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Once expunged from its official history, documents outlining the U.S.-backed 1953 coup in Iran have been quietly published by the State Department, offering a new glimpse at an operation that ultimately pushed the country toward its Islamic Revolution and hostility with the West.

The CIA's role in the coup, which toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh and cemented the control of the shah, was already well-known by the time the State Department offered its first compendium on the era in 1989. But any trace of American involvement in the putsch had been wiped from the report, causing historians to call it a fraud.

The papers released this month show U.S. fears over the spread of communism, as well as the British desire to regain access to Iran's oil industry, which had been nationalized by Mosaddegh. It also offers a cautionary tale about the limits of American power as a new U.S. president long suspicious of Iran weighs the landmark nuclear deal with Tehran reached under his predecessor.

It exposes "more about what we know about this milestone event in Middle East history and especially U.S.-Iran history. This is still such an important, emotional benchmark for Iranians," said Malcolm Byrne, who has studied Iran at the non-governmental National Security Archive at George Washington University. "Many people see it as the day that Iranian politics turned away from any hope of democracy."

The 1,007-page report , comprised of letters and diplomatic cables, shows U.S. officials discussing a coup up to a year before it took place. While America worried about Soviet influence in Iran, the British remained focused on resolving a dispute over the nationalization of the country's oil refinery at Abadan, at the time one of the world's largest. Many also feared further instability following the 1951 assassination of Premier Ali Razmara.

"Nationalization of the oil industry possibly combined with further assassinations of top Iran officials, including even the shah, could easily lead to a complete breakdown of the Iran government and social order, from which a pro-Soviet regime might well emerge leaving Iran as a satellite state," one undated CIA analysis from the report warned.

Out of that fear grew TPAJAX, the CIA codename for the coup plot. Papers show the CIA at one point "stockpiled enough arms and demolition material to support a 10,000-man guerrilla organization for six months," and paid out $5.3 million for bribes and other costs, which would be equivalent to $48 million today. One CIA document casually refers to the fact that "several leading members of these (Iranian) security services are paid agents of this organization."

The CIA also described hoping to use "powerfully influential clergy" within Shiite Iran to back the coup, something that would be anathema by the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It offers no definitive proof of that, though several documents show American officials in contact with Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani, an anti-British leader in the Iranian parliament who turned against Mosaddegh.

The agency faced problems, however, chief among them Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi himself. Diplomats and spies referred to him as a "weak reed" and "petulant."

"His inability to take decisions coupled with his tendency to interfere in political life has on occasions been (a) disruptive influence," the U.S. Embassy in Tehran warned in February 1953. Ultimately, his twin sister Princess Ashraf and a U.S. general helped convince him.

Mosaddegh was tipped off about the coup, and it appeared doomed as the shah fled to Baghdad and later Italy. But protests supporting the shah, fanned in part by the CIA, led to Mosaddegh's fall and the monarch's return.

The report fills in the large gaps of the initial 1989 historical document outlining the years surrounding the 1953 coup in Iran. The release of that report led to the resignation of the historian in charge of a State Department review board and to Congress passing a law requiring a more reliable historical account be made.

Byrne and others have suggested the release of the latest documents may have been delayed by the nuclear negotiations, as the Obama administration sought to ease tensions with Tehran, and then accelerated under President Donald Trump, who has adopted a much more confrontational stance toward Iran.

Byrne said the new administration needed just two months to agree to release the documents. "That kind of speed is unheard of in the government unless there is some sort of political foundation," he said.

Die-hard opponents of Iran's current government might look to 1953 as a source of inspiration. But the Americans involved in the coup acknowledged at the time they were playing with fire.

Widespread Iranian anger over the heavy-handed Western intervention lingered for decades, and fed into the 1979 revolution, when Iranians seized control of the U.S. Embassy and held those inside captive for 444 days. To this day Iran's clerical leaders portray the U.S. as a hostile foreign power bent on subverting and overthrowing its government.

As President Dwight Eisenhower wrote in his diary in 1953, if knowledge of the coup became public, "We would not only be embarrassed in that region, but our chances to do anything of like nature in the future would almost totally disappear."

Online:

State Department report: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Iran

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jongambrellAP . His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz .

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US quietly publishes once-expunged papers on 1953 Iran coup - ABC News

Lebanon seems to be having a flag sale.

Iranian flags, Hezbollah, UN, Spanish, Palestinian flags. They are all flying provocatively along the border with the northern Israeli community of Metulla.

Meters from the fence that separates the countries, not far from the site of a 1985 terrorist attack, Hezbollah has festooned the roads with signs of its presence. Its purposely done so Israeli residents can see the flags and the billboards next to them. In Metulla there is a memorial for the 12 Israeli soldiers killed in the March 10, 1985, suicide bombing, while just across the border a huge billboard celebrates the massacre.

I spent Tuesday touring the Lebanese and Syrian borders to see the tense situation in the north of the country. The flags across the border seemed representative of the situation that prevails today. Next to the Hezbollah flags is a small post that has a UN logo. Near it the Amal Shia Lebanese movement has erected a large banner reading To he of pure hands and a generous soul, thank you Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri.

(Berri is also the leader of Amal.) On the banner is the Iranian flag. Here is a visible presence of Iran just a stones throw from Israel. Its not the only Iranian symbol here.

On a hill overlooking houses being constructed in Metulla is another huge poster with a photo of the Dome of the Rock. The face of Ayatollah Khomeini glowers down over the dome and Hezbollah has written: We are coming in Hebrew and Arabic.

Theyve put a giant Palestinian flag next to the poster. The message is clear, and disconcerting.

Here is Iran glowering down on Israel from the north. As we toured the border area with Lt.-Col. (res.) Sarit Zehavi, the head of Alma, an organization that gives briefings on Israels security challenges on the northern border, what should be a tense situation seemed quiet. This area has known war for many years. There is a British police fort from the 1930s, when terrorists also struck at Jewish communities. Zehavi stresses that the situation along the Lebanese border has not affected tourism or housing prices, and the new construction is evidence of that.

Living with the Iranian threat is not a new phenomenon, but it is an increasingly complex one because of the Syrian civil war. Tehran is reaching a peak of influence and power in the region. Its tentacles stretch across Syria and Iraq, and Hezbollah is emboldened.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasts of bringing thousands of foreign fighters to help him attack Israel. He sees Shiites from Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen joining the assault. Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted on Monday that today the fight against Zionist regime is wajib [obligatory] and necessary for Muslims. Why do some evade this duty? He also claimed: Palestine is the No. 1 issue of the Islamic world. From his 300,000 followers on his English language page, he only got several hundred likes on his statements.

So, is the relative quiet in northern Israel illusory? Are the Iranian flags just meant to intimidate and sow fear, or are they a sign of a much deeper problem to be taken seriously? The feeling one gets as a visitor is that of a kind of mirage. There is Hezbollah, a vicious, dangerous terrorist group with more than 100,000 rockets, a few hundred meters away, but familiarity breeds a bit of contempt. The first time you see the flags its surprising. The second time, interesting. The third time, boring.

The flags are just the visible expression of what goes on quietly in villages over the border, and of what Hezbollahs Iranian masters sitting 1,500 kilometers away are thinking. Theyd like to boast of conquering Jerusalem or show some murderous and symbolic attack against Israel. But traversing the border, in the shadow of the flags, is the Israeli army, its Humvees and other vehicles, watching for threats.

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Iranian flag joins array of enemy symbols planted on Lebanon ... - The Jerusalem Post

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker said Wednesday that efforts to resolve House concerns with a bipartisan Senate sanctions bill targeting Russia and Iran have hit a new snag. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By Elana Schor

06/28/2017 03:16 PM EDT

Updated 06/28/2017 06:37 PM EDT

An overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate sanctions bill targeting Russia and Iran hit a new snag Wednesday, as Democrats sought assurances that House Republicans will not water it down after what the GOP has billed as a simple fix.

Senior senators have negotiated with their counterparts across the Capitol since the sanctions bill, passed by the Senate on a 98-2 vote, ran into a constitutional objection in the House last week.

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But when Democrats aware that the White House is urging House Republicans to make the sanctions bill more friendly to President Donald Trump asked the GOP to commit to no new, significant changes in the House, that commitment didn't arrive, according to a senior Senate Democratic aide.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a leader in the bicameral sanctions talks, declared Democrats' response "self-defeating" and "actually accommodating Russia" by furthering the delay in the legislation.

"It is a ridiculous position to take that youre not going to let our bill go to the House in an appropriate manner until you know exactly how the House is going to deal with a bill we passed," Corker told reporters Wednesday.

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Before the partisan tensions bubbled over, a deal on a technical fix to the sanctions package appeared within reach as the latest proposal earned sign-off from Corker's Democratic counterpart on the committee, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin.

For Democrats who fought hard for language in the bill that hamstrings Trump's ability to warm relations with Vladimir Putin's government, however, the prospect of diluting the sanctions package in the House is hard to swallow.

"House Republicans have also not committed that this is the last change bill would undergo," the Democratic aide said. "We are happy to make changes to the bill to deal with the problem, provided it doesnt weaken or fundamentally alter the core of the bill. We need assurances that thats it, that bill is not going to be weakened or watered down in the House."

The crux of the sanctions delay has been a provision in the Senate-passed bill that allows Congress to block Trump from easing or ending sanctions against Russia. Changing sanctions policy would affect federal revenue, and the Constitution requires any bills that change revenue to start in the House triggering a so-called "blue slip" delay that has stalled the Senate-initiated legislation from moving forward.

Democrats have raised repeated concerns that the White House plans to push House Republicans to dilute the congressional review provision to make it friendlier to the president. House Republicans have pushed back against the suggestion of any such political motivations behind their procedural holdup of the Senate bill.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) told Fox News on Wednesday that "now that the Senate has some time on its hands" with the postponement of a health care vote, "it should fix the constitutional problem in the bill."

We need to send this message to Putin and to Russia that there will be consequences for their intervention in undermining democracies around the world," Royce added.

As recently as Tuesday afternoon, Cardin said he was inclined to sign off on the House's proposed change to the congressional review provision.

"I think I'm okay with it" based on a staff-level review of the House-drafted language, Cardin told reporters, warning that other Democrats may not have all agreed.

The proposed revisions to the sanctions bill should not change its effect "if interpreted properly," Cardin told reporters, but "we're not sure that's the holdup to passing it." Democrats suspect the Russia bill's delay may be "a little bit more Machiavellian" in nature, the Maryland Democrat added.

The Senate's bill imposes new sanctions against Moscow and codifies existing sanctions into law, while also adding new penalties against Tehran related to its ballistic missile program, human rights violations and support for terrorist groups.

One source described the changes under consideration for the sanctions bill as technical rather than substantive, adding that the House Rules Committee had also identified a minor issue that could be in line for a fix.

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Russia-Iran sanctions talks hit new hiccup - Politico

United Nations Iran is accusing US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of a brazen interventionist plan to change the current government that violates international law and the UN Charter.

Irans UN Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated on Tuesday that Tillersons comments are also a flagrant violation of the 1981 Algiers Accords in which the United States pledged not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Irans internal affairs.

Tillerson said in a June 14 hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the 2018 State Department budget that US policy is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government.

Those elements are there, certainly as we know, he said.

Khoshroo said Iran expects all countries to condemn such grotesque policy statements and advice the government of the United States to act responsibly and to adhere to the principles of the (UN) Charter and international law.

He noted that Tillersons comments came weeks after President Hassan Rouhanis re-election to another four-year term and local elections in which 71 percent of the Iranian people participated. Rouhani is a political moderate who defeated a hardline opponent.

The people of Iran have repeatedly proven that they are the ones to decide their own destiny and thus attempts by the United States to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs will be doomed to failure, Khoshroo said.

They have learned how to stand strong and independent, as demonstrated in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

He said Tillersons statement also coincided with the release of newly declassified documents that further clarified how United States agencies were behind the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the popular and democratically elected prime minister of Iran on August 19, 1953.

At the June 14 hearing, Tillerson said the Trump administrations Iranian policy is under development.

But I would tell you that we certainly recognise Irans continued destabilising [role] in the region, Tillerson said, citing its payment of foreign fighters, support for Hezbollah extremists, and their export of militia forces in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen.

US lawmakers have long sought to hit Iran with more sanctions in order to check its ballistic missile programme and rebuke Tehrans continued support for terrorist groups, and on June 15 the Senate approved a sweeping sanctions bill.

The bill imposes mandatory sanctions on people involved in Irans ballistic missile programme and anyone who does business with them.

The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the countrys Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo. It now goes to the House. Senators insisted the new Iran sanctions wont undermine or impede enforcement of the landmark nuclear deal that Former President Barack Obama and five other key nations reached with Tehran two years ago.

Meanwhile, tensions have been escalating between the US and North Korea following the death of US student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested in North Korea and sent home in a coma after 18 months, and in the face of Pyongyangs military and nuclear ambitions.

Moon Jae-in, the new leader of North Koreas neighbour and arch enemy, South Korea, is headed to Washington for talks this week. North Koreas state news agency KCNA said: The America-first principle . . . advocates the world domination by recourse to military means just as was the case with Hitlers concept of world occupation.

And it went on to accuse Trump of following Hitlers dictatorial politics to divide others into two categories, friends and foes in order to justify suppression.

It is not the first time the secretive state has evoked Hitler in propaganda against the US.

After George W Bush branded the North, along with Iran and Iraq an axis of evil, Pyongyang hit back, saying the then-US president was a tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade and a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality.

America has been angling for tougher sanctions against North Korea because of the states insistence on developing missiles to carry nuclear warheads greater distances.

KCNA said the US policy of blocking medical supplies was an unethical and inhumane act, far exceeding the degree of Hitlers blockade of Leningrad. And it added: The Trump way of thinking that the whole world may be sacrificed, just for the better living of the US, has put even its allies and stooges in a pretty fix.

Moon is new in the job, but has already signalled he will move to pressure China on tightening the screws around North Korea. AFP

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Iran accuses US of 'brazen' plan to change its govt - Chronicle

Iran used a Star of David as a target for a missile test last year, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations revealed Wednesday.

Ambassador Danny Danon shared a startling satellite image of the Jewish and Israeli symbol with members of the UN Security Council, the Jerusalem Post reported.

This use of the Star of David as target practice is hateful and unacceptable, Danon told the Council. This missile test not only violates Security Council resolutions but also proves beyond doubt, once again, the true intentions of Iran to target Israel.

The Star of David was used as a target for a mid-range Qiam ballistic missile test in December, according to a statement from the Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN.

Alongside the symbol, a round crater caused by the rocket also can be seen.

The Security Council must act immediately against this demonstration of hate and Irans provocative violations that threaten the stability of the entire region, Danon said.

It is the Iranians who prop up the Assad regime as hundreds of thousands are killed, finance the terrorists of Hezbollah as they threaten the citizens of Israel, and support extremists and tyrants throughout the Middle East and around the world, he added.

Earlier this month, Iran fired missiles at Syria, targeting ISIS positions in the first attack by Iran outside its country in 30 years since the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, the Times of Israel reported.

The missiles were seen as a threat to Israel and the US.

I have one message for Iran: Dont threaten Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the attack.

Iran has previously fired missiles with anti-Israel messages written on them in Hebrew.

In March 2016, it test-fired two ballistic missiles, which an Iranian news organization said were inscribed with the phrase Israel must be wiped out.

Meanwhile, it has been announced that Israel will test its Arrow 3 intercontinental ballistic missile defense system in the US next year.

The test will be carried out in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency, the Jerusalem Post reported.

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Iran once used Star of David as missile target - New York Post