The Middle East is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and being seen as too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt and all of Turkey.
The Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State, shortened to as SAVAK or S.A.V.A.K. was the secret police of the Imperial State of Iran. It was established in Tehran in 1957 and continued to operate until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when it was dissolved by Iranian prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar.
Mohammad Mosaddegh was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 30th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, elected by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of the Iranian parliament from 1923, and served through a contentious 1952 election into the 17th Iranian Majlis, until his government was overthrown in the 1953 Iran coup aided by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom (MI6) and the United States (CIA), led by Kermit Roosevelt Jr. His National Front was suppressed from the 1954 election.
Sayyed Abol-Ghasem Mostafavi-Kashani was an Iranian politician and Shia Marja. He played an important role in the 1953 coup in Iran and the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état, was the U.S.- and British-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the dictatorial rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on 19 August 1953, with the objectives being to protect British oil interests in Iran after its government refused to concede to western oil demands. It was instigated by the United States and the United Kingdom. This began a period of dissolution for Iranian democracy and society whose effects on civil rights and injustice are prevalent to this day.
The "Great Satan" is a derogatory epithet used in some Muslim-majority countries to refer to the United States. Alongside the "Death to America" slogan, it originated in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. While it is primarily an expression of anti-American sentiment, it has occasionally been used to refer to the United Kingdom, although the term "old fox" is more popular as a dedicated expression of anti-British sentiment.
The Tudeh Party of Iran is an Iranian communist party. Formed in 1941, with Soleiman Mirza Eskandari as its head, it had considerable influence in its early years and played an important role during Mohammad Mosaddegh's campaign to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and his term as prime minister. From the Iran crisis of 1946 onwards, Tudeh became a pro-Soviet organization and remained prepared to carry out the dictates of the Kremlin, even if it meant sacrificing Iranian political independence and sovereignty. The crackdown that followed the 1953 coup against Mosaddegh is said to have "destroyed" the party, although a remnant persisted. The party still exists but has remained much weaker as a result of its banning in Iran and mass arrests by the Islamic Republic in 1982, as well as the executions of political prisoners in 1988. Tudeh identified itself as the historical offshoot of the Communist Party of Persia.
Liberalism in Iran or Iranian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 20th century.
Assadollah Rashidian was an Iranian businessman and anglophile who, along with his brothers, played a critical role in the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. He was a principal covert agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and through him the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was able to convince the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, to endorse the operation.
Frederick William Engdahl is an American writer based in Germany. He identifies himself as an "economic researcher, historian and freelance journalist." He is known for his views that the September 11 attacks, the Arab Spring and the theory of global warming are all conspiracies. He has written extensively for the LaRouche movement, Russia Today and GlobalResearch.
Shlomo Gazit was an Israeli military officer and academic. A Major General in the Israel Defense Forces, he headed Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate. He later served as president of Ben-Gurion University and director general of the Jewish Agency.
Muhammed Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish Muslim scholar, preacher, and leader of the Gülen movement who as of 2016 had millions of followers. Gülen is designated an influential neo-Ottomanist, Anatolian panethnicist, Islamic poet, writer, social critic, and activist–dissident developing a Nursian theological perspective. that embraces democratic modernity, Gülen was a local state imam from 1959 to 1981, and he was a citizen of Turkey until his denaturalization by the Turkish government in 2017. Over the years, Gülen became a centrist political figure in Turkey prior to his being there as a fugitive. Since 1999, Gülen has lived in self-exile in the United States near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.
Jeffrey Talbot Richelson was an American author and academic researcher who studied the process of intelligence gathering and national security. He authored at least thirteen books and many articles about intelligence, and directed the publication of several of the National Security Archive's collections of source documents.
United States foreign policy in the Middle East has its roots in the early 19th-century Tripolitan War that occurred shortly after the 1776 establishment of the United States as an independent sovereign state, but became much more expansive in the aftermath of World War II. With the goal of preventing the Soviet Union from gaining influence in the region during the Cold War, American foreign policy saw the deliverance of extensive support in various forms to anti-communist and anti-Soviet regimes; among the top priorities for the U.S. with regards to this goal was its support for the State of Israel against its Soviet-backed neighbouring Arab countries during the peak of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The U.S. also came to replace the United Kingdom as the main security patron for Saudi Arabia as well as the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf in the 1960s and 1970s in order to ensure, among other goals, a stable flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. As of 2023, the U.S. has diplomatic relations with every country in the Middle East except for Iran, with whom relations were severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Syria, with whom relations were suspended in 2012 following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of Iran, from the Mosaddegh coup of 1953 to the present day. The CIA is said to have collaborated with the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Its personnel may have been involved in the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s. More recently in 2007-8 CIA operatives were claimed to be supporting the Sunni terrorist group Jundallah against Iran, but these claims were refuted by a later investigation.
Parliamentary elections were held in Iran in 1952 to elect the 17th Iranian Majlis.
The Imperial State of Iran, officially the Imperial State of Persia until 1935, and commonly referred to as Pahlavi Iran, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty. The Pahlavi dynasty was created in 1925 and lasted until 1979, when it was ousted as part of the Islamic Revolution, which ended Iran's continuous monarchy and established the current Islamic Republic of Iran.
On 15 July 2016, a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d'état against state institutions, including the government and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They attempted to seize control of several places in Ankara, Istanbul, Marmaris and elsewhere, such as the Asian side entrance of the Bosphorus Bridge, but failed to do so after forces and civilians loyal to the state defeated them. The Council cited an erosion of secularism, elimination of democratic rule, disregard for human rights, and Turkey's loss of credibility in the international arena as reasons for the coup. The government said it had evidence the coup leaders were linked to the Gülen movement, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the Republic of Turkey and led by Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish businessman and a well-known Islamic scholar who lives in exile in Pennsylvania. The Turkish government alleged that Gülen was behind the coup and that the United States was harboring him. Events surrounding the coup attempt and the purges in its aftermath reflect a complex power struggle between Islamist elites in Turkey.
Khosrow Qashqai was an Iranian politician and a Qashqai tribal leader.
Ali Salih al-Sa'di was an Iraqi politician. He was General Secretary of the Iraqi branch of the Baath Party from the late 1950s until the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état. From February 8, 1963 until the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, he was Deputy Prime Minister under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, Minister of the Interior and as Commander of the National Guard.
