Imperialism and Third World nationalism: Reflections on the coup against Mossadegh’s regime in Iran,1953

Abstract

The US’s planned and financed overthrow of the Mossadegh’s regime in Iran in 1953 was a classical case of imperialist intervention. Many explanations for this can be offered: US’s racial fellow feeling for British, the main possible loser at the hands of Mossadegh’s nationalism; expectation of economic gains for US oil interests or fear of threat from the Soviet Union. None of these, however, can stand detailed analysis. What can offer a more straightforward explanation is that anti-colonial Third World nationalism could not just be fitted into the world-view of the major capitalist powers, chiefly the USA. It has to be suppressed or thwarted wherever such possibility existed.