The US orchestrated the overthrow of democratically-elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 for nationalizing oil and restored the oppressive Pahlavi monarchy, setting the stage for Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution
In the spring of 1951, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (1880-1967) swept to power on the back of his promise to nationalize Iran’s oil. Mossadegh pledged to invest profits from the petroleum industry for the welfare of the poor and built a political base largely by calling for nationalizing it.
Mossadegh walked the talk by ending the London-based Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Company’s almost five decades of monopoly over petroleum extraction, marketing, and sales of Iran’s oil. The move provoked the British ire. Britain, which laid claim to Iranian oil, retaliated by imposing economic sanctions and a naval embargo. It withdrew British technicians and blocked Iran’s exports to cripple its lifeline petroleum industry.
When he stood his ground, Britain planned to overthrow democratically-elected Mosaddegh by sending undercover agents posing as diplomats to execute a coup. Mosaddegh learned about the plot and nipped the coup in its bud. He shut down the British embassy and deported the undercover agents.
Mosaddegh’s survival was short-lived. His defiance prompted American President Dwight Eisenhower to abandon the non-interventionist policy in 1952, sealing the Iranian prime minister’s fate. Eisenhower saw Mossadegh’s nationalization as a threat to multinational enterprises. He rushed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Kermit Roosevelt to Tehran to oversee Mossadegh’s overthrow. Roosevelt executed the job in three weeks as part of covert Operation Ajax. In August 2013, the CIA admitted for the first time to its involvement in the coup against Mossadegh.
British and American intelligence agents operating from the American embassy in Tehran successfully plotted the coup by buying off the Iranian press. They circulated propaganda against Mossadegh, and roped in members of the Islamic clergy, and rogue Iranian military elements to remove the democrat. In August 1953, Mossadegh was banished to spend the rest of his life under house arrest in his native village. Iran split 50–50 oil revenues a year later with an international consortium controlling its marketing and production.
To Hell with Democracy
The West secured its interests by not giving two hoots to democracy it would decades later seek to import to select countries in the Middle East where it could not install client regimes. Mossadegh was diametrically opposite to the Iranian rulers post the 1979 revolution the West has tried so hard to remove. He was educated at Institut d’études politiques de Paris and received his doctorate in law from the University of Neuchâtel Switzerland. Mossadegh, who believed in constitutionalism and civic nationalism, symbolised Iran’s secular nationalism.
Mossadegh’s ideals counted for little when he defied the West, which responded by helping restore the Pahlavi monarchy and transfer power to the Shah. The West shored up the monarchy so much so that it gifted the Shah a nuclear programme, which is now a major flashpoint between Iran and the West, in 1957. The CIA and Israeli spy agency Mossad trained the Shah’s brutal secret police force, which played a crucial role in sustaining his regime over the next two decades.
Mossadegh’s removal and the Shah’s installation and backing prepared the ground for Ayatollah Khomeini‘s 1979 revolution that overthrew the monarchy. Khomeini’s system of governance, a far cry from Mossadegh’s ideals allowing clerics absolute political and legal authority, has since endured despite repeated regime change attempts.
The Blowback
The 444-day embassy seizure and captivity of American diplomats in Tehran following Khomeini’s revolution, too, had its roots in the Mossadegh coup. It was an attempt to prevent the 1953-style regime change. The US sanctioned Iran in retaliation and backed Iraqi dictator Saddam’s invasion of Iran to counter Khomeini’s revolution. The revolution prompted the Soviets to invade Afghanistan the same year fearing its exports to its backyard. The US countered this by resorting to the perversion of jihad to defeat the Soviets, which led to the creation of groups such as al-Qaeda, and the 9/11 attacks and sparked global Islamophobia.
The existential threat Iran would face has made it more resilient and self-reliant to fend off regime change attempts. Saddam’s eight-year invasion, too, was part of the efforts to change the Iranian regime. Iran was forced to agree to an UN-brokered ceasefire with Saddam in September 1988 after he resorted to chemical weapons and Americans brought down an Iranian civilian aircraft, signalling an open siding with Iraq. It ended the 20th century’s longest war, which left an estimated a million dead.
In 2003, the US invaded Iraq to remove Saddam from power on the pretext of non-existent weapons of mass destruction and to export the democracy that it throttled in Iran in the 1950s. The 2003 Iraq war and the occupation that followed, directly and indirectly, claimed about half a million lives until 2011 and also ended up benefitting Iran.
Tehran filled the vacuum the US left by withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, creating a corridor of influence up to the Mediterranean. It used this influence to prevent Bashar al-Assad’s removal from power in Syria despite all-out Western efforts and to back Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iranian influence in Iraq has continued to grow. Iraq depends on Iran for virtually everything–from chicken to eggs, milk, yogurt, and cosmetics.
Iran has since the 1980s survived American sanctions, which have, among other things, led to over 200 accidents because of Tehran’s inability to buy aircraft parts. The helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, which crashed in mountainous terrain amid icy weather in May 2024, was also part of Iran’s aging fleet. Iran has been unable to replace the fleet because of the sanctions. The age of the helicopter is believed to have been among the reasons for the crash.
Ebrahim Raisi, 63, who was elected president in 2021, was seen as a contender to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 85-year-old Iranian Supreme Leader with the ultimate decision-making power. The Supreme Leader is the number under the Iranian system, which spells out a clear institutionalized mechanism in case of the death of a president. Yet the death of Ebrahim Raisi sparked fresh speculation about regime change.
Tehran has long accused the West of trying to destabilize the country to achieve its ultimate goal of regime change, particularly since Iran is the only power in the region that has the potential to challenge Israel. Raisi died in the crash weeks after Iran in April 2024 launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation to an Israeli attack on an Iranian Consulate in Syria that left two Iranian generals and five officers dead amid the continuing genocidal assault on the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
