Here is our response to veteran Nightline anchor Ted Koppel's New York Times Op-Ed, Will Fight For Oil [2/24/06].

In his Feb. 24th editorial "Will Fight For Oil", Ted Koppel affirms the obvious—that America's insatiable oil appetite has long been central to its foreign policy in the Persian Gulf. What's curious is that it took Mr. Koppel over a quarter century to finally acknowledge the 1953 coup in Iran, in which the U.S. traded blood, Mideast democracy, and decades of hostility for cheap oil.

It's convenient that Koppel waited until his contract with ABC News ended before informing the public of the precedent to the hostage crisis which he helped sensationalize during his years as anchor of "Nightline". Ironically, Koppel uses the 1953 coup to introduce the history of U.S. aggression in pursuit of oil, yet undermines that very argument by muddying the motivation for overthrowing Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Koppel emphasizes the bogus excuse Britain and America concocted for carrying out the coup—Mossadegh's "unseemly affinity" for the Communists; and suggests that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was in danger of falling to "Soviet influence" and therefore "called for drastic action". For an article which purports to make the blunt point that the United States kills for oil and always has, Koppel is remarkably bashful about stating the coup's purpose with acuity. As President Eisenhower put it plainly in his 1951 diary entry, "Lord knows what we'd do without Iranian oil."

That Mossadegh was prone to Communism is a fallacy exposed simply by considering the one description universally attributed to him- nationalist. No one disputes Mossadegh's firm nationalist core; in fact this is what made him so threatening to Western interests, and the media used it against him by foolishly equating his nationalism with being "anti-British". After the coup was carried out, The New York Times celebrated Mossadegh's demise in an editorial which gloated, "Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism."

Because Mossadegh was such a fervent nationalist—utterly devoted to Iran's independence and repelled by the very idea of foreign interference—his government was no more prone to falling under Russian influence than British or American. In fact, if Iran were to come under the wing of anyone, it would have been the United States itself. Dr. Mossadegh, who once posed with President Truman on the steps of DC's Blair House, admired and trusted America, which he visited on several occasions. On the other hand, Mossadegh never once appealed to the Soviets for help, and even refused to grant them oil concessions. Yet Mossadegh's repeated pleas for U.S. aid via cable correspondence were rejected by Eisenhower; a missed opportunity of epic proportions.

In a 2000 New York Times article, James Risen wrote that "...Washington and London shared an interest in maintaining the West's control over Iranian oil", and summarized the recently declassified CIA documents which revealed the purpose of the coup: "Britain, fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup in 1952 and pressed the United States to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister".

Mr. Koppel referred to the H.L. Mencken adage "When someone says it's not about the money — it's about the money" as the perfect parallel to the denial of imperialist oil objectives in the Persian Gulf. We might reflect on that same idea when recalling the 1953 coup in Iran. They said it wasn't about the oil—but in reality, it was about the oil.

Arash Norouzi