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Didn't Mossadegh start off as an anti-communist liberal?
Yeah he was basically a nationalist riding a populist wave, as far as I recall he never liked the Tudeh (communist) Party, but the Brits and Americans were never sure if he'd ally with them or be overthrown by them, so they pre-emptied both eventualities by removing him altogether - oil aside, they were never going to risk a Soviet base on the Persian Gulf, a long-standing policy going back to the Great Game of the 1800s.He was never particularly fond of communism, even in his final years in office. It was just that he deemed the Soviet Union an important ally.
Similar to Nasser in Egypt, Mossadegh leaned towards the Soviets not out of any ideological conviction but because a new generation of educated and professional Iranians were tired of having their affairs dictated by a Western imperial power (while the Ulama opposed Mossadegh because he threatened their traditional hold on the urban/bazaari classes).
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