Comment by zozbot234
3 days ago
> Mosaddegh requested emergency powers from parliament and parliament granted them. That's how constitutional systems work during crises.
Except that there was no legitimate emergency and no crisis, in fact there was just the opposite: Mossadegh had just instigated an insurrection against the then-legitimate government and thereby forced the Shah to not only put him back in power but also to let him appoint a defense minister and a chief of staff - a clear violation of the prevailing norms at the time which delegated this appointment to the Shah. The request for an explicit grant of power of "dictatorial decree" then came immediately after that. This was a clear established pattern of trying to weaken Iran's existing institutional norms and center power on himself, not unlike the whole Germany 1933 playbook. That's very much not how democratic systems work.
What actually happened in July 1952, which you're calling an "insurrection" is Shah tried to replace Mosaddegh with Ahmad Qavam. In response, the Iranian public took to the streets in massive protests supporting Mosaddegh. The Shah backed down due to popular pressure and reinstated him. That's not Mosaddegh "instigating an insurrection", unless it's your definition of a population backing their elected prime minister against royal overreach. So unless we're calling mass protests illegitimate, this was democratic pressure working as intended.
As for "no emergency and no crisis", Britain had organized an international embargo on Iranian oil, frozen Iranian assets, threatened military action, and was actively working to destabilize the government. Iran's economy was being strangled. Dismissing that as "no crisis" is basically ignoring basic historical facts.
On the military appointments, yes, Mosaddegh sought control over the military, breaking from tradition. But given that the Shah and military officers were actively conspiring with foreign intelligence to overthrow him (which we now know from declassified documents) his concerns about military loyalty weren't paranoia. They were correct.
The Hitler comparison is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Hitler dismantled democracy and ruled for 12 years. Mosaddegh was removed by a foreign backed coup and spent his remaining years under house arrest. One of these is not like the other.
Is it "royal overreach" when a prime minister voluntarily resigns and the king/queen then formally picks someone else (after negotiations for parliamentary support) to legitimately take that place? That would be news to an awful lot of people in the UK, among other places. When you explicitly resign from power, you don't get to take it back by force absent new elections. It's a done deal.
Mosaddegh didn't storm the palace. The Shah officially reinstated him. If the Shah's appointment of Qavam was legitimate, then his reappointment of Mosaddegh was equally legitimate. You can't have it both ways, either the Shah had constitutional authority to appoint prime ministers or he didn't. As for "taking it back by force", mass public protests aren't the prime minister using force. Mosaddegh didn't have a militia. He had popular support. In a democracy, public pressure influencing government decisions isn't illegitimate, it's the whole point.
And in parliamentary systems, prime ministers who resign can return to power without new elections if they command enough support. It's happened in the UK, Israel, Australia and elsewhere. There's no constitutional rule that resignation is permanent and irreversible.
The question is whether Mosaddegh was constitutionally appointed and had parliamentary backing. In July 1952, the answer to both was yes.