Arash Azizi

New York University, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Alumnus

Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Global History, Graduate Student

Free University of Berlin, Global History - Friedrich Meinicke Institute, Graduate Student

Boston University, Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future, Adjunct

Clemson University, History, Former senior lecturer

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Papers by Arash Azizi

Communism, Cold War, and the 1953 Coup

Even as it passed its seventieth anniversary, the 1953 coup in Iran has remained a hotly debated ... more Even as it passed its seventieth anniversary, the 1953 coup in Iran has remained a hotly debated political topic. This is true in the public spheres of Iran, which saw its last democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, overthrown in the coup, and in those of the United States and the United Kingdom, which helped stage the ouster. 1 There also has been an attempt at historical revisionism about the coup, usually by overemphasizing the domestic factors that led to the coup and placing less importance on the role of the CIA or questioning Mossadeq's democratic credentials. This revisionism has been robustly rebutted by the scholarly community, which has held to a general consensus on the basic narrative of the coup: that it overthrew a popular leader and that it took place with significant interventions from London and Washington. 2 The release of the final batch of US documents related to the coup in 2017 (following many years of undue delay) also bolstered evidence for this consensus. 3 But, although most public debates about the coup center on questions such as the constitutional process of Mosaddeq's dismissal or the relative weight given to domestic and international actors behind the coup, there is another historiographical question that has been subject to widely divergent perspectives in the field: the relationship of the coup to the Cold War. In other words, can the 1953 coup be considered a Cold War confrontation, or is this a misleading frame of reference? Both sides of this argument have often focused on the motivations of coup plotters (mostly those in Washington, DC, and London) and whether they are more readily explained by a genuine fear of the communist movement in Iran or whether this was a rhetorical smokescreen, masking the neocolonial drive for the control of Iran's resources. This tension is not limited to scholarship on Iran. Even as new global histories of the Cold War have grown in recent years, some have cautioned against the use of this framework for understanding politics in the Global South. Jeremi Suri, for instance, speaks of a "group of scholars" who have

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Iranian communists and the Palestine question (1947– 1956)

Middle Eastern Studies, 2025

The decision of the United Nations in 1947 to partition Palestine into two Arab and Jewish states... more The decision of the United Nations in 1947 to partition Palestine into two Arab and Jewish states was a landmark moment in the postwar history of the Middle East and also a tough challenge for the communist movement, globally and in the Middle East. The support of the communist movement, including communist parties of Iran and the Arab world, for the partition and their relatively positive posture toward Israel in its early years has usually been studied in terms of the foreign policy machinations of the USSR. I counter this familiar narrative by analyzing the positions of Iranian communists, and their interaction with Arab and Israeli communists, as an instance of attempting to work out an internationalist line in the difficult circumstances of a ferocious national conflict.

Iranians and the Vietnam War: Cold Warrior Enmities or Anti-Colonial Solidarities?

, an American diplomat had a tense meeting with a Third World leader who was accusing the West of... more , an American diplomat had a tense meeting with a Third World leader who was accusing the West of racial prejudice. This sounds like an unsurprising event but its details might prove less predictable. The complaint came from the shah of Iran. Meeting in Tehran with the ambassador of the United States, Armin H. Meyer, the shah complained about how the 'white' European allies of the United States supported it over Berlin but 'are conspicuously absent' when it came to backing the US war effort in Vietnam. 2 Urging the United States to 'stand by its commitments' to its Vietnamese allies and refrain from withdrawal, the Iranian 1 This paper started in a seminar led by Chen Jian at NYU and has gone through many iterations following its presentation at various fora. For their comments, wisdom and sharing of original documents, I am indebted to

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Projects under work by Arash Azizi

The life of Maryam Firouz: reclaiming a forgotten Iranian feminist

Maryam Firouz is a familiar name to those interested in Iranian history and her fabulous story of... more Maryam Firouz is a familiar name to those interested in Iranian history and her fabulous story of leaving a royal family with all its privileges for a life of organizing as a communist is well-known. Our claim that she is “forgotten”, however, is based on the fact that her real contributions and historical role are often written off in the dominant historiography and that any recounting of her work is often done using heavily gendered stereotypes that masks her real work.