The CIA Coup That Remade the Middle East

[Judi Lynn]

January 15, 2016
The CIA Coup That Remade the Middle East

by Paul Buhle

Operation Ajax: the Story of the CIA Coup That Remade the
Middle East. By Daniel Burwen and Mike De Seve.
Foreword by Stephen Kinzer. New York : Verso. Unpaged
(248pp), $25.95

This is a four-color shocker and if the holiday gift-giving season is not entirely over, a fine present to a youngster. The facts are hardly unknown—a recent Guardian report, based on British intelligence records, reconfirmed the CIA role in overthrowing the elected and beloved Iranian leader—or even untreated in previous comic art. (Reviewer disclosure: the coverage of the same coup, in A People’s History of American Empire, aka the Howard Zinn adaptation, is brief but excellent.) Rather, because of the current state of the Middle East: the US/British intelligence operation more than a half-century old remains, like the more recent US invasion of Iraq, remains so much at the center of the disorder in the region today.

And also because this book is professional-looking in the mainstream “noir” comic style a la Alan Moore that runs second to superhero comics and far above most nonfiction works. Success may bring more projects like this closer to the local comic-book-store addict of various ages, mostly male and mostly seeking “action” as well as story and drawing styles. We hope so.

This is a four-color shocker and if the holiday gift-giving season is not entirely over, a fine present to a youngster. The facts are hardly unknown—a recent Guardian report, based on British intelligence records, reconfirmed the CIA role in overthrowing the elected and beloved Iranian leader—or even untreated in previous comic art. (Reviewer disclosure: the coverage of the same coup, in A People’s History of American Empire, aka the Howard Zinn adaptation, is brief but excellent.) Rather, because of the current state of the Middle East: the US/British intelligence operation more than a half-century old remains, like the more recent US invasion of Iraq, remains so much at the center of the disorder in the region today.

And also because this book is professional-looking in the mainstream “noir” comic style a la Alan Moore that runs second to superhero comics and far above most nonfiction works. Success may bring more projects like this closer to the local comic-book-store addict of various ages, mostly male and mostly seeking “action” as well as story and drawing styles. We hope so.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/15/the-cia-coup-that-remade-the-middle-east/

[Bad Dog]

1. Don't let the British off

It was as much an MI5 coup as a CIA one. We're as much to blame as the Americans, and that doesn't include the carve up of the Ottoman Empire post WW1 which caused a lot a lot of the problems today.

[Igel]

4. I always have problems when

a coup is organized, perpetrated, run entirely by outsiders.

The result is saying that the Iranians, both coup-folk and others, are entirely puppets and without agency or volition.

We, the almighty White West, versus the poor, pathetic, limp Brown Others. "White Man's burden" in imperialist times is uplifting and guiding the downtrodden, powerless, ignorant brown masses; "white man's burden" in progressive times is assuming the guilt and responsibility for all the problems faced by the downtrodden, powerless, ignorant brown masses. Still exceptionalism, but inverted.

At least make it a 3-way collaboration.

[md83]

7. Gertrude of Arabia, the Woman Who Invented Iraq

The story of the British intelligence agent who rigged an election, installed a king loyal to the British, drew new borders—and gave us today’s ungovernable country.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/17/gertrude-of-arabia-the-woman-who-invented-iraq.html

[Enthusiast]

2. The CIA was just keeping us (British Petroleum) safe.

They were fighting for our Freedom(s).

[CanonRay]

3. The Iran coup was probably the biggest foreign policy blunder

until Bush gave us Iraq.

[bemildred]

5. The Shah was a real dipshit:

You will notice that even the guys holding the flagstaffs have lots of medals.

[MisterP]

6. and then all the problems were over and done with forever!