America's Buddy List

The Opinion Pages, Letters to the Editor featured in The New York Times

Thomas Friedman (“Bullets and barrels,” Views, June 22) puts the blame squarely on kings and dictators for their use of oil wealth as a means to retain power and squash democratic aspirations in the Middle East.

But Mr. Friedman ignores the role and complicity of the Western powers that have contributed to the current state of affairs in the region. It was in Iran, an oil-rich nation, where democracy took root with the rise to power of Mohammed Mossadegh as the popularly elected prime minister in the early 1950s. But Mr. Mossadegh’s policy of nationalization of oil companies and his Socialist leanings went against the interests of Britain and America. With the C.I.A.’s involvement, Mr. Mossadegh was overthrown, leading to the installation of the shah, which resulted in more than two decades of brutal repression.

The course of history in Iran would have been very different had the U.S. not interfered.

SHANKAR CHAUDHURI
GLEN RIDGE, N.J.