An Anti-Democracy Foreign Policy: Iran by Jacob G. Hornberger: "In a speech delivered in March 2000 by Madeleine Albright (then secretary of state), the U.S. government finally acknowledged what it had done to the Iranian people and to democracy in Iraq:

In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons, but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs. Moreover, during the next quarter century, the United States and the West gave sustained backing to the Shah’s regime. Although it did much to develop the country economically, the Shah’s government also brutally repressed political dissent. As President Clinton has said, the United States must bear its fair share of responsibility for the problems that have arisen in U.S.-Iranian relations.

Not surprisingly, Albright’s ‘apology’ fell on many deaf ears in Iran. While Iranians certainly have not forgotten the U.S. government’s support of Saddam Hussein and Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War during the 1980s, including its furnishing Saddam with weapons of mass destruction to use against the Iranian people, the root of Iranian anger lies with the anti-democracy foreign policy of the U.S. government, by which U.S. officials ousted the Iranian people’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, from office in 1953."

(Via Lew Rockwell.)