanding the death of the "American shah."` must have been a wall or two that didn't.) not as part of project devoted to the coup like the Kinzer or Gasiorowski books. In short its WP:UNDUE
The lead is huge and packed with excitable anti-shah prose "pressured the weak monarch while bribing street thugs, clergy, politicians and Iranian army officers .... Mosaddegh's supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed" [one was murdered one was executed] "cruel and authoritarian."
And some is just not accurate "In the wake of the coup, Britain and the U.S. selected Fazlollah Zahedi to be the next prime minister of a military government," no they planned for him to be PM before the coup. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 21:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Richard Cottam is used as a source in the lead section, to support a direct quote taken from his 1979 magazine article in Foreign Policy. Cottam is a fine source, but the 1979 article must be seen as one of Cottam's 'pop' pieces, written in a non-scholarly manner for a wider audience, at an inflammatory time. In his mid-twenties, Richard W. Cottam was a Fulbright scholar studying in Tehran for one school year 1951–1952, and after earning his PhD he wrote propaganda news pieces for the CIA in 1953, to be published in Iranian newspapers preparatory to the coup.
Cottam died in 1997 after a long career as a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh. An obituary characterized him as "a scholar of Iranian politics ... and an advocate of political liberalization in Iran." Also, "he told his superiors that the coup was a serious mistake." After the coup, Cottam was stationed at the American embassy in Tehran for two years 1956–1958 for the purpose of keeping in touch with National Front people he had befriended earlier, and to try and sway the Shah toward benevolent treatment of the NF and its liberal ideas. Among other quotes we can take from Cottam, there is this shocker:
This quote, if used, would shift the tone of the article. I believe it should be used. Binksternet ( talk) 19:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
As my header says, the lead is just horrible and depressing. Horrible for all the required citations backing up confused, stitched together, POV polemics. Depressing that not even the most basic facts can be agreed upon without citations to specific authors (much less just citations). Should we tackle it now, or should we tackle it after tackling the rest of the article? Ideally, the article will start to state objective facts (like when the coup happened) without all the bylines and quotes that the rest of the article still seems to require. At the very least, the lead should NOT introduce "facts not in evidence" in the main article.-- Work permit ( talk) 02:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
In the 1950s section is really bad. There is no mention of the big fight over the War Minister that lead to the vast increase in Mossy's power (see here) and there is an embarassing factual mistake confusing the spring/February 1952 majlis/parliament election and the 1953 referendum. Here it is:
In the summer of 1953, Mosaddegh announced a referendum on the question of whether the majlis should be dissolved and another election held. [5] Gasiorowski later wrote "The referendum was rigged which caused a great public outcry against Mosaddegh".<ref name="Gasiorowski"/> Kinzer, however, wrote that "Mosaddegh was legally entitled to take this step as long as the eighty seated members did not veto it, which they did not. He could also claim a measure of moral legitimacy, since he was defending Iran against subversion by outsiders. Nonetheless, the episode cast him in an unflattering light. It allowed his critics to portray him as undemocratic and grasping for personal power.
Kinzer's line that "Mosaddegh was legally entitled to take this step as long as the eighty seated members did not veto it," refers not to the 1953 referendum but to his shutting down voting before the provincial returns were in in the 1952 election.
What did Kinzer say about the 1953 election? That it was "a disastrous parody of democracy" ...
Mossadegh announced that he would hold a referendum on the question [of disolving the Majlis] and pledged to resign if voters did not vote to oust the existing Majlis. The referendum, hurriedly convened at the beginning of August, was a disastrous parody of democracy. There were separate ballot boxes for yes and no votes, and the announced result was over 99% in favor of throwing out the Majlis. The transparent unfairness of this referendum was more grist for the anti-Mossadegh mill. Mid-August found Roosevelt and his team of Iranian agents in place and ready to strike." (Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Stephen Kinzer, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.165)
I propose a subsection Political crises to rewrite at least part of the 1950 section. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 18:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
There is no need for a "replacement". The chronological error, can be corrected by simply switching the two sentences. I have fixed it.-- Kurdo777 ( talk) 03:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
It's well written and clear. I support adding it. Rather then its own section, it could simply replace paragraphs In the Majlis election through In the summer of 1953, . There are grammatical changes (for example, "overwhelmingly positive response). I agree the current section is poorly written, with too many hodge podge quotes.-- Work permit ( talk) 04:29, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I replaced the subsection. if there are any other facts that should be introduced, feel free to add it.-- Work permit ( talk) 08:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)O
NO, POV is when you try to push your point of view on an article, by any means possible, and that includes writing an essay using out-of-context one-lines from someone like Abrahamian to make conclusions he does not make, or citing the opinion of an unknown author like Frederick L. Shiels as a fact, or citing a primary source. Here is a list of the main issues with Booga/your proposed section:
1. Who is Frederick L. Shiels and why is his opinion presented as a fact? -- Kurdo777
2. Fadayian Islam were never a part of National Front. -- Kurdo777
3. Why is the opinion of an unknown and minor figure named Qonatabadi given any prominence? -- Kurdo777
4. Why is Abrhamian's work cherry-picked and put together, to leaf the reader into conclusions that he does not make? -- Kurdo777
5. Why is a news clip from 1950's ( a primary source) cited as a source? -- Kurdo777
Please give a satisfactory rational for to all these issues/questions raised, and get a clear consensus for these edits, before attempting to restore the questionable edits. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 21:25, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Words cannot convey my appreciation of the work, you, work permit and binksternet, have done on the article.
Here is a suggestion for a couple of sentences on the pre-coup cia mischief to be added to the Emergency powers section before the last paragraph on "Worried about the UK's other interests in Iran ..."
contributing to an unknown degree [6] to the alienation with Mosaddeq's policies was Operation TPBEDAMN, a CIA program originally designed in the late 1940s to `counter` (what the CIA called) `the vicious covert activities of the USSR.` TPBEDAMN employed both "grey propgaganda", in the form of "newspaper articles that portrayed the Soviet Union and the Tudeh as anti-Iranian or anti-Islamic, described the harsh reality of life in the Soviet Union, or explained the Tudeh's close relationship with the Soviets and its popular-front strategy;" [7] and "black" operations, such as bribes to "right-wing nationalist organizations" and religious figures, and even more unsavory actions such as "provoking violent acts and blaming them on the communists, and hiring thugs to break up Tudeh rallies." [8] By at least summer of 1952, however the Tehran CIA station had targeted not only the Tudeh but Mosaddeq and the National Front, despite the Truman administration's policy of supporting Mosaddeq. The Tehran-based CIA believed "Mosaddeq's refusal to settle the oil dispute" with the British "was creating political instability in Iran, making a Tudeh takeover increasingly likely." [9]
While Mosaddegh attempted to cope with the loss of support by interest groups and subversion by the CIA, Britain's boycott had cut off revenue to the Iranian government and devastated Iran's economy. Iranians were "becoming poorer and unhappier by the day". [10]
(the last sentence is a rewritten version of the sentence currently in the article.) The source of the information is the Gasiorowski book: Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, Edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, Syracuse University Press, 2004
(The "unknown degree" is based on this comment by Gasiorowski:
"It is not clear how much of an impact these activities or the parallel activities carried out by the Rashidians had in undermining Mosaddeq. Kashani, Baqai, Makki and other National Front leaders had begun to turn against Mosaddeq by the fall of 1952, and they had conclusively broken with him by early 1953 ... this was precisely the time in which these activities were being carried out. However, these individuals were very ambitious and opportunistic and clearly had their own motives for breaking with Mosaddeq. Although new sources of financial support and hostile articles in the press may have contributed to their decisions to turn again Mosaddeq, it seems unlikely that they were as important in this regard as the personal motives of these individuals. Moreover, the CIA officers who carried out these activities disagreed among themselves about their impact..." (Gasiorowski, p.243-4)
What do you think?
PS: Kurdo I am going to keep asking you, what is the evidence that I have written a "synthesized/POV-ridden proposed section that is a violation of WP:COATRACK"???? -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 17:44, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Replies
I restored Kennett Love's bit about voting booths, which appeared in the New York Times. It was deleted by Skywriter with the edit summary "Removing suspect primary source. CIA coup plotter admitted to heavily influencing & controlling what appeared in daily newspapers." The source article, "Mossadegh Voids Secret Balloting", is a secondary source, a newspaper article, and is quite suitable for our use. If anybody has a source saying that such voting booth practices were not employed, bring that source forward and rebut the newspaper account. Don't delete the newspaper just because its author was involved. Binksternet ( talk) 14:50, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
(unindent)Bink, if you continue to feel strongly about this, find it in one of the detailed histories written on this topic. Newspaper articles are the first draft of history and are not to be relied upon for events that occurred more than half century ago. Skywriter ( talk) 17:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
This edit re-introduces a block quote that is irrelevant to the coup and re-introduces error with the clam that the election was 1951 and not 1952. http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&diff=355547048&oldid=355473780
I intend to remove the block quote again and to correct the date again. This is an opportunity for anyone who believes this should not be done to state the factual reasons here. Thanks. Skywriter ( talk) 17:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Currently the article has no mention of the motivation of Iranians who opposed Mosaddeq. I found this (below) in a book about "the quest for democracy in Iran" since the 1906 constitution, and thought it might be summarized and added.
"The opposition to Mosaddeq, led by the Shah, conservative politicians such as prime ministers Ahmad Qavam and General Ali Razamara .... and commanders of the military, most notably General Fazlollah Zahedi (d.1963), also believed that the British position was unjust and illegal. However, they thought that Mosaddeq's idealism had led to a Don Quixote foreign policy. ..."
"Regardless of the merits of Iran's position, it was unrealistic that the country would be able to win its case; in `charging the windmill,` Iran was more likely to jeopardize its national interests. Only five years after the Soviet attempt to separate Azerbaijan and Kurdistan from Iran, the monarchy and its allies believed that Iran's interests lay in close ties with the West to ward off the Soviet threat. Where as Mosaddeq saw Britain as the foreign devil, they saw Britain and its imperialism as the lesser evil. ..." (p.53, Democracy in Iran: history and the quest for liberty, By Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Oxford University Press, 2006. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 19:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Iranian opponents of Mosaddeq have been described as including "religious leaders and preachers and their followers, as well as landlords and provincial magnates"; [11] "conservative politicians such as prime ministers Ahmad Qavam and General Ali Razmara .... and commanders of the military, most notably General Fazlollah Zahedi ... led by the Shah." [12] They have been described as forces that would "have been crippled without substantial British and later U.S. support," [13] while authors Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr say "it would be mistaken to view the coup as entirely a foreign instigation with no support" in Iran. [14]
Observers differ on the opponents motivation for supporting the coup. Mark J. Gasiorowski describes them as "very ambitious and opportunistic." [15] Another author calls Mosaddeq's Iranian opponents elites "determined to retrieve their endangered interests and influence, and unconcerned with the lasting damage to Iranian patriotic sensibilities and democratic aspirations." [16] Money was involved with the US CIA paying out $150,000 after March 1953 to "journalists, editors, preachers, and opinion members", giving Zahedi $135,000 to "win additional friends", and paying members of the majlis $11,000 a week. [17]
Other authors (Ali Gheissari, Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr) describe the opponents as agreeing with Mosaddeq that the "British position was unjust and illegal," but believing that after the 1946 attempt by the Soviets to separate Azerbaijan and Kurdistan from Iran, "Iran's interests lay in close ties with the West to ward off the Soviet threat." [12]
-- BoogaLouie ( talk) 20:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Once more, we are seeing an over-reliance on huge quotes. Huge quotes are often a cop-out—they are being used in this way to present one observers words when many observers have published their words. Several problems exist with block quotes: they tend to turn off the reader, who may well skip over the quote, they take up space with a level of detail perhaps unnecessary to the article, and they present one writer as the last word. We need to chop up these quotes and do some honest copy editing. I have begun some of this work; there is more to do. Binksternet ( talk) 20:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
There is a huge US Role section which gives some background on the cold war as the US motivation. But the cold war is as much a part of the background to the coup as oil (motivation for Iran to nationalise and for the UK to plot against Mosaddeq), or Iran being "trapped between the advances of two great imperial powers." Shouldn't something about the cold war (AND the Iran crisis of 1946!!) be in the Background section? And why a huge US role section but no Iranian supporters section or UK role section? I haven't time to work on this now. More Monday. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 23:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
The following critique refers to this edit [5] which may or may not have been originally placed by this particular editor. This is material quoted directly from this edit, and then fact-checked.
In July 1952 Mosaddegh resigned after the Shah refused to accept his nomination for War Minister, a position traditionally filled by the Shah. Mosaddegh appealed to the general public for support and received an overwhelmingly positive response. citation needed (And then what happened? Did Pahlavi appoint a new prime minister. Yes. Why was this left out? Answer: non- NPOV text based on ideology not reliable sources. Street rebellions took place because the Pahlavi appointed a new prime minister. Why was this left out? Answer: same as above: non- NPOV) After five days of mass demonstrations, 29 killed in Tehran, and "signs of dissension in the army," the Shah backed down and asked Mosaddegh to form a new government (and agreed to allow the civilian government to appoint its defense minister. Why was this left out? Answer: same as above: non- NPOV) <Ref>Abrahamian p.270</ref><ref>Mackey p.187-210</ref> This was an enormous personal triumph for Mosaddegh over the Shah, and Mosaddegh capitalized on it (this is non-neutral wording that leaves out enormously significant detail. e.g. What exactly was Britain doing at the time? Why was this left out? Answer: see above: non- NPOV Was this cause and effect as the editor who entered this has written? NO Inconvenient facts that do not follow the party line are left out.) by asking the majlis for "emergency powers for six months to decree any law he felt necessary for obtaining not only financial solvency, but also electoral, judicial, and educational reforms. ("What was the context? what was going on in Iran at the time? The historians tell us but the editor who added this bunk does not. Why not? As above: non- NPOV) <ref>Abrahamian, 1982, p.273</ref> In this way, Mosaddegh dealt his opponents the Shah, the military, "the landed aristocracy and the two Houses of Parliament ... a rapid succession of blows." <ref>Abrahamian, 1982, p.272</ref>
The above makes it sound as though the PM had a spat with Pahlavi, quit, appealed to the public (which he definitely did not. According to Kinzer, he was entirely silent) and after the fictitious appeal by Mossy that is entirely made up by Wikipedia editor, rioting occurred. This is so far from the truth, it is (fill in your own metaphor). What was left out of the context made up much larger sections of the history that historians considered important--by writing extensively about it-- than what is included above. Context is crucial and the way the article now reads, in the early 1950s section is misleading and out of context.
All that is absent from the entry above explains the history of what transpired and yet, the biased view now in Wikipedia leads readers to draw very different conclusions. So long as selective facts, biased pieces of information, are entered into this article that do not tell the full story the way historians tell it, but instead the way certain editors with very strong ideological viewpoints want it to be told, Wikipedia loses credibility. Remember that the entire world can read this article and that the facts can be verified. p. 137 from Chapter 9 of Kinzer's All the Shah's Men is quoted where convenient, and then the circumstances entirely left out, making it sound as though Mossadegh was an undemocratic dictator. How did that happen? Chapter 9 has a lot of hard facts that are left out of this account. It is the view of certain people editing this article who have voiced their personal opinions that Mossy was a communist dictator. Do the historians who are the subject matter experts share that view? Absolutely not. They say Mossadegh's brief, 28-month long government is the only democracy Iran has ever known. Certain editors of this article substitute their own personal viewpoints for that of historians, reliable sources, and as a result, what transpired over those 28 months is skewed in Wikipedia beyond all recognition.
We have talked on this page about the bias certain editors have against Mossadegh and one editor even justified that bias by claiming bias brings balance to the article. No, it does not, and no, it does not meet Wikipedia criteria for neutral editing. How do we know of this bias? Easy one editor built a page with every negative remark he could find about Mossadegh and is steadily adding it to this article.
More than a year ago, the argument was about whether oil was a factor in the coup. It was a fierece fight and now, finally, the role of oil is somewhat represented. Previously it was buried in an avalanche of anti-communism. Some editors claim the primary motive was opposition to communism, and for a very long time, this article did not progress thanks to that strong ideological viewpoint. Is that non-NPOV viewpoint still a big factor in why this article is as bad as it is? Yes.
Here's an example from this talk page.
Now here, the editor wants to add text to the article and to anonymously quote the CIA in a controversial manner without identifying the source. That is a variation on highly selective choosing of what facts to include and which to leave out in order to press a non- NPOV.
The question remains. In light of the bias and the flagrant non- NPOV over a long period of time, how can anyone who does not share the non- NPOV but who reads the history books maintain wp:good faith? Skywriter ( talk) 03:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with you that a timeline -- a chronology -- would tell this story logically and factually so long as the role of all of the players is examined, unlike what exists currently. Mossadegh didn't resign because he wanted to be a defense minister. Mossadegh argued to Pahlavi that the civilian government and not the monarchy should control the Iranian military. Shortly after the popular rebellion that forced Pahlavi to fire Qavam, who was prime minister for four days, the British Navy seized the oil tanker, Rose Mary, which was carrying Iranian oil to Italy.
The book edited by Gasiorowski and Byrne (Mohammad Mossaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran) consists of analytical articles by an array of historians. The history of the coup that Gasiorowski wrote is titled U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran (Cornell University Press: 1991). As I wrote in the Bibliography section, this book, "Traces the exact changes in U.S. foreign policy that led to the coup in Iran soon after the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower; describes "the consequences of the coup for Iran's domestic politics" including "an extensive series of arrests and installation of a rigid authoritarian regime under which all forms of opposition political activity were prohibited." Documents how U.S. oil industry benefited from the coup with, for the first time, 40 percent post-coup share in Iran's oil revenue."
This book contains the most detailed explanation of the changes in foreign policy from Truman to Eisenhower administration. And I apologize for not adding it several weeks ago when I said I told you I would. Forest fires have gotten in the way.
The other most widely accepted historical accounts by scholars of this subject are:
The ready-to-eat paragraphs processed by editors on separate pages -- or at various points in the history of this talk page-- are suspect in that they are selected passages taken grotesquely out of context. The editors who created those pages have not built trust over the last few years and instead, have repeatedly attacked editors who object to the lack of neutrality in those selections, much like the paragraph I took apart at the beginning of this section. Contrary to the attacks, which I expect to begin very soon, this is not about personalities, it is about content and non-neutral additions of selected text that sides with a particular viewpoint to the exclusion of the detailed histories that tell the full story. Skywriter ( talk) 08:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
PS: What is the reference to which you refer here? "I think there's a bit too much Gasiorowski, and we should include information from Gavin and Steve Marsh's article instead"
Which citations to Gasiorowski are "too much"? What would you take out? Skywriter talk) 08:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I am restoring the original version. There was no WP:consensus for any of the POV-laden changes to the 1950's section. The section in its current form violates several Wikipedia core polices like WP:NPOV, WP:Cherry, and WP:UNDUE. Using questionable cherry-picked material and giving undue weight to a single aspect of a subject to push a POV, is not OK in Wikipedia.-- Kurdo777 ( talk) 05:51, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Skywriter, instead of a long rant on the non-NPOV of some editors ("NO Inconvenient facts that do not follow the party line are left out" ... "The ready-to-eat paragraphs processed by editors ... are selected passages taken grotesquely out of context. The editors who created those pages have ... have repeatedly attacked editors who object to the lack of neutrality in those selections" ),
why don't you simply put on the talk page what you think is missing from the article (e.g. mention of the new prime minster appointed by Mosaddeq), and give the sources that support it. Why don't you try to persuade editors instead of accusing them of non-neutrality? If the editor ignores you or gives a lame excuse, then you might have grounds for accusing.
I for one am certainly happy to add (at least some of) what you complained was left out of the edit. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 15:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Here you are accusing me:
- Here's an example from this talk page.
- These words are in single quotes in the above submission. `counter the vicious covert activities of the USSR.` Whose words are they? Skywriter (talk) 17:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
- Gasiorowski is quoting the CIA. --BoogaLouie (talk) 14:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
- Now here, the editor wants to add text to the article and to anonymously quote the CIA in a controversial manner without identifying the source. That is a variation on highly selective choosing of what facts to include and which to leave out in order to press a non- NPOV.
Why not just say: "You haven't made it clear that it was the CIA talking and you should."? You would be right and I would have changed it. (You did ask who it was talking but didn't complain it was important to add the source.) -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 17:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
As for
The ready-to-eat paragraphs processed by editors on separate pages -- or at various points in the history of this talk page-- are suspect in that they are selected passages taken grotesquely out of context. The editors who created those pages have not built trust over the last few years and instead, have repeatedly attacked editors who object to the lack of neutrality in those selections ... )
I've spent a lot of time pasting and typing up from stratch the quotes from books (sometimes cited by you as proof that greed for oil and not the fear of the Soviets was the motivation for the coup) in hopes that they would be helpful to the editing and prove the points I thought were lacking in the article. Same with the proposed revised article.
So as one who is accusing me of "hav[ing] not built trust over the last few years and instead, have repeatedly attacked editors who object to the lack of neutrality", I ask you Skywriter, how are the quotes "grotesquely out of context"? what is the context they grotesque?
Kurdo, for the umpteenth time, how is "the section in its current form violat[ing] several Wikipedia core polices like WP:NPOV, WP:Cherry, and WP:UNDUE."? How is it "Using questionable cherry-picked material and giving undue weight to a single aspect of a subject to push a POV"? -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 16:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
And please get your facts straight before accusing others:
.... The above makes it sound as though the PM had a spat with Pahlavi, quit, appealed to the public (which he definitely did not. According to Kinzer, he was entirely silent) and after the fictitious appeal by Mossy that is entirely made up by Wikipedia editor, rioting occurred.
Here is a description of "entirely silent" Mossy's "fictious appeal" from Abrahamian (p.270-271, Iran Between Two Revolutions). You didn't even have to get the book, it's available here on the internet:
When the shah refused to accept his nomination, Mosaddeq resigned and appealed over the heads of the deputies directly to the public
In the course of recent events, I have come the realization that I need a trustworthy war minister to continue my national mission. Since His Majesty has refused my request, I will resign and permit someone who enjoys royal confidence to form a new government and implement His Majesty's policies. In the present situation, the struggle started by the Iranian people cannot be brought to a victorious conclusion.
For the first time, a prime minister had publicly criticized the shah for violating the constitution, accused the court of standing in the way of the national struggle and had dared to take the constitutional issue directly to the country.
The appeal received an enthusiastic response. ..." [p.270-271, Iran Between Two Revolutions By Ervand Abrahamian]
-- BoogaLouie ( talk) 16:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand the cross examination. the quote in question is clearly in the link provided. What am I missing?-- Work permit ( talk) 03:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
bottom of p. 139
"In the end the Shah succumbed to British presure, as he was wont to do and accepted Qavam. Foolishly believing that he had won a firm mandate, Qavam immediately began issuing harsh proclamations declaring that the day of retribution had come. He denounced Mossadegh for failing to resolve the oil crisis and for launching "a widespread campaign against a foreign state." Iran, he declared, was about to change. "This helmsman is on a different course," he declared in his first statement as prime minister. Anyone who objected to his new policies would be arrested and delivered into "the heartless and pitiless hands of the law."
Many Iranians did not realize that Mossadegh was really out of power until they heard Qavam deliver this proclamation over the radio. It triggered an explosion of protest. Crowds poured onto the streets of Tehran and other cities, chanting, "Ya Marg Ya Mossadegh!" (Death or Mossadegh!) Qavam ordered the police to attack and suppress them, but many officers refused. Some joined the protesters and were joyfully embraced.
This spontaneous outburst was, above all, an expression of support for Mossadegh's decision to confront the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Many Iranians, however, were also drawn to him because of his commitment to social reform. Mossadegh had freed peasants from forced labor on their landlords' estates, ordered factory owners to pay benefits to sick an injured workers, established a system of unemployment compensation, and taken 20 percent of the money landlords received in rent and placed it in a fund to pay for development projects like pest control, rural housing, and public baths. He supported women's rights, defended religious freedom, and allowed courts and universities to function freely. Above all, he was known even by his enemies as scrupulously honest and impervious to the corruption that pervaded Iranian politics. The prospects of losing him so suddenly, and of having him replaced by a regime evidently sponsored from abroad, was more than his aroused people would accept.
On July 21 National Front leaders called for a general strike to show the nation's opposition to Qavam and support for Mossadegh, "the only popular choice to lead the national struggle." Within hours, much of the country was paralyzed. Ayatollah Kashani, who had learned that Qavam planned to arrest him, issued a fatwa ordering soldiers to join the rebellion, which he called a "holy war against the imperialists." Tudeh militants, still angry at Qavam for engineering the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Azerbaijain in 1947, eagerly joined the fray with cries of "Down with the Shah! We Want a People's Republic."
Qavam and the Shah were shocked by this rebellion and responded by calling out elite military units. Soldiers opened fire on protesters in several parts of Tehran. Dozens fell dead. Young military officers, appalled by the carnage, began talking of mutiny. The Shah had completely lost control of the situation. His only choice was to ask for Qavan's resignation. Qavvam submitted it at four o'clock that afternoon. Upon receiving it, the Shah sent for Mossadegh.
Their meeting was unexpectedly cordial. The Shah said he was now prepared to accept Mossadegh as prime minister and give him control of the war ministry. He asked if Mossadegh still wished to maintain the monarchy. Mossadegh assured him that he did, presuming of course that kings would accept the supremacy of elected leaders.
"You could go down in history as an immensely popular monarch if you cooperated with democratic and nationalistic forces," he told the Shah.
The next day the Majlis voted overwhelmingly to reelect Mossadegh as prime minister. Qavam's term had lasted just four days. His fall on "Bloody Monday" was a huge, almost unimaginable victory for Iranian nationalists. It was an even greater personal triumph for Mossadegh. Without having given a single speech or even stirred from his home, he had been returned to power by a grateful nation.
The next day brought another piece of electrifying news. The World Court had turned down Britain's appeal, refusing to be drawn into the oil dispute. In London, the Daily Express carried the banner headline "Mossadegh's Victory Day." It was that and much, much more." (the preceding is verbatim, leaves nothing out, and ends in the middle of p. 141 of Kinzer's All the Shah's Men
"Under the present circumstances it is impossible to conclude the final phase of the national struggle," he wrote to the Shah. "I cannot continue in office without having responsibility for the Ministry of War, and since Your Majesty did not concede this, I feel I do not enjoy the confidence of the Sovereign and, therefore, offer my resignation to pave the way for another government which might be able to carry out Your Majesty's wishes."
Here is an even more specific link to that quote in Iran Between Two Revolutions. I went to
google books and searched, in quotes, the phrase "appealed over the heads of the deputies directly to the public".
Skywriter, would you please stop this, admit you were wrong, and try not to make reckless accusations in the future! (reposted from above) --
BoogaLouie (
talk)
17:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The article has several paragraphs about the 1952 election, but after all the discussion and attempts to add it ( after this), there's still nothing about major events much closer to the time of the coup: Mosaddeq's nomination for War Minister, the riots that followed, the emergency powers he was given and then extended, why there was a referendum disolving parliament, the fact that the referendum had separately placed ballot boxes for yes or no ballots (something no less a fan of Mossadeq than Elwell-Sutton mentions in Persian Oil, A Study in Power Politics) These facts have been deleted in the name of of WP:Undue, WP:COATRACK and WP:Primary WP:consensus. -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 19:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
recent edits by Kurdo.
Wikipedia articles are supposed to have a neutral point of view, WP:NPOV, but these recent edits pad the already over-long article with tangential facts in the serviced of making the coup seem as much like a struggle between good and evil - with no shades of grey - as possible.
More seriously, why did you leave out the context? "By the late 1960s, the number of Tudeh prisoners had dwindled to less than two dozen. Their nucleus was seven military officers who refused to sign the conventional letters of regret. Remaining incarcerated until the revolution, they became--with Nelson Mandela--the world's longest-serving political prisoners." (Abrahamian, 1999, p. 100) Binksternet, what you offer is not a neutral viewpoint and that is part of, as the heading describes, The usual problems When you represent what an author writes, please present the context, and if gray areas are demonstrated, please show them too. It would go far in building trust in the editing of this article. Skywriter ( talk) 06:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Binksternet ( talk) 18:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
What exactly is your point, Binksternet? That Fatemi got what he deserved and torturing people is not so bad as it sounds? Skywriter ( talk) 06:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
As long as the article intends to trace oil back to WWI times, we may as well mention how the British backed Reza Shah in February 1921 and helped him overthrow Ahmad Shah's prime minister, replacing him with Sayyed Zia, and putting Reza Shah in charge of the Cossack Brigade. (Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Stephen Kinzer, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p. 41
Binksternet ( talk) 15:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
The issue was discussed in details at Talk:1953_Iranian_coup_d'état#Selective_editing and the consensus was that version of the section being pushed by Binksternet and Booga violates several Wikipedia core polices like WP:NPOV, WP:Cherry, and WP:UNDUE. Binksternet, however, has ignored the discussion in question and continues to revert to the disputed version without a WP:Consensus. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 16:54, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Weather you agree or not, your opinion has absolutely no weight, you still do not have a WP:consensus to include the disputed section. That's all that matters. -- Kurdo777 ( talk) 00:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I attempted to restore the section on Emergency powers deleted by Skywriter and it was deleted less than one minute later by Kurdo with the explanation "Get a WP:consensus for tour edits." Was there any consensus for their deletion? Kurdo do you deny that the Emergency powers given to Mosaddeq in 1952 were an important issue in the history of his administration? If so why? -- BoogaLouie ( talk) 20:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Binksternet has asked for arbitration and those who are interested in this article can participate. Binksternet wrote that I did not show up for his last request for outside help and that was thrown out as a result. I did try to do what I was asked but apparently responded on the wrong page. I have tried to participate in the current arbitration but my contribution was cut by 80 percent. As it contains factual material relevant to the issues associated with this article and arbitrators are primarily looking for behavioral issues, I think the factual material belongs on this talk page and so I am placing it here as follows. (I grant that it is long and I apologize for that though I believe this is relevant to make progress. I believe this is an accurate assessment of the history of this article.
This is not about liberal or conservative battle. It is about using tangential vs. focused sources. The following is a summary of what has transpired on the 1953 coup in Iran page for more than a year. I regret not having the time to shorten this. I have worked in the weeds of this article and its talk page for several years.
On the 1953 coup page, at least one editor spent last spring and summer arguing that oil was a minor to minuscule part of the coup, and that the coup was justified in that it was an effort by the US and UK to save the world from communism. That editor won over several editors, who had dropped in, to that position. That view did not reflect scholarly history of the coup.
The historians, who are [WP:RS]] for this article, have found, in summary, that:
The edits by at least one editor continue to reflect an exaggerated anti-communist bias based on the false claim that Iran was in danger of falling to communism. After a year of other editors providing proof after proof after proof of what reliable sources have written about the fact that the UK wanted to retain its half-century long control over Iran's oil, at least one editor finally stopped arguing that the struggle for Iran's oil was not part of the equation.
Instead he began compiling the anti-Mossadegh page to try to show that the US did the right thing in deposing Mossadegh because Mossadegh was somehow a bad leader. At least one editor picked every single negative thing he could find about Mossadegh and without benefit of context, or even one positive statement about Mossadegh, put it all one page and encouraged other editors to choose from those one-sided quotes to show that Mossadegh was a bad actor who the Iranians did not admire. That editor's POV is essentially that the US did the Iranians a favor by deposing its very first democratically elected leader, and he has won other editors to that position not because that is what reliable sources say but because he has all the time in the world to press that viewpoint.
While it can be argued that Mossadegh might have tried to change the minds of the Iranian people about negotiating its oil concession with western powers because that was the only practical position Iran could adopt at that time given the economic embargo and military blockade, it is speculative to suggest that he might have succeeded. Despite the effort by certain editors to try to make the claim that Mossadegh was a "dictator"-- a point of view that no WP:RS supports, Mossadegh was a wily politician who did what a politician inn Iran needed to do to continue in power for a fleeting 28 months. For every moment of the time he was in office, the UK and then the US were plotting and arranging his downfall. The Dulles brothers convinced Eisenhower to approve coup-planning within two weeks of Ike's election to succeed Truman.
The problem with, first, the anti-communist and then, the anti-Mossadegh viewpoint is that it directly contradicts what every major historian has written. That Mossadegh was a drama queen, there is no question. Mossadegh was also the dominant figure in the early 1950s in Iran and throughout the Middle East, and he did represent the national will and Middle Eastern aspirations to drive out westerners. He is fondly remembered throughout the Middle East as the nationalist leader who stood up to the oil grab by westerners. The US/UK won temporarily for the next quarter of a century by propping up the monarchy but that western-supported regime was so intolerably repressive, it was thrown out in 1979, and a reactive and repressive Islamic republic installed in its place.
This article is important because the events did set the stage for the reaction and for much of what has transpired in the last half century. Wikipedia editors have an obligation not to insert their personal viewpoints into articles, and to stick with the facts scholars present and especially not to take sentences out of context. For more than a year, two editors have consistently pushed their personal viewpoints, first anti-communist, now anti-Mossadegh, to the detriment of the article and of Wikipedia. They need to get their personal views out of it and faithfully reflect the spirit and facts of what historians have written. At least one of them ought to stop coloring his views of Muslims, Iranians, and the Middle East through a hostile lens.
The anti-Mossadegh page is recent; And there was not one editor who defended that page as either fair or unbiased; the editor who compiled it did not deny it was biased. That discussion is recorded here on this talk page.
I take issue with Binksternet's claims [12] as, for the most part, they do not reflect the universe of knowledge on what is generally accepted as true among historians and political scientists concerning the 1953 coup. Binksternet's claims are not factual. For example, in trying to make the case that the scholar George Lenczowski is relevant to the 1953 coup in Iraq, Binksternet alleges that Kinzer cites Lenczowski. Well yes, Kinzer does source Lenczowski exactly once in the text and once in the extensive bibliography, not on a point relevant to the coup but to reference a fact about the monarch whose regime ended in 1941. The Kinzer reference to Lenczowski concerns the last shah's father and not the shah/monarch who was propped up after the coup. [13] Similarly, Binksternet alleges that Abrahamian cites Lenczowski and for that reason Binksternet argues that Lenczowski should be central to the article. But Abrahamian footnotes Lenczowski only once and not on the subject of the coup but on an unrelated matter that occurred in 1945, eight years before the coup. [14] Lenczowski was not a scholar of the coup and didn't write much about it. I continue not to understand Binksternet's extensive and distracting attempts[ [15]] to elevate Lenczowski to the rank of a central reliable source for this article.
Ervand Abrahamian devotes 13 pages of a 551-page book, written in 1982, to Mossadeq as prime minister pp 267-80. Those pages solely address the politics of social conflict in 20th century Iran until the fall of the shah in 1979 and do not reference Iran's struggle with western powers. Abrahamian offers a limited account of the coup in his book Iran Between Two Revolutions, which is extensively quoted in the article, perhaps too much so because Abrahamian has not written a book about the coup though one is in progress, as is stated on his faculty page. [16] Therefore, I would argue that Abrahamian's views on the coup are of limited use until his book on the coup is released. His views on the internal politics of Iran are of some interest.
So, who are --and who should be-- the central sources for this article?
Scholars who have written books specifically about this subject should be the central sources They have done the most work, given the most thought to, and are therefore the most reliable sources. I have added them all to the article Bibliography and have annotated some and plan to continue to annotate each resource as time allows.
Finally, it is difficult to add content by scholars who wrote entire books about the article subject due to the insistence on the use of a parade of obscure and arcane writers. [18] At one point, however, there was a glimmer of hope. After arguing for more than a year that one of this parade of obscure resources, (O'Reilly, author of a prohibitively expensive and remotely available junior high school textbook) should be in the article lead, Binksternet and comrades finally conceded, by not reverting an edit, that the junior high text and a tourism guide (!) are inappropriate. It took too long and too many arguments for this silliness to recede.
The cure for all of this is to rely on reliable sources-- the scholars who have written books about the article topic.
Instead of focusing on minors who might have off-the-cuff opinions but who have done no real research in the form of substantive books about the 1953 coup, the article editors need to explore the works of historians who have. The most reliable secondary sources who have written the most on-topic books are: Stephen Dorril, Mostafa Elm, L.P. Sutton, all three books by Gasiorowski, Mary Ann Heiss, and two books by Kinzer. Next in historical importance is Manuchihr Farmanfarmaiyan. The full references for all of these I have placed in the Book section.
This Wikipedia article will not improve until the editors focus on the work of scholars who have written extensively about the coup rather than those who have written about it tangentially. The article will also not improve until a few editors stop searching for obscure sources to press viewpoints unsupported by scholars who have written extensively on the coup. Skywriter ( talk) 18:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Skywriter ( talk) 19:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Due to the enormously controversial nature of the Iranian/Western relationship, it is perhaps a little bit deceptive to refer to Mossadegh as the "democratically elected" prime minister without also pointing out the the previous "democratically elected" prime minister had just recently been assassinated. A cursory reading of the article could leave the reader with the impression that Mossadegh had been elected by a some kind of ground-breaking general plebiscite, which was not the case, as he had been elected by a majority parliamentary vote, as had likewise the late (pro-Western) prime minister Ali Razmara. After the parliamentary vote, Mossadegh's position had to be ratified by the Shah, and subsequently had to be again - after Mossadegh's deposal and reinstatement. Pontificateus ( talk) 02:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC).
Okay, so I see that Kurdo777 has responded twice on my talk page rather than here. This is what has been said on my talk page:
My answer is that a simple nay-saying negation is not an argument. How can you complain that the article does not fairly represent the "democratically elected" position when it states it FOUR times? Binksternet ( talk) 04:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
One further observation is that I do not need a consensus to edit the article. The article cries out for improvement, with its prominent tag saying that it has multiple issues, which it has. Are you saying that the article should continue in its flawed state? Binksternet ( talk) 04:31, 23 August 2010 (UTC)