Word: mossadegh
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When Mohammed Mossadegh came to power eleven years later, he first drove out the British, then turned his attention to the next obstacle in his way, the young Shah. First, he sent the Shah's sister and mother into exile. The departing Queen Mother warned her son: "Today this man banishes your sister and me. Tomorrow he will turn on you." A few months later Mossadegh did; he demanded that the Shah surrender control of the army. This once, the Shah stood firm. He dismissed Mossadegh and appointed a new Premier in his place, but after three days...
...Mossadegh was a master of the divide-and-conquer technique, uniting one day with a fanatic mullah to oust a rival Premier, allying himself with the Reds the next to break the mullah. He got rid of the ablest of the Shah's advisers like Court Minister Hussein Ala; he usurped the royal prerogative of dissolving the Majlis. The outlawed Communists, for supporting him, were left untouched and grew in strength...
...succession of British and U.S. ambassadors tried to encourage the Shah to be firm. Though they could reach his heart, they could not stiffen his spine. And at each stage of Mossadegh's usurpation of power, loyal army commanders pleaded: "Say the word, O Shahinshah, say the word." The Shah increasingly resorted to barbiturates to sleep; his temples greyed, his hands trembled. One night last week, in his 34th year, his twelfth as Shah, his third in the era of Mossadegh, the Shah gave the long-awaited word. It was much too late...
Forewarned. The machinery of power had long ago passed to Mossadegh; almost all the Shah's allies and strongpoints had been enveloped and destroyed. At the end, only 700 of the Imperial Guard and one brigade were loyal to the palace. Shortly before midnight they donned helmets and took up arms against Mossadegh. They arrested three Cabinet members, including Foreign Minister Hussein Fatemi. With a few truckloads of troops, a colonel of the Imperial Guard set off for Mossadegh's house, with royal orders for the Premier's dismissal. Mossadegh's forces had been tipped...
Troops "loyal to Mossadegh surrounded the Palace and Parliament building. By 5 a.m. it was all over, not a shot fired. In the face of Mossadegh's overwhelming control, the Shah's belated assertion of his constitutional prerogative was made to seem like an attempted coup, and Mossadegh, the usurper, to personify law & order. Belatedly, from a hideout in the mountains, a brave follower of the Shah's, General Fazlollah Zahedi, onetime Senator, proclaimed himself Premier. He had royal decrees from the Shah, he said, dismissing Mossadegh. As recently as a year ago, Teheran would have rung...