We have meddled in Iran before. Our CIA and British intelligence engineered a coup to overthrow Iranian President Mossadegh back in 1953. For those who are rusty on your Middle Eastern history, President Mossadegh was democratically-elected and a fierce anti-communist ally. Why then did we overthrow him? He nationalized Iran’s oil, shutting out the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Whoopsie! Goodbye, democratic government, hello repressive monarchy. In order to get that oil money flowing to its proper owners in England again, we backed a coup to install the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His brutal, CIA-trained SAVAK police kept the opposition at bay and helped to foster anti-US sentiment until it finally exploded in the Iranian revolution of 1979. Now the people live under a system even MORE repressive than the Shah. If we interfere again, I wonder what Iran will look like next?
