News   /   Interviews

1953 US-led coup in Iran father of all color revolutions: Historian

Former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq (first L)

Press TV has interviewed Webster Griffin Tarpley, an author and historian, and Richard Weitz, an expert at Wikistrat, both in Washington, to discuss the 1953 US-led coup d'état in Iran that thwarted the plans by then-Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadeq to nationalize the country’s oil.

Tarpley says the coup against Mosadeq was the prelude to today’s color revolutions, similar to those carried out under the notion of Arab Spring or what was attempted against Tehran in 2009.

The person closely associated with the “putsch”, he says, was Kermit Roosevelt, a top “honcho” of the CIA at the time who directed this “classic people power coup” against the democratically elected Iranian PM.

The historian notes that by carrying out the coup against Mosadeq, Washington developed a habit of “taking the wrong side” that gave way to what happened in Vietnam and led to a 25-year period of “resentment,” he argues.

Just like chemical warfare, color revolutions should also be banned, he says, because these revolutions are “an act of war.”

The combination of a “very bad historical precedent” and the fact that the US and its allies still use these policies against countries such as Syria is the “irritant” of the world affairs today, he notes.

Weitz, for his part, says that although knowing about history is good, it would be better “to go beyond it.” Historical events like the coup “shouldn’t be a defining factor for our relations” because the problem with this approach, he argues, is that countries like US can also go back and complain about what the British had done to them in the colonial times.


Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Press TV News Roku