I’d like something that goes over the American interference in the region, debunks myths about the Shah’s government (for example, I’ve seen people here mention that only the wealthy dressed like westerners) and explains how the Iranian revolution happened.
Is Targeting Iran any good? I know Chomsky has some shit takes but he usually does a good job dismantling US narrative & propaganda
What myths? The Shah was supported by the US and UK. The CIA orchestrated the 1953 coup where they overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh to give power to the Shah. The Shah was then overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
CIA declassified documents which show it was directly responsible for planning and orchestrating the 1953 coup: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/
Raya Dunayevskaya and Marxist-Humanists in general have good takes on the Iranian revolution:
https://newsandletters.org/from-the-writings-of-raya-dunayevskaya-contradictions-in-iranian-revolution/
https://newsandletters.org/from-the-writings-of-raya-dunayevskaya-iran-unfoldment-of-and-contradictions-in-revolution-parts-iii-and-iv/
https://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1979/iran-revolution.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1981/iran.htm
spoiler
(Might get flak for this cause Raya/JFT/Marxist-Humanists are “Western Marxists”, but whatever, I like her)
Expanding on the example I gave:
In reddit there’s pictures of Iran before the revolution (see: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4265905) often posted, with the implication being that this was life in Iran. This was my idea as well, even though I’ve left reddit for about a year now, because it’s one of the common historic trivia or info that gets posted there.
However the commenters on lemmygrad say that image is not representative of how Iran was, so if they’re correct that’s one debunked myth (for me). Info like that is what I was looking for.
Thanks for the resources, I’ll check them out.
Not sure when those pictures are from; if I were to venture a guess, I’d say they’re from the post-coup era. Mossadegh’s “crime” was that he dared to nationalise Iran’s oil. This angered the Americans and Brits. I assume that after the coup, the Shah instituted social reforms to appease the well-off Iranians, and to show the Western world how progessive he/they are, while he sold the control of Iran’s natural resources to Western petroleum companies.