August 19 and the Mask of Reza Pahlavi’s “Democracy”: From Pride in the Legacy of Dictatorship to the Necessity of Rejecting All Forms of Tyranny

August 19 and the Mask of Reza Pahlavi’s “Democracy”: From Pride in the Legacy of Dictatorship to the Necessity of Rejecting All Forms of Tyranny

How Reza Pahlavi’s pride in the 1953 coup and Pahlavi dictatorship exposes the myth of his “democratic” alternative More than seven decades have passed since the sinister coup of 28 Mordad, 1332 (August 19, 1953); a black day on which the only national, independent, and democratically mandated government in Iran after the Constitutional Revolution—the government of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh—was overthrown. This bitter event severed Iran’s democrati…