[h1]Is this game fiction, or true history?[/h1]
The game has you play as Mossadegh’s cat, calling him [i]“Iran’s first democratically elected Prime Minister.”[/i] Democratically elected? [b]That’s a fantasy.[/b] In 1951, Mossadegh was appointed Prime Minister by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after a vote in the Majlis (parliament) not by a public election. The Shah and parliament were pressured into it as Mossadegh’s National Front and its militant supporters stirred chaos, intimidated opponents, destabilized the country, and even attacked and killed government officials.
This happened right after the assassination of Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara in March 1951 by Fada’iyan-e Islam, a radical group aligned with Mossadegh’s agenda. Razmara had been appointed in the same way (suggested by the Shah and approved by parliament) but without the mob pressure and bloodshed. Razmara’s government had already begun a cautious path: sending engineers abroad to learn the oil industry and negotiating with foreign buyers to nationalize peacefully. [i]That entire approach was thrown out once Mossadegh came in.[/i] His rise amid murder and unrest looked more like a power grab than democracy.
Once in power, what did this “democratic hero” do? He rushed into full nationalization before Iran was ready to manage it. [b]The result:[/b] embargoes, economic collapse, and a population suffering from shortages. Meanwhile, Mossadegh’s ambitions grew. He wanted to arrest the Shah, remove him, and declare himself president without ever holding an election. When the Majlis resisted his demands for emergency powers, he dissolved it through a sham referendum that supposedly gave him [b]99.99% support.[/b] His goal? To turn Iran into a leftist “people’s republic.” Both Iranian critics and foreign observers immediately called it manipulated.
The game blames his downfall entirely on the CIA-led coup, Operation Ajax, in 1953. Yes, the CIA and MI6 were involved [u]that’s a fact[/u]. But it wasn’t just foreign meddling. The operation succeeded because it had support from Iranian military officers, royalists, the people, and even former allies who had abandoned him. And here’s the question nobody in this game asks: [i]isn’t a coup usually from the bottom up, not from the top down?[/i] In this case, it wasn’t just outsiders pushing. It was the Shah, the army, and the people themselves who turned against him. If he was really “democratically elected” and beloved, [b]where were the masses defending him?[/b] His base had already collapsed, ruined by economic disaster and his own authoritarian power grabs.
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[h2]So is this game fact or fiction?[/h2]
It paints Mossadegh as a democratic martyr, but the truth is uglier. He wasn’t elected by the people, he came to power after an assassination cleared the way, he destroyed parliament, he wrecked the economy by scrapping a peaceful oil plan, and he ruled against the will of Iranians.
[b]This isn’t history.[/b] It’s propaganda dressed up in pretty art. Play it if you just want to knock papers around as a cat but don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s teaching you anything real.
