Vis Amir Shahi's documentary "Operation Ajax" details the 1953 CIA-backed coup overthrowing Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh, who nationalized oil against British demands. Framed as anti-communist under Eisenhower, this six-part operation installed a royal dictatorship that ultimately fueled the 1979 Islamic Revolution and four decades of Mullah rule. The film argues this intervention taught Middle Eastern leaders that democracy invites trouble when challenging Western interests, a pattern later repeated in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Chile. This history starkly contrasts U.S. democratic ideals with its record of uninvited foreign interference, raising urgent questions about current war powers resolutions regarding Iran before the April 17th deadline. [Automatically generated summary]
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Senate Vote on Iran War Powers00:02:11
Months.
If approved by the House, the Senate must pass it before the Friday, April 17th deadline.
Senate Democrats intend to force a vote for a fourth time on an Iran war powers resolution to limit unauthorized U.S. military action against Iran.
Three other attempts were blocked, mainly along Senate party lines.
Follow the process when Congress returns this week on the C-SPAN Networks and C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app.
Also, get the full schedule online at c-SPAN.org.
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This year, as we mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, C-SPAN's Student Cam documentary competition invited students to create short films exploring themes from American history, the rights and freedoms rooted in this founding document, and pressing issues of today, from the economy and immigration to criminal justice, education, and healthcare.
Nearly 4,000 students from 38 states and Washington, D.C. took part in this year's competition.
Throughout this month, we're proud to showcase our top 21 winners.
This year's second prize middle school winner is Vis Amir Shahi, an eighth grader from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Germantown, Maryland, where our local partner is Comcast.
Her winning documentary is titled Operation Ajax, Defending Democracy by Undermining the Will of the People, about the 1953 U.S. coup in Iran, its contrast with American democratic ideals, and its effect on global affairs.
US as Beacon of Hope00:07:48
After World War II, the United States was seen as a beacon of hope and a protector of democracy all over the world.
However, that soon would change.
In 1951, the geopolitically crucial country of Iran democratically elected its first prime minister, Mohamed Mossadegh, a devoted nationalist politician.
Mossadegh was a very eminent Iranian politician as he was evolving as a politician.
He was during a period that Iran was under enormous amount of foreign pressure.
Iran finally was on its way towards democracy, and it had a government that was democratically elected.
Therefore, that government had to respond to the overwhelming national challenge, which was we're sitting on an ocean of oil, but we're very poor, and all the money from the oil is going to Britain.
And so, Mossadegh was one of the very, very first politicians in what we now call the developing world that stood up for national rights and demanded that the British give Iran a better share.
And when the British refused, he insisted that, okay, give back all of our oil industry.
We want to nationalize it.
The British originally wanted actually to carry out military strikes against Iran to get them to put an end to their nationalization project for Iranian oil.
But they could not get the Truman administration to go along.
Truman thought that he could work something out with Mohamed Mossadegh.
When Eisenhower came into office, that all changed.
The British decided that although the reason we wanted to get rid of Mossadegh is because we want our oil company back, that would not be a good enough reason to persuade the Americans to get involved.
But recognizing this climate in Washington, where they were in a panic about communism, they sold it as an anti-communist operation, trying to frame Mossadegh as a person who might leave Iran open to communism.
So the United States saw things in black and white.
You know, there was no middle.
There was no position for you to say, I'm opposed to Western companies abusing my country, but I'm also opposed to communism.
The U.S. would not accept that position.
Very quickly, the CIA was, of course, the agency that was called on to take part in the planning.
There is a CIA document written by one of the planners of the coup, Donald Wilber, and it talks about a six-part plan that involved all kinds of things from sort of creating an environment of chaos and opposition to Mossadegh,
engaging in propaganda activities to undermine his position, working with the military, working with tribes, working with other forces inside society, working with the Shah himself to create conditions whereby Mossadegh's position would be rendered illegal.
On August 19th, 1953, the coup, codenamed Operation Ajax, was carried out by British and American agents.
Mossad Birk was thrown out of office and replaced by a military figurehead.
This was an earth-shattering event.
It's having effects right up to today.
It produced 25 years of royal dictatorship that ultimately produced the revolution of the late 1970s, which we call the Islamic Revolution.
That's led to this 40 years of rule by the Mullahs, which has been a regime that has worked to undermine American interests all over the world.
It taught a whole generation of rising leaders in the Middle East what they should do in order to have sympathy and a security umbrella from the United States.
And that was, do not take the root of democracy.
The Americas did not tolerate that.
You're not going to have, you're going to have a lot of trouble if you go the democracy route.
This idea that the U.S. could come in to a foreign country and under wraps, covertly, influence events to such an extent that they could change a government.
This was a very appealing, tempting idea because it was low cost.
It didn't involve the U.S. troops.
It wasn't going to start a war.
It was something that they could deny.
So there were lots of reasons why this caught the imagination of people like Dallas and Eisenhower and presidents following Eisenhower.
Because then the United States, after 1953, would go down this path of interfering in domestic politics of countries that had nationalist leaders in Indonesia, in Vietnam, in Chile, in Honduras, in Guatemala, in varieties of countries following the same model that they had done in Iran.
What should be the lesson learned by the United States, and how do these coups contrast with the state of ideals in the Declaration of Independence?
When there have been acts of direct intervention in another country's affairs, for whatever purpose, noble or ignoble, there has to be a recognition that local populations are not going to necessarily see it the way that you would like them to.
So the lesson is before you act decisively to intervene in the affairs of another country, think through what the long-term effects might be.
We promote democracy, right?
We always said that we're the beacon of democracy, right?
That we support democratic governments.
But whenever an outside country interferes in the affairs of another country without being invited in by the people of that country to do that, it basically by nature is undemocratic.
You're doing it without any respect for the will of the people.
You're doing it based on criteria that you think impacts you, and therefore you should go all the way around the world and change a government in order to protect your own interests.
Now, you could say governments can always do that, but then not if at the same time they're talking about human rights and democratic values, because this is a clear violation of the right of the people to choose their own destiny.
Be sure to watch all of the winning entries on our website at studentcam.org.
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Today, former U.S. Senator Mitt Romney speaks about the state of democracy and governance in the United States as part of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.
From Harvard University's Institute of Politics, watch it live at 6 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and C-SPAN.org.
And then at 7:30 p.m. Eastern, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sits down for a conversation on American politics as she retires from Congress after 20 terms.
She'll chat with former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank.