Ansari, very rightly, has no time for this self-serving prevarication: while perhaps not a typical modern-day grassroots democrat, Mosaddeq did reflect Western liberal norms in his intellectual discourse and political practice to a far greater extent than the West-backed monarchical autocracy that ruled Iran after him and the Western alignments with authoritarian rulers in general across much of the developing world.7 The US remains condemned in Iranian eyes for this gross travesty against a democratically elected leader.
