Washington and Tehran Roots of the Cold War Feud

Thắng Huỳnh Quang

2 ngày trước

The provided text, entitled "Mối Thù Không Biên Giới: Washington và Tehran" (The Unbounded Enmity: Washington and Tehran), presents a detailed historical overview of the breakdown in relations between the United States and Iran, often termed a Cold War saga. The analysis begins by identifying the 1953 CIA-backed coup d'état, Operation Ajax, which overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh after he nationalized the oil industry, as the "original sin" that fractured the initial partnership. This action installed the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as an absolute dictator, whose subsequent authoritarian and brutally repressive rule, supported by the U.S., fueled deep resentment. This resentment ultimately culminated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the pivotal Iran Hostage Crisis, which cemented the two nations as ideological and geopolitical adversaries to this day.

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00:00You know, the relationship between the U.S. and Iran, it's one of the most hostile and complicated

00:04on the world stage. But what if I told you this animosity isn't ancient history? It was actually

00:10born from a single, specific moment of betrayal. We're going to dig into how a really close

00:14alliance completely fell apart, and why that one event still defines the conflict we see today.

00:20Okay, picture this. It's 1979. A country that, just a minute ago, was one of America's best

00:26friends in the Middle East is suddenly on fire with revolution. And the chant you hear echoing

00:31through the streets of Tehran? Mor al-Amérique, death to America. I mean, for people watching in

00:37the West, this was absolutely shocking. How did this happen? So yeah, how did this happen? How does

00:45a strategic partnership just collapse into this kind of raw hatred? Well, the answer isn't simple,

00:51and it sure didn't happen overnight. To really, truly get it, we have to rewind the clock 26 years

00:57to a secret operation that was all about one thing, oil. It is so hard to imagine now, but back in the

01:05early 1950s, the U.S. and Iran were partners. For Washington, Iran was this critical wall against

01:11the Soviet Union. And for Tehran, America looked like a great alternative to the old colonial bullies,

01:16Britain and Russia, who'd been eyeing their resources for decades. But this whole alliance,

01:20it was built on some seriously shaky ground. And this right here, this is the shaky ground.

01:27Just look at how lopsided this is. At the time, all of Iran's oil was controlled by the Anglo-Iranian

01:33oil company, which was basically the British government. And the deal they had was so bad that,

01:38get this, Iran's royalties over 50 years were less than the company's profits in the single year of

01:441950. This wasn't just a bad business deal. For Iranians, it was a national humiliation.

01:50And all that anger and humiliation brought this man to power, Mohamed Mossadegh. He was this

01:57incredibly charismatic nationalist, elected prime minister in 1951 on one simple, powerful promise.

02:04Iran's oil should belong to Iranians. And he actually did it. He nationalized the entire industry.

02:10In Tehran, people were celebrating in the streets. In London, well, they saw it as a declaration of war.

02:17And that brings us to what a lot of historians call the original sin of the U.S.-Iran relationship.

02:23Britain was furious. They organized a global boycott of Iranian oil and then ran to Washington

02:28for help, whispering that if Iran's economy failed, it would fall right into the hands of the Soviets.

02:33The result was a secret operation that would leave a scar that has never, ever healed.

02:37The plan was called Operation Ajax, and it was a joint venture between the CIA and Britain's MI6.

02:44The goal was brutally simple. Get rid of the democratically elected Mossadegh and put the

02:49young monarch Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi back on the throne with absolute power. Why? Because he was seen

02:56as much more, let's just say, cooperative. To make this happen, the CIA put a million dollars on the table,

03:03which was an absolute fortune back then. The man they put in charge was none other than Kermit

03:09Roosevelt Jr., the grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt, and his mission was basically to tear

03:14the country apart from the inside out. So how'd they do it? Well, the CIA had this four-step playbook,

03:21and it was a masterclass in destabilization. First, propaganda. They paid off journalists to just

03:27plant fake, nasty stories about Mossadegh. Second, bribery. They paid off politicians, military officers,

03:33even religious figures to turn against him. Then came the riots, hiring thugs and gangsters to create

03:40total chaos in the streets. And the final step? The overthrow. But here's the thing. The coup almost

03:46failed. The first attempt on August 15th was a total disaster. The Shah actually panicked and fled to

03:52Rome. It looked like the whole plan had backfired. But Roosevelt, he didn't give up. On August 19th,

03:59he launched a second attempt. Paid pro-Shah mobs, backed by tanks, stormed government buildings.

04:05They shelled Mossadegh's home. And after a battle that left nearly 300 people dead,

04:10the prime minister was arrested. The coup had succeeded.

04:12So, with Mossadegh in prison, the Shah came back to Iran. But he wasn't just a king anymore. He was now

04:20an absolute dictator who owed his throne, lock, stock, and barrel to Washington and London. And for the

04:27next 25 years, he would be America's gendarme of the Gulf, basically its armed sheriff, supplied with

04:34the best U.S. weapons to keep the Soviets out. And this really shows you the two faces of his rule.

04:40On one hand, he did launch this white revolution, a crash course in modernization, with things like

04:46land reform and giving women the right to vote. But hiding behind that shiny, progressive image

04:51was a brutal dictatorship. Any kind of dissent was ruthlessly crushed by his secret police,

04:57the infamous Savak. And guess who helped him set that up in 1957? Yep, the CIA.

05:05The Savak's reign of terror created this deep well of anger across the country.

05:09And eventually, a voice for that anger emerged from exile, Ayatollah Rulaha Khomeini. He was a

05:15religious leader the Shah had banished back in 1964. And from afar, he just hammered the Shah for his

05:21corruption and for being a puppet of the United States, which Khomeini famously called the Great

05:26Satan. And his sermons smuggled into Iran on, of all things, cassette tapes, inspired millions,

05:32and brought together this powerful, unlikely alliance of opponents. By late 1977, you could

05:38feel the ground starting to shake. The cracks in the Shah's regime were showing. Protests started

05:43popping up everywhere. And then an insult to Khomeini, published in a state-run newspaper in January 1978,

05:50well, that turned out to be the spark that lit the whole country on fire.

05:54It just kicked off this vicious cycle. Protests would lead to bloody crackdowns. And those

06:00crackdowns would just fuel even bigger, angrier protests. The real turning point came in September

06:051978, on what's now known as Black Friday, when the army gunned down hundreds of peaceful

06:11protesters in Tehran. After that, there was no going back. The country was paralyzed by strikes.

06:16By January 1979, the Shah, sick with cancer and totally alone, fled Iran for good. Two weeks later,

06:22Khomeini returned to a hero's welcome. The Islamic Republic was born. But the final,

06:28total break with America hadn't happened yet. For the revolutionaries, the U.S. embassy in Tehran

06:33wasn't some neutral diplomatic building. Oh, no. To them, it was this, a nest of spies. It was the

06:41very place, the headquarters, from which the 1953 coup had been planned and executed. So on November 4,

06:471979, radical students swarmed the walls and stormed the embassy, taking 52 Americans hostage.

06:55They demanded the U.S. send back the Shah, who was getting cancer treatment in a New York hospital.

06:59Ayatollah Khomeini gave the takeover his blessing, calling it a second revolution.

07:04That crisis dragged on for an agonizing 444 days. It completely destroyed what was left of diplomatic

07:10ties and cemented this bitter ideological hatred that is still with us today.

07:15So when you step back and look at the whole story, from the coup in 53 all the way to the hostage

07:21crisis in 79, what you're really seeing is a tragedy in two acts. These two events are not

07:28separate moments in history. They are directly and deeply connected, like a set of dominoes.

07:33Just think about it. In 1953, the CIA orchestrates the overthrow of Iran's democracy. And where was

07:41the command center for that operation? The U.S. embassy in Tehran. And then, almost exactly 26 years

07:49later, that very same embassy is overrun by revolutionaries. For so many Iranians, this

07:55wasn't just a political move. This was perfect, symbolic revenge for the deep humiliation of 1953.

08:01And this really just lays out the devastating chain reaction, step by step. A U.S. intervention,

08:08all about oil, creates a dictator. That dictator's brutal rule then fuels a massive popular revolution.

08:14And that revolution, in turn, installs a radical regime whose entire identity is built on opposing

08:20the very country that started this whole mess. This history of intervention and blowback,

08:25it's the bedrock of the Cold War that still exists between Washington and Tehran. Which leaves us with

08:31one last massive question. After all these decades of conflict, from proxy wars to nuclear deals,

08:38is that cycle of unintended consequences finally over? Or are we all still living in the shadow of

08:43what happened back in August of 1953?

08:45What happened back in August of 1953?

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