Why most Iranians have bitter/sweet feelings towards the Americans!

Why So Many Iranians Have Bittersweet Feelings Towards America?

In my memoir titled “Reza Shah vs. Mohammad Reza Shah” I did not mention how the Iranians used to feel about the Americans in 1940s and early 1950s which I would like to elaborate on that subject:

First let me mention that during the Qajar dynasty the two countries of Russian Tsar and the British Empire were highly influential in the Iranian politics. Their over a century of abusive behaviors against Iran and the Iranians had left a great deal of bad memories which had created deep hatred among Iranian people toward those two nations, more so toward the British.

The WWII Effect

Until the WWII era the Americans virtually were unknown to the ordinary Iranians and consequently they did not have any feelings toward them, either way; bad or good.
 After the German invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941, Stalin signed a treaty of alliance with the British. In August 1941 the allied demanded that Reza Shah expel all of the Germans from Iran and put the Trans-Iranian Railway and Iranian port facilities entirely at their disposal. When Reza Shah refused, the allied forces on August 24/ 1941 (3rd of Shahrivar of 1320), simultaneously invaded Iran, the British from the south and the Soviets from the north with the intention of using Iran to transport war material to The Soviets and at the end of the war fulfill their old treaty that they had signed in Qajar era meaning splitting Iran between themselves (the south would go to the British and the north to the Soviets).
The Soviets occupied all northern states which remained under their occupation throughout the war.  The British occupied the rest of the country and when the American entered Iran a year later, they shared the British area of the occupation.

In brief; in 1941, Reza Shah accepted to go to exile with the condition that all foreign forces leave the country after the end of the war. But that treaty was a forced treaty and none-binding. That was the cause for the Iranian politicians to worry and anticipate that after the war the two powers will not leave and will divide Iran between themselves, as they already had tried during the Qajar era.

The crucial role that FDR and Harry Truman had played in favor of Iran

The American forces entered Iran in December of 1942 and were informed by the Iranian politicians about the ambition of the British and the USSR.

Short after; under the instruction of FDR, the State Department of the United States sent a memorandum to the two allies which stated; "The Iranian nation have already suffered enough from the unwanted war; it is the policy of the United States to build an independent Iran, strong enough to stand up to its old imperial nemeses."
FDR of course was already aware of the passed British imperialism and he hated it. In one of his meetings with Churchill, when the British prime minister objected to the idea of giving independent to India after the war was over, FDR angrily told Churchill; "you must change your 400 years of world domination mentality. Time has changed".

With above in mind, in November, 28-December,1, 1943 “Big Three Conference” between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin in Tehran, FDR convinced the other two to sign a joint statement called (The Tehran Declaration) guaranteeing the independence of Iran and also the three parties, under the instruction of FDR, committed themselves in withdrawing all of their troops from Iran six months after the end of the war.

After the end of the war, the Soviets did not leave the country. Stalin had tried to annex Azerbaijan, Kurdistan,  possibly Mazandaran and Gilan but Harry Truman stood firm and caused the ouster of the Soviets from Iran in May of 1946.

For above reason, right after the war the Iranians used to look at the US as a big brother who saved Iran from being disintegrated by the hand of the Soviet Union. If it was not because of Harry Truman, (the Democratic president of the US) standing firm against Stalin, today the map of Iran would have looked very differently. Actually if it was not because of Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) even the British would not have left the country after the war. Now that the British had lost their superpower status to the Americans and also owed their victory against the Germans to the Americans they had to listen to them and honor the treaty and move out of Iran. Please read "Reza Shah vs. Mohammad Reza Shah" : http://maziaraptin.blogspot.com/2012/04/reza-shah-vs-mohammad-reza-shah.html

With the passed experience that the Iranians had with the British they knew what kind of monster they were and consequently the Iranians gave the credit to the Americans for the departure of the British from Iran.  If after the war the allied forces would not have honored the treaty and would have stayed in Iran there was nothing that Iran could have done and the country would have stayed occupied for who knows how long!

That was not all that the US had done for Iran. Right after the war, that Iranians were starving due to the war damages and famine, Truman had started a mini "Marshal Plan" in Iran and other "Third World Countries" called "Truman's Point 4 Plan" (Asle-4-e Truman).

That project had created so many jobs which it looked like a gift from heaven and it was very tangible. It affected every level of the Iranian society. It was money in the Asle-4 driver's pocket and bread on his "Sofreh". It was the end of the shortage of foodstuff and famine. It was the end of malaria epidemic in Mazandaran, Gilan, and elsewhere, etc. etc. Not that America had saved us from the Soviets but they also became the new superpower replacing the British that was number one enemy of Iran and used to abuse their power against Iran in every which way that they were able, to the point of humiliation of individual Iranians and the nation as a whole and we did not have anyone to help us to stop them.
After WWII it was the Americans that were dictating the policies in the Middle East not the British. To us the Iranians, over a century of British-abuses were over. Now Iran had the Americans to rely on.

That is why we used to look at America as a big brother until their 1953 intervention which the love for America had changed into a love and hate feelings. That feelings still exists because even though that America was the partial participant in 1953 coup causing Iran losing her democratic form of government replaced by a dictatorship poppet government system but by the same token the people of Iran could not forget that America was also the savior of Iran by preventing its disintegration which was by far more important.

Those feelings of my generation have been transferred to present day generation which is the reason you see today Iranians have love and hate feelings toward the U.S. Love her for what FDR and Truman had done and hate her for what Eisenhower had done.

Eisenhower the sponsor of 1953 coup

Numbers of monarchists have argued in the past that if Mossadegh would have succeeded, there was a possibility that eventually Toodeh (Tudeh) Party could have prevailed and Iran could have become a communist country and part of the USSR. This argument is not justified for reasons that I will explain bellow.

The formation of Hezb-e Tudeh (the Communist Party)
Before the war Reza Shah had outlawed the communist party and had jailed fifty-three of their leaders. In October 1941, now freed from jail, those leaders had formed a party and named it Toodeh, “Tudeh” (Masses) Party. Shortly after; the party leaders were approached by the Soviets and were persuaded to join the Stalinist cause which they did and thereafter they received considerable assistance and became very active in Iranian politics and were very successful in Northern States of Iran, the area of the Soviet occupation.

Toward the final years of the war Stalin became active in pursuing his ambition of expanding the Soviet territory into part of Iran.  The Tudeh Party in Azerbaijan became more active under “Pishehvary” and from there the Soviets expanded their activities into Kurdistan and gradually into all their occupied areas of Northern Iran.
At the end of the war, after the Americans and the British moved out of Iran the Soviets stayed and politically became even more active to a point that they had created a poppet government in Azerbaijan which had declared the independence of Azerbaijan and then Kurdistan had followed suit.
When the Iranian troops marched toward Azerbaijan they were stopped by the Soviet troops. It was at this time that Truman sent an ultimatum to Stalin; "either move your troops out of Iran or you will have a war against the U S on your hand" and started moving the U S naval fleet toward the Indian Ocean.

Considering that the United States was the only world power with nuclear arms capability at that period and also the Soviets were already severely damaged by the war, there was no room for hesitation for Stalin. In May 1946 (two months later than the treaty had dictated) the Soviets were out of Iran. After their departure and the end of their direct support for the “Pishehvary”, the puppet government was not strong enough to stand against the Iranian Army and the will of the people of Azerbaijan.
When the Iranian Army approached the city of Tabriz the people of Tabriz had disarmed the poppet government even before the army’s arrival and the Tudeh leaders, mostly Turkish speaking Russian citizens, fled into Russia. The action of the people of Azerbaijan (the cradle of the Tudeh activities) against Tudeh is the clear indication of the lack of support for Tudeh and communism among general public in Iran.

Of course after the departure of the Soviets the Tudeh Party still stayed active in Iran but they survived only with the financial support from the Soviets. They were well organized with dozen or two highly educated leaders; a few of those leaders were educated in the Soviet Azerbaijan and even a few citizens of that country still were living in Iran. As I mentioned above; most of the party leaders had fled the country after the defeat of Pishehvary but the home grown ones stayed and were running the Party.

The Tudehs mourning Stalin's death in early 1953

As you can see in picture above, the Tudeh Party being a non-Iranian party was well known by the majority of Iranians and of course by Mossadegh and the rest of the politicians. Consequently, with the exception of a few uninformed Iranians, there were no Tudeh sympathizers among the major players in Iranian politics.

With above in mind after that the first coup against Mossadegh had failed, according to a high ranking CIA officer, Kenneth Pollack,  Eisenhower was ready to negotiate with the Mossadegh government. And obviously the two nations would have come to some kind of agreement. In that case with the support from the U. S. and with the Soviets influence minimized to only financial support for the Tudeh, there was no chance of Tudeh take over in a, would be democratic Iran. The notion of; “that the communists could have taken over in a democratic Iran” was the propaganda that had started in the early 1950s in the U. S. by Senator Joseph McCarty which was the beginning of the McCarthyism in that country and was a baseless political ploy by Mr. McCarty.

The 28 Mordad Coup d'etat

In regard to; how the demonstrations of a small groups of thugs on 28th Mordad of 1332 (1953) could succeed changing the course of the history in Iran from 1953 to the present! I have added to my memoir the followings:

When Kermit (Kim) Roosevelt, the CIA Station Chief in the American embassy in Tehran staged the second coup against Mossadegh, with the $1, 000,000 budgets that he had in hand, he bribed a few top ayatollahs, Namely Ayatollah Zanjani, Broojerdi, Kashani, etc. $10,000 each, and numerous “Jaahels” which handed them several thousands of Five-Toomani-bills to spread it in the ghettos to whomever wants to come and demonstrate in favor of the Shah.

 On 28th of Mordaad, organized by the CIA, the number of demonstrators sent into the streets by above groups, including the mullah groups were minimal in comparison to the numbers that usually used to demonstrate in favor of Mossadegh on any given day. But what had made the 28th of Mordaad CIA-backed demonstrators successful was the stupid mistake made by the Tudeh leadership.

Unaware that the demonstration was a CIA staged, the Tudeh leadership had sent their people in “Meydaane Ceppah (Sepah)”, the largest square in Tehran, and started bringing down the statue of Reza Shah, a majestic statue; with Reza Shah sitting on the horse. That had an adverse effect on the mind and emotion of the majority of Iranian people. What did Reza Shah have to do with the mistakes made by his son?  Reza Shah, even though a dictator, was a well known patriot who was exiled by the hated British and also his legacy was still favorable among the majority of Iranian people.

The CIA, aware of Iranian sentiment toward Reza Shah and their negative feelings against the Tudeh Party, immediately publicized on the radio that the Tudehs are trying to take over the government and immediately, on the same evening, printed the picture of statue of Reza Shah coming down by the Tudehs in the “Fogholadeh paper” the (Extra).

Since the Mossadegh supporters were the arch enemies of the Tudehs, they did not want to have any part in those demonstrations so they stayed home. At this time the army stepped in; arrested and scattered the small Tudeh demonstrators and left the stage open for the thug demonstrators and on the same evening the CIA provided cars, trucks, and buses for the thugs and they roamed the major streets of Tehran with Shah’s pictures and club in their hand, yelling and screaming slogans in favor of Shah and against Mossadegh and the Tudehs, terrorizing ordinary people.

The whole country including the Mossadegh supporters was taken by surprise and was too much in shock to take any kind of action. In the evening of the same day Marshal Law was declared and the next day Mossadegh was arrested and the Marshal Law stayed enforced for the next five years until early 1958.

 Perhaps Kermit Roosevelt (the grand son of Teddy Roosevelt) should have sent a thank you note to the Tudeh leadership for his success. 

Starting that day; the 28^th of Amordad 1332, was the end of democracy in Iran and the beginning of Anglo/American rules for the next 26 disastrous years in Iran’s history. The foregoing event became the cause of emergence of the present day Semi-Arab government in Iran.

 May future holds better days for this country of mine that has been through so much: First occupations by the Arabs, then the Turks, the Turkmens, the Mongols, and now the worse of them all by the Arab loving Shiias.

Payandeh Iran Maziar Aptin