Containment During The Mid 1900s

However, many would argue that there were some successes in containment in Asia, mainly in Iran and in South Korea. However, a deeper study of these two circumstances reveals that the U.S. wasn’t really successful in preventing the spread of communism. First off, the coup that Eisenhower staged in Iran to prevent the spread of communism in the country was merely a misguided rationalization to use force for the protection of American economic interests. It would be incorrect to say that Iran was a success in containment because in reality, there was no threat of communism to begin with. The new Iranian president, in order to keep more money in Iran, nationalized the oil industry to the horror of Britain and the U.S who had invested in Iran’s oil resources. The British representative who asked the Americans for help with the coup said to an aid, “If I ask the Americans to overthrow Mosaddeq in order to rescue a British oil company, they are not going to respond…I’m going to tell the Americans that Mosaddeq is leading Iran towards Communism” (US). Thus, a democratically elected leader was overthrown because of an alleged threat of communism, which didn’t really exist. Therefore, Iran cannot be seen as a success of containment. Korea, on the other hand, is perhaps the only successful victory of containment in Asian between this time period because the eventual treaty that the parties came in terms with reiterated the two distinct Koreas separated by the 38th parallel, where the South half would remain anti-communist. However, an important fact to note is that the U.S. was unable to beat the communist forces in the war. Also, we were unable to get rid of communism in North Korea. Therefore, Iran and the Korean debacle cannot be seen as complete successes in containment.

“CIA – The World Factbook — Laos.” Welcome to the CIA Web Site — Central Intelligence Agency. 28 Mar. 2009 .

“US-Iran (1952-1953).” History Commons. 28 Mar. 2009 .