Encore: Iran 101 - Part 1

Iran is having a crucial moment. On June 13, 2025, Israel attacked military and nuclear targets in Iran, and Iran has retaliated. Since historical context is so important in understanding current events, I think it's time for an encore. a re-listen of Iran's history.

Now, I made this Iran 101 series in the fall of 2022. So it's been a few years, and I've decided to re-air all three parts of this series over the next week. So this is obviously part one, part two will be coming out in a few days, and part three after that. all within a single week. I have re-listened to all of them. I will be adding some additional info and commentary to some of them because I just think that's helpful.

For this episode, part one, as I re-listened, the information is solid. The history here is evergreen because it covers only up to 1953. But in re-listening, I realized that this episode is pretty dense. As I was listening, I kept thinking, ah, this would be so much easier to understand if I had a timeline next to me to reference. So we made one. Before you listen to this episode, head over to patreon.com slash wiserworldpodcast.

And there you will see a free downloadable PDF that you can click on and print to help guide you through this episode and act kind of as like a cheat sheet for your learning. It goes hand in hand with this particular. I did not copy and paste it off of some website or off of AI. I made it to work with this particular episode. And if you've never signed into Patreon, it may ask you to log in, but you do not have

to pay for this one. We're going to see if you like it. So if it helps, please send us a message on Instagram or email us at info at wiserworld.com. Let us know if it helps and we'll see if this is something we want to keep doing in the future or even do. for past episodes. We're just going to give it a try. So that's what we're doing for part one. I hope you enjoyed this episode. This is Iran 101 part one. Is there a difference between Persia and Iran?

What is a Shah? Who were the major leaders from the late 1800s until 1953? When was oil discovered? How did the British and Russians influence Iran? Who was Mohamed Mossadegh, and how did he affect the Iran that we know today? We will learn the answers to these questions and many more in today's episode, part one of Iran 101, or the last 100-ish years in Iran.

Welcome to Wiser World, a podcast for busy people who need a refresher on all things world. Here we explore different regions of the globe, giving you the facts and context you need to think historically about current events. I truly believe that the more we learn about the world, the more we embrace our shared humanity. I'm your host, Ali Roper. Thanks for being here. Welcome to True Spies.

The podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time. Suddenly out of the dark, disappeared bin Laden. You'll meet the people who live life undercover. What do they know? What are their skills? And what would you do? Vengeance felt good. Seeing these people pay for what they'd done felt righteous. True Spies, from Spyscape Studios, wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, I am back. Thank you for your patience with me. These episodes have been a long time in the making. You know, when I taught school, I was limited by time and number of class periods, you know, I could teach the material in. But one of my favorite things about a podcast is...

that I can do a lot of the research I never had time to do when I was a teacher. And what I've discovered is that some countries take a longer time to do than others. They each kind of have their own speed and rhythm, and I'm learning that I like to roll with it. Okay, I don't want to wait any longer. Let's go scratch the surface of the last 100 years or so of history in Iran. And as I record this in October 2022...

Iran is going through a significant moment. Some are calling it a revolution. Others are calling it demonstrations, protests. Either way, Iran is very important to know about right now. And I'll be honest, of all the countries I've covered so far in this podcast,

Iran's history has been the most complex for me to dive into. There's a barrier to entry in... understanding iran it's absolutely fascinating and i have been totally sucked in which is why it has taken me so long to get these episodes out i have specifically designed these episodes for people who are non-historians non-iranians people who have a very little understanding of Iran and want to have a better foundational knowledge of this country. So that is who I have designed these episodes for.

So let's jump right in with where Iran is located. Iran is a big country. It's two and a half times bigger than the state of Texas here in the United States. And if you're looking at a map and you see the Saudi peninsula, Saudi Arabia, it's just to the... right of it. It's located right between Iraq on the west and Afghanistan and Pakistan on the east.

But it also has borders with lots of other countries as well. And like I said, Iran is very big, so its climate varies depending on where you are in the country. In the north, winters can be very cold with snow and freezing temps. But in the south... Winters are mild, summers are very hot, like hot, hot, over 100 degrees hot. And it generally doesn't rain a lot in Iran, though there are parts closer to the coast that have milder climates.

It's mostly mountains and plains and deserts, not a lot of forests. And these plains, as we'll learn, they hold lots of oil, which makes Iran number four in the world in terms of oil reserves. It also has a higher elevation than some of its neighbors, so it doesn't get quite as hot as, say, Iraq. Some fun facts. Bears and leopards live in Iran, and if you know Persian cooking, you know there's lots of walnuts and citrus fruits, dates, cherries.

berries, pomegranates, saffron in their food. And that's because those foods can be grown easily in Iran.

Before this land was known to the world as Iran, it was called Persia by most people until about 1935, so not that long ago. In fact, many Iranians or people who live in Iran also considers themselves Persian. So modern Iran, the Iran of today, has many different ethnic and tribal groups of people, but the majority of Iranians can trace their family lineage through Persia. So a person is called Iranian if they are from modern Iran, like as in the country of Iran, the state of Iran.

But they also might consider themselves Persian as their cultural heritage. They can be both. Or they can be Iranian, but from a different ethnic group, such as Iranian Kurdish. So their ethnicity is Kurdish, but their statehood is Iranian. Iranian. But as I said, since modern-day Iran is a lot of what the Persian Empire used to be, Persian food or Persian culture is often synonymous with Iranian food and Iranian culture. And the Persian Empire is old.

And many of them take great pride in that history, and they know it quite well. It's been something that's been... Very surprising to me how well the Iranians in my life know their history. So I think it's wrong to talk about Iranian history and not spend a second on the Persian Empire because...

That's so rich. That's such a rich part of their heritage. So the Persian Empire began roughly 4,000 years ago when people migrated from Central Asia and India. And Iran derives its name from the Aryans, these people who migrated. Persia truly unified under a man called Cyrus the Great, close to roughly 600 BC. In fact, Cyrus is the one who named the region Persia, and today he's remembered for his conquests, but also...

for the relative gentleness with which he treated his subjects. For example, you can read about Cyrus in the Bible when he allowed the Jews to build a temple in Jerusalem, or you might know the Daniel in the lion's den story from the Bible. Daniel served King Darius, who was Persian. So this is an ancient place at the same time as the Romans and the Greeks, and Persia conquered many places. It became a land of kings, and it had these supreme leaders who were given absolute power.

and they were called shahs. So a shah in Iran is another name for a king. And because Iran's geography sat right in the middle of the world's most important trading routes at the time, it was also invaded many times by powerful outsiders. And we're not going to go into the Persian Empire in these episodes, but what I think is most important for you to know. keep in mind, stow that away in your brain, is that Iran's history is very old.

And from a cultural perspective, Persia has some ancient and beautiful traditions that have absolutely affected the Western world at large. In fact, many of the most prominent political philosophies and ideologies studied today originated in Persia. Like Persian poetry is world famous. You might know the 13th century poet Rumi, widely read today by people all over the world. And these are many things that make Iran very unique compared to some of its neighbors, especially Middle Eastern.

During the age of imperialism, when European nations were conquering lands other than their own, mostly for influence and economic gains, the Middle East, like much of the world, especially Africa, was part of this. And this carving up of the Middle East into countries was done really without much regard to who lived there and these areas are still affected today by those decisions.

Iran, however, was kind of the exception. It's the one country in the region that has pretty similar borders to pre-imperial, pre-colonial times. Not perfectly the same, but... Pretty close. And this is important because Iran is very different from its neighbors. Persians are not the same as Arabs. Their ethnic heritage is more...

Indo-European. They speak a language called Farsi, also known as Persian. And you contrast that with Arabic, which is an Afro-Asiatic language. They're quite different. And Persians make up roughly 60% of Iran's population. The other majority...

to Turks. And Arabs really only make three to seven percent of the population in Iran. So that's just good to know. Iran has quite a few minority groups, such as the Jews and the Baharis, among others. But it's just important to note, Iran is different from its

And another distinction is that the majority of Iranians are Shia Muslims, also sometimes known Shiite, but I'm going to say Shia. The majority of the Muslim world is Sunni Muslim. And I want to give a little background on that because the...

distinction is very important in the history. So let's do a really brief, super brief intro to the religion of Islam here. Islam was founded in 610 AD. by the Prophet Muhammad in Saudi Arabia. And it is one of the three major religions around today that originate in the Middle East, Christianity and Judaism being the other two. And it's the second most popular religion in the world behind Christianity.

The religion of Islam spread throughout the region, the Middle Eastern region, through trade and commerce and war and conquest. And in roughly 650 AD... So as one author put it, quote, liking or took certain parts while resisting others. So it was when they were forced to adopt Islam. They had no choice but to accept Muhammad as God's prophet and the Quran.

a holy book for Muslims, as God's word, but over a period of centuries, they fashioned an interpretation of Islam quite different from that of their Arab conquerors, end quote. So to illustrate this different interpretation, that Iranians took. In Islam, there are two major groups, I would say. When the prophet Muhammad died, there was a divide on who should be the next leader. Should it be a blood relative of Muhammad or should it be one of his most trusted advisors? And the majority...

of the people, about 90% of Muslims, followed his trusted advisor. And these Muslims today are called Sunni Muslims. And the minority group that believed Muhammad's blood relatives should lead out, which was roughly 10% of the Muslims today, are called Shia Muslims. And because the Shias interpreted the history differently than the Sunnis, the effect was...

that longstanding Iranian beliefs could be reinforced by this unique take on Islam. And the majority of Shia Muslims today live in Iran, another distinction between the rest of the Middle Eastern Arab world. Again, I have simplified this way down, but what I basically want you to understand is that grouping Iran into the Middle East does not mean it can be easily grouped into the Arab world culturally or ethnically. The majority of Iranians believe in Islam, but follow a different sect.

then the majority SUNY. Sunni majority and Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims don't always get along, especially politically. Plus, Iranians have a different language than the majority of Arabs. They physically appear differently as well, tend to have lighter colored skin. So we're studying a country. who has situated itself quite differently ethnically, religiously, politically than other Middle Eastern countries. So that's the background. Let's get into the history.

We always start these episodes with the late 1800s, and so far, the countries we've talked about, every single one of them has had some kind of colonialism or imperialism. Same with Iran. Like I said, the late 1800s is the time when European nations... are wanting to grow empires, take over lands to have more resources. And at this time, Persia was run by a shah, and he was pretty much an absolute ruler.

Where we're going to begin in the late 1800s, the shahs were known for their excessive lifestyle, huge national treasury, and the shah at this time had 1,600 wives. And he was quite the guy. He demanded to be called the Shah of Shaws. He lived this very wealthy lifestyle. And he began selling government jobs and concessions to Europeans. And the British were his first customers. Russia also had a stake.

Great Britain, the Iranians started to get very agitated as they watched their nation's most valuable assets and lands and waterways and rights. rights to establish banks, things like that. All of these important things in a country were passed from Iranians to foreigners who could pay

a higher price than the Iranians. And a lot of Iranians were living in poverty while the Shah was swimming in money from the British and the Russians. And there was this rising discontent in the country. For example, in 1891, the Shah... sold the Iranian tobacco industry to the British. And under the agreement, every farmer who grew tobacco was required to sell it to this particular British company. And every smoker had to buy it at a shop that

was part of this British imperial network. And as a nation of smokers and thousands of farmers who grew it, they were pretty mad that the foreigners were gaining so much from their work. And personally, I can understand that. I think that would be very frustrating. Finally, the Shah's wives, all 1,600 of them, protested by stopping smoking. The Shah was so thrown off he had to cancel the deal.

And even though a lot of the country's assets were still dominated by foreigners, there was still tons of unemployment and inflation and serious food shortages. The Iranians felt emboldened by their success to influence the Shah. And this is an important moment in history.

It was kind of the first modern take of, hey, we can influence the Shah here. And in 1896, he was shot. Very few people were upset about it. His country was dominated by foreigners, horrible situations for people, and his son was no better at ruling than he was.

was. And in 1901, he sold to the British the exclusive rights to, quote, obtain, exploit, develop, render suitable for trade, carry away and sell natural gas and petroleum for a term of Okay, this one deal changed the future of Iran forever. So what did he just sell away? He sold away the rights to basically obtain and sell natural gas and petroleum in Iran. Iran for 60 years.

In 1905, there were so many riots and protests for democracy that this new Shah had no choice but to create a parliament so that there would be some representation of the public in the government. And he took a long time to do it, and the Iranians took to the streets, and they demanded representation.

They really had to fight for it. This time in history is called the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 in Iran. A constitution was made that laid out the rights and privileges of all Iranians, and then a parliament was put into place, and it was called the Majlis or the Majlis. This is a huge deal for Iran. They basically had a democratic revolution, still had a Shah, but also now had the Majlis or the parliament now. And the Majlis is...

Basically, the legislative body of politicians who would work with the Shah to make laws and rule over Iran. They could help kind of curb this unchecked power of the Shah. And at the time, some members of the Majlis were directly elected. Others were chosen by guilds like... grocers or blacksmiths. But the first session was at the end of 1906. It was a pretty tough transition. As we know, democratization is a long process. And plus, to make matters more difficult, the Shah died shortly after.

And his son, Muhammad Ali, he hated the Majlis and wouldn't listen to them, and he destroys the parliament building, declares war on the revolutionaries, and a civil war ensues. And to make it short, the Shah wins. On Who Arted, we discuss art in a way that's fun and accessible for everyone who wants to explore the visual arts in an audio medium. Each week, we focus on the stories that make up art history, with emphasis on finding the good in all sorts of art.

and I mean all sorts. I cover the traditional stuff you'd learn in any art history course, but with fun facts your professor probably never shared. Art is all around us, and art should be accessible for all of us. Who Arted is dedicated to celebrating the artists and artworks that shape our perceptions of the world, while helping us envision a better tomorrow. So please follow Who Arted wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

Did archaeologists discover Noah's Ark? Is the rapture coming as soon as the Euphrates River dries up? Does the Bible condemn abortion? Don't you wish you had a trustworthy academic resource to help make sense of all of this? Well, I'm Dan Beecher, and he's award-winning Bible scholar and TikTok sensation, Dr. Dan McClellan. And we want to invite you to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where our mission is to increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion.

and also to combat the spread of misinformation about the same. But, you know, in a fun way. Every week we tackle fascinating topics. We go back to source materials in their original languages. And we interview top scholars in the field. So whether you're a devout believer. Or you're just interested in a clear-eyed, deeply informed look at one of the most influential books of all time. We think you're going to love the Data Over Dogma podcast. Wherever you subscribe to awesome shows.

So this is a very difficult time in Iranian history with average people being very involved in politics, their government in turmoil. Religiously, this was a tough spot, too, because many Islamic leaders were worried. That a democratic government would not allow religious freedom. They were worried about the future of their faith in Iran. And many of these leaders stood with.

The Shah, who hated the Majlis, fought against democratization. So for five years, the country was in total turmoil. The Majlis was shut down. The thing that's important to know, though, is that a constitution had been written and adopted. And so this gave people the feeling that. hey, we have made some progress here. And it gave people conviction that they had rights that no government could take away from them. And this would influence Iran for many, many years, even today.

And during this time, a lot was going on with the foreign powers as well. I kind of see it as Iran fighting amongst itself, but Britain and Russia are like the big dogs on the scene. They have other plans. And in 1907, Britain and Russia... signed a treaty kind of dividing Iran between the two of them. Britain took control of the South, Russia took control of the North, and then there was a neutral strip between them that Iranians could rule as long as they...

behaved, right? Iran was not consulted on this. They were just told this. And it wasn't that the Shah didn't have power. He did. But those areas were also hugely influenced by Britain and Russia. Now, here's the big stuff. Oil was discovered in Iran in 1908. Right away. Everyone knew this was a huge deal.

gained direct control of the Iranian oil industry. If you look at this from the British perspective, this was a gold mine. In fact, Winston Churchill called it a, quote, a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams. So Britain didn't have oil. So here is a time when they are really starting to need oil, the early 1900s, and they now have Iran to drill it for them.

Britain controlled the oil industry in Iran for over 35 years, and Iran had no control over their oil exports. They built these huge refineries all over Iran, and Iran became one of the top five oil producers in the world. Iran never became a fully fledged colony of the British, but the Anglo-Iranian oil company had a lot of power in the country. And the British essentially ran everything oil related, while Iranians were employed by the oil companies.

They were not privy to information on all of the details of how to refine oil or the business side of things. The British really kept these oil secrets to themselves. And cities grew up very quickly. They were filled with British and Iranian workers. Classic. The British were almost always the technicians and administrators, beautiful homes and lawns. And then there were tens of thousands of Iranian laborers living in slums with little sanitation.

Water fountains were even marked, like, not for Iranians. So from 1908, the discovery of oil through World War I until 1918, about 10 years. Britain is really heavily focused on oil in Iran. And it's interesting to me that the Qajar dynasty or the Shah at the time didn't have the knowledge of resources to find... to use their oil without foreign help. So Iran had become quite a battlefield during World War I. Lots of different groups were vying for power.

And about a quarter of the Iranian population died during this time. Russia was going through a major revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, if you remember from those episodes. And while Russia's influence was waning, there was some communist fervor going on in the northern provinces of Iran. And Turkey and Germany and British forces occupied much of Iran during this time, just a really complicated time in history.

And after World War I in 1919, the British sort of bribed the Iranian Shah at the time to sign an agreement. And this agreement was called the Anglo-Persian Agreement, and it meant that the British could control Iran's army, treasury, transport system, and... communications network. And this only made the Iranian people more against the British.

leading to more nationalism, more unrest, and some people felt like Iran was basically dwindling in existence, which teases up perfectly for a charismatic leader to come onto the scene. In 1921, a man named Reza... is introduced into Iranian history. So his story is quite fascinating. He was a military man. He traveled all over Iran. He saw what the people were going through at the hands of the Qajar dynasty.

And the British liked him because they wanted to replace the Shah's prime minister with a guy of their choosing, and they needed the military to help them do it. So Reza... It's kind of a long story on how it happened, but basically Reza was very ambitious. He was a force of personality, and he quickly became... the prime minister. And he was very powerful. And the initial plan really was to create a republic. But he became...

The prime minister, the army commander, and basically the head of this very insecure Iranian state quite quickly within a short number of years. And the dynasty... The Qajar dynasty was dead. On April 25, 1926, Reza Khan became the Shah, and he called himself Reza Shah. And his new dynasty became known as the Pahlavi dynasty.

So this military man turned Shah worked very hard to limit the influence of foreign powers in Iran, and he made a lot of changes. One quote I really liked from the book All the Shah's Men says, quote, European engineers to build the rail line that was one of his grandest dreams, he did so on the condition that the engineers and their families agree to stand beneath each bridge they built when a train passed over it for the first time." He was also known for being very

ruthless in putting down rebellions, and stories of his ruthlessness terrified the people and then kind of pacified them. He made a lot of religious reforms. He banned the mandatory veil for women. He also required men to wear a hat that wouldn't let their foreheads touch the ground when they prayed, which is a very big deal in Islam. He once massacred 100 people in a mosque for protesting these changes, so you can see how he could be seen as quite a threatening figure to men.

many religious traditionalists in Iran, especially as he restricted traditional clothing. I'm going to quote here. Time and again, Reza Shah resolved problems with his brand of brutal decisiveness. Once during a visit to Hamadan in western Iran, for example, he was sad to have learned that people there were going hungry because bakers were hoarding wheat. End of quote.

He censored newspapers, jailed opposition figures. He forced nomadic tribes off their lands. He centralized commerce, became a very wealthy landowner. Additionally, a lot of his wealth was amassed through opium, which we learned about in the Chinese episodes.

And it's been a huge deal throughout history. He worked very hard to oppress and obliterate minority groups such as the Kurds. And while he was brutal, he also unified the country. And many were grateful to have a powerful leader who could do something about many of the. Iran was facing.

And Reza Shah was tough. He was an absolute leader. And while the Majlis or the parliament still existed, it was not able to function freely. He worked very hard to modernize and secularize Iran, which means to make religion less powerful. in terms of political power. And he didn't have much patience with the old ways or traditions of religions. He created a universal education system. It benefited women as well. He took on huge construction programs, created a national...

Army, introduced a modern calendar. You get the idea. Just a lot of... creation of a more modern industrial nation really spoiled his military, created a strong police force. He changed Iran pretty substantially, and this is the important foundation we need to see the evolution of Iran in the next few episodes, because history gives us... context, right? So Reza Shah began calling Iran Iran instead of Persia.

in 1935. This time period between World War I and World War II was important in Iran because he became very interested in Hitler, Mussolini, the fascist movements going on in Europe at the time. And he was especially fond of the Germans. And despite Him saying that Iran was neutral in World War II, he did allow the Germans to come and work in Iran, and Hitler influenced him quite a bit. At the same time, a group of Iranians created a political party called the Tuday that pushed...

communism. So we have lots of different things going on in Iran at the time, very tumultuous time in world history. And the British and Soviets were not okay with his flirtation with Hitler, and they stepped in and seized. strategic points all over Iran. They obviously wanted oil for the war. And by September 16th, 1941, Reza abdicated, I say in quotes, air quotes, the throne and gave it to his son, Mohammed Reza.

Reza Shah, his father, lived in exile in South Africa until his death, and the majority of Iranian people generally didn't like him, so they were happy to see him go. So now we have this young Mohammed Reza, his son, taking over the throne at this crucial point in Iran. And the British have basically put him there. His father has been kicked out and the British have him there. And the British and Soviets...

kind of ruled Iran through him, letting the Iranians do it, but definitely an occupying force, using Iran for strategic military purposes during World War II. So for the first eight or so years of Mohammad Reza's reign, He was a very different kind of leader from his father. He spent a lot of time on racehorses with women, sports cars, definitely more pro-British, went to London often. And many Iranians did not respect him because they felt that the British kind of had him in their...

pocket. The Soviets had a lot of power in the north, like we've talked about, and this made the British and the Americans pretty nervous as they were worried about the spread of communism into Iran. And in 1946, just after World War II, the oil workers...

went on strike. They demanded better health care and housing. They wanted their foreign bosses to obey Iranian labor laws. And the British by now had a lot of experience with unhappy natives, and so they refused to negotiate. They killed many people. But this only... inflamed public opinion even more. The Majlis began to assert itself again and began to push back against Britain more than they had before. And one man in particular begins to take the political scene at this time.

and his name was Mohamed Mossadegh. Mossadegh's story in a nutshell is that he was a well-educated lawyer turned political. Most of his education was in Europe. He lived back and forth between Europe and Iran and served in many different Iranian political positions. But he was one of...

Reza Shah's, so the first Reza Shah, who was exiled, right? He was one of Reza Shah's most sharp critics. He could see Reza for what he was as an absolutist, and he warned everybody that he was going to become a dictator, which he did, right? So Mossadegh was a very popular leader. Iranians generally trusted him, felt that he knew the country very well. So when Reza gains power... becomes this absolutist dictator. The Majlis loses its power. Mossadegh kind of disappears from the political scene.

Well, when Reza Shah gets put into exile in South Africa and elections open up for free in 1943 under his son. Mossadegh runs for election and wins with more votes than any other candidate. He was very popular. And while Mossadegh was a proponent of reform and modernization and democracy, the hill that he was willing to die on, Mossadegh's do-or.

was the Anglo-Iranian oil company. To help illustrate why, in 1947, the Anglo-Iranian oil company reported a profit of 40 million euros and gave Iran just 7 million. So the British government owned 51% of the shares. More than half of the profits went directly to the British government. Without Iranian oil, the British could in no way keep their standard of living. And back in Iran, for workers, wages at the time were 50 cents a day. As one journalist wrote,

Bonneans lived during the seven hot months of the year under the trees. In winter times, these masses moved into big halls built by the company, housing up to 3,000 to 4,000 people without walls or partition between them. Each family occupied the space of a blank. There were no lavatories, no bathrooms.

In debates with British colleagues, we often try to show them the mistake that they were making in treating the Persians the way that they did. The answer was usually, we English have had hundreds of years of experience on how to treat the natives. Socialism is all right back home, but out here you have to be. So despite these living conditions for Iranians and the Anglo-Iranian oil company not reforming,

despite the Majlis really working toward it, Iranians were pretty done with it all by now. They wanted democracy, and protests and outrage were rampant, especially as the Shah was rigging the Majlis elections at the time, and both highly religious... people and less religious secularists were all invested in nationalizing or at least changing the oil industry. So in 1951, Mossadegh and the Majlis

vote to nationalize the oil industry. Basically, this means that the Anglo-Iranian oil company would be no more, and Iran would have total control of its own oil. Every person who showed up to vote that day voted to nationalize, and Mossadegh was the main figure behind it all. He was the man of the moment, and he was voted to be prime minister. Mossadegh was seen as kind of a double-edged sword.

It threatened not only the oil company in the British Empire, but also the Shah and his continued control over the armed forces. So he had started this mass movement, truly mobilized Iranians for their country. So neither the British...

nor the Shah really knew what to do with him. And so the Majlis had voted for this nationalization of oil, and now Mossadegh's prime minister has to do it. He has to make it happen. And the British were obviously very unhappy with this vote and weren't going to go easily. but they weren't able to manipulate Mossadegh

as they had past prime ministers. They even sent warships off the coast. They tried to persuade the Shah to dissolve the parliament completely. Think about this, right? They really wanted to keep this oil. control in Iran. They actually lowered wages for workers. Tensions were so high. At this time, the U.S. is super concerned about communism as well. This is post-World War II. We're starting the beginning of the Cold War.

And at the same time, President Truman has started the CIA, the U.S. spy agency, and he wants to confront communist movements wherever they're appearing. So this all happened at the same time. While the Iranians generally... did not like the British and the Soviets, again, generally, after so many years of being governed by them. Iran at the time did not detest the United States. In fact, there was great admiration for the United States at the time. The U.S. had been actually quite critical.

of the Anglo-Persian agreement. They did not agree with the way that the British were handling the Anglo-running oil company. And even in the 1950s, where we are now, There was this wide chasm between the US and British on how Iran should be handled. And everyone knew that the way that this situation of nationalizing oil in Iran was handled, it was going to be very important.

in terms of politics in the Middle East. Welcome to Those Who Can't Teach Anymore, a narrative podcast series that explores why teachers are leaving education and what can be done to stop the exodus. after the first season several teachers reached out to say how validating the podcast was listening to the stories of other teachers who feel the same way that i do has been therapeutic

I felt so validated just hearing other well-educated professionals speak to the problems they were seeing and the reasons they needed to leave. I more so just felt a part of something bigger. This season, we're getting a look at the year and the life of teachers from across the country through their audio journals. These teachers are at different parts in their careers, teaching different subjects and grade levels and in different parts of the country. But they still have a lot in common.

Look for those who can't teach anymore. Season two, a different kind of the same thing. Do you find it hard to sleep at night? then the Calm Cove podcast can help you sleep deeply all night long. Calm Cove has deeply relaxing meditation music and ambient sounds like ocean waves and crackling fires.

All of our episodes are designed to help you relax and to fall asleep fast. Calm Cove is brought to you by the team behind Sleep Cove, the sleep podcast that consists of spoken word hypnosis, meditation. and stories. So if you want to listen to A Beautiful Soundscape tonight, search for Calm Cove on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and see how we're helping millions of people relax and go to sleep.

So while this new national Iranian oil company was being created, negotiations between the British and Iran were so intense and they were... breaking down. The British were thinking about landing troops in Iran to secure what they saw as their own refineries and oil fields, and it really wasn't looking good. Mossadegh was...

very popular internationally. He actually even traveled to the United States. He was named Times Man of the Year in 1951. So the U.S. and British are not in agreement. Mossadegh's not backing down. He knew that by kicking out the British, it would result in no money in the Iranian treasury. He knew that because the Iranians didn't know how to run the company. But it didn't matter. It was a matter of principle for him. And so the British had to find an angle.

right? And they began saying that they worried that nationalization of the oil industry would be seen as a victory to the Russians. And British intelligence sources began telling the CIA that Mossadegh had communist leanings and that Iran would be put into the Soviet orbit if he stayed as prime minister. The U.S. president at the time, Harry Truman, he was not so sure about this, but the British and the Shah began privately trying to depose.

Mossadegh as prime minister. The Shah ends up leaving the country for, quote, medical reasons. And Mossadegh is essentially running the country at this time. Then President Dwight Eisenhower replaced Harry Truman and things began to change. Eisenhower was more easy to convince that Mossadegh was worth overthrowing. The British convinced him that Mossadegh was a communist threat and that Iran...

was not worth compromising over, and Eisenhower signed off on it. It was a big reversal of policy for the United States, and Mossadegh and the Iranians really weren't ready for it. They didn't see it coming. Quickly, British intelligence and the CIA, the American spy agency, began working with pro-Shah Iranians and the Iranian military.

And they hatched a covert plot to depose Mossadegh. The CIA actually took the lead on this, you guys. It's pretty crazy how they did it. Eisenhower approved $1 million. to the CIA station in Tehran, the capital of Iran, to end Mossadegh's reign as prime minister. The covert operation was underway to replace him with an Iranian military man. His name was General Zahedi. And they wanted to get Mohammed Reza Shah.

The Shah, who had left for, quote, medical reasons, they wanted to get him back into the country. So to do this, the CIA operatives paid people to protest in the streets against Mossadegh, giving the impression to the world that he was less popular than he actually was. This was a manipulation of public opinion, no doubt. Their goal was to, and I quote, They actually staged attacks on

religious leaders, making it look like Mossadegh had backed the attacks. They paid newspapers to write false reports on him and have it printed all over the country. On the morning of the coup, there was a coup to replace him. They actually paid demonstrators to hit the streets in a massive anti-government rally. It was total mayhem. They hired all kinds of people, including bodybuilders, to march down the street shouting, long live the shot.

At first, the coup was unsuccessful, but they actually tried again, and they were successful. And on August 19, 1953, Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister, was arrested by the military after they burned his house. Military and police units who were loyal to the military man, Zahedi, took control of Tehran.

And Mulsadegh served three years in prison and died under house arrest in 1967. His statement in court was, quote, My only crime is that I nationalize the Iranian oil industry and remove from this land the network of colonialism. and the political and economic influence of the greatest empire on earth. End of quote. The Shah returned to power, and in time, Mossadegh's name became much less discussed. The Shah...

ruled over Iran, Mohammed Reza Shah ruled over Iran until 1979. So essentially, the U.S. planned and funded a coup to remove an elected leader from Iran and replace him. with a monarch. It's very interesting. Most Americans don't know this because this information came out much later. It was hidden for a very long time. signed over 40 percent of iran's oil fields to u.s companies the national iranian oil company

was what that was called, but it was mostly a facade. 40% of the shares went to Anglo-Iranian and 40% went to the U.S. and the last 20% to the Dutch and the French. And the Shah became one of the U.S.'s strongest allies in the Middle East. during the Cold War. The fall of Mossadegh is an enormous moment in Iranian history that I think is worth noting, and this is just me speculating. But if he had stayed in power, the history of Iran would likely...

be quite different, I think, than it is now. Who's to say, right? He was an older man. We don't know. Some of the authors I read believe that Iran likely would have continued on a path toward full democracy had the U.S. not intervened. Again, who knows? Because now we know what happened on September 11th, 2001. We now know the Iraq War. We now know the war in Afghanistan. We see how democracy in Iran could have changed the course of the whole Middle East, but it didn't happen.

To kind of summarize this coup, one author wrote, The coup could perhaps not have happened without mistakes of Mossadegh's own making, and in fact it nearly failed, but it certainly would not have happened without the intervention of the British SIS and the American CIA. Although the story of the coup did not emerge for many years,

and perhaps has not done so fully even now, Iranians blamed these two agencies at the time and have done so bitterly ever since. The idea that everything happened in Iranian politics was manipulated by a hidden foreign hand was again... and reinforced, fathering dozens of improbable conspiracy theories in later years. So, Ali inserting here, it lost trust, right? The Iranian people lost trust for the United States.

Mossadegh became a national hero across most ideological class and religious boundaries. The coup also had significance in a number of other ways. It established the United States in Iran. as the prime ally and protector of the Pallavi regime. and it achieved the aim of getting rid of the Soviet communist influence. But it also took away much of the enchantment the United States had previously enjoyed popularly as a virtuous alternative to the older powers such as Great Britain.

The significance of the event took some time to sink in. For a while, some Iranians still believed or hoped that the Americans had been duped by the British and that fundamental U.S. values would reassert themselves. But the United States was principled. charming no more. End of quote. All right, let's end there. It was a bit of a doozy. I'm going to do a little summary list for you and then my takeaway.

In summary, first, Iran was once called Persia, has a long history, thousands of years, very immense. At one point, they ruled over half the world's population. The Shia sect of Islam is very important in Iran, and it is also the minority sect in Islam. And Iran was ruled by shahs or kings for many years. Second, Iran began to flirt with democracy in the early 1900s. The Majlis or Iranian parliament is formed around this time.

And Iranians don't have a very high standard of living during this time in the early 1900s. In 1908, oil was discovered. The British formed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Most of the profits go straight to Britain. Iran was very unstable during this time, very little trust in the Shah or the Qajar dynasty at the time. Then we have Reza coming onto the scene, and he becomes a Shah dictator, an outsider. He modernizes and secularizes Iran. much less focus on religion.

He's not loved. He's feared. He's tough. He begins calling Persia Iran in 1935. He flirts with Hitler and the Germans. Then during World War II, the British and Soviets step in and Reza is sent into exile. son takes his place. The young Mohammed Reza becomes a British puppet of sorts. Then Mossadegh comes onto the scene. He becomes prime minister, launches a revolution for nationalizing the oil in Iran. kicking out the British, and despite most Iranians liking the United States at the time,

The U.S. does get involved in this, and together with the British, CIA funds and plans a coup against Mossadegh, bringing the Shah and a military man to replace Mossadegh as prime minister. This changes the future of Iran.

and the Middle East and halts any progress toward democracy. So much meaty history in this episode that it's hard to just pick one takeaway. But I think that my major takeaway in studying the last multiple countries, and especially the 1953 coup in Iran, is that what I see is not always truth.

And that has been helpful to me as I have kept up with things going on in the world that just because there's a video of it or just because there's a picture of it doesn't necessarily mean that we have all of the information that we can rush to conclusions. For example, the 1953 coup.

A lot of those protesters were paid. And I think that's just an important thing to keep in mind. It makes us a little bit more wiser, a little more discerning as we see images constantly on our phones about what's going on in the world. Keep in mind. We might have information that comes out about this particular issue in 40 years that we don't see now. And so it just gives us a little more context, a little more pause. Hopefully makes us a little bit more wise. I think it's done that.

for me studying this has made me just a little stop pause let's take a break here and see What could be going on behind the scenes that I can't see right here in this moment? So I think that's my major takeaway of this first part of Iran. I hope that you learned something. I hope that you have become a little wiser, learned something about a country you knew very little about. Keep listening.

listening to part two and part three because part one absolutely plays into it. Thank you so much for listening and sharing and let's go out and make the world a little wiser.