ammad Mossadegh’s road to the premiership. Another of Russett’s terms for a liberal democracy was that a state must have been in existence for three of more years. Iran had been a state for many years before, yet had not been under the type of governing that Mossadegh ruled with. Consequently, the United States did not intervene with the state of Iran, however, they did with Iran’s newly formed government. In addition to all of Russett’s criteria, when in power, Mossadegh had many ties to the Tudeh Party who were communist oriented (Roosevelt, 1972, p. 44). Knowing all this one can easily conclude that from 1951 to 1953 Iran was not a democracy. For that reason we must render it a non-liberal democracy.Since writing in the past about this specific theory my views have for the most part stayed the same. But, after examining the proceeding case study they have moved to a even greater support for the democratic peace theory. By taking a closer look a the requirements for the concept I was able to gain a better understand and therefore appreciation of it.There are many factors I have examined involving the Untied State’s intervention with Iran during 1953. We have explored the history of the conflict, and also the actions taken by the United States on Iran during the conflict. But most importantly, we viewed Iran’s government through a liberal democracy standpoint. And when looking at the Iranian government in 1953, I found it not to coincide with the conditions of the democratic peace theory. Not because the theory is not valid, but because the Iran/U.S. conflict but it does not meet the criteria set out by Russett. In this specific case we observed one democracy (United States) and one non-democracy (Iran) involved in a conflict that did not serve the definition of war. Thus, I have come to the conclusion that the democratic peace theory is a verifiable and valid philosophy. ...
