Iranian History

It is easy to oversimplify historical analysis, and there is seldom a clear stopping point when tracing back causative factors, but both Paul Markiles and Richard M. Meyers (letters, July 27) ignored what most people consider the most significant way in which the United States played a role in creating our current adversarial relationship with Iran. With their obvious intent of blaming President Carter, they handily omitted mention of the 1953 overthrow of the Mossadegh government. This coup was engineered by the CIA and Britain’s MI6 and resulted in the reinstallation of the shah. Iranian resentment of this was clearly linked to the shah’s deposition in 1979 and the taking of the U.S. Embassy.

Americans seem to have conveniently short memories; the people in countries whose governments we have tampered with tend to have longer ones.

Alan Weiss

Carpinteria