Iran coup (Operation Ajax)

1953MajorContested

American and British intelligence help overthrow Iran's elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he nationalizes the oil industry, restoring the Shah's power. Resentment of the coup feeds the 1979 revolution.

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Contested history

Consensus: The CIA and British intelligence planned and funded the August 1953 coup, as declassified CIA histories confirm, working with Iranian royalists, army officers and clerics.

CIA and MI6 organized the coupEstablished

The CIA acknowledged its role in documents released in 2013, and the State Department published its records in 2017.

Iranian forces were decisive on their ownDebated by scholars

Some historians argue clergy, officers and crowds would have toppled Mosaddegh anyway; most see the foreign operation as essential.

The motive was stopping communism rather than oilDebated by scholars

Records show both British oil interests and American fear of the communist Tudeh party drove the plan; historians weigh them differently.