Operation Ajax: 1953 Iranian Coup D'état

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état (known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup was the overthrow of the democratically electedgovernment of Iran, and its head of government Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name 'Operation Boot') and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project). The coup saw the transition of Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi from a constitutional monarch to an authoritarian one who relied heavily on United States support to hold on to power until his own overthrow in February 1979.

In 1951, Iran's oil industry was nationalized with near-unanimous support of Iran's parliament in a bill introduced by Mossadegh who led the nationalist parliamentarian faction. Iran's oil had been controlled by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company(AIOC), now known as BP. Popular discontent with the AIOC began in the late 1940s, a large segment of Iran's public and a number of politicians saw the company as exploitative and a vestige of British imperialism. Despite Mosaddegh's popular support, Britain was unwilling to negotiate its single most valuable foreign asset, and instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically. Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the Abadan oil refinery, the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee opted instead to tighten the economic boycott while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government. With a change to more conservative governments in both Britain and the United States, Churchill and the U.S. Eisenhower administration decided to overthrow Iran's government though the predecessor U.S.Truman administration had opposed a coup. Classified documents show British intelligence officials played a pivotal role in initiating and planning the coup, and that Washington and London shared an interest in maintaining control over Iranian oil.

Britain and the U.S. selected Fazlollah Zahedi to be the prime minister of a military junta that was to replace Mosaddegh's government. Subsequently, a royal decree dismissing Mosaddegh and appointing Zahedi was drawn up by the putsch plotters and signed by the Shah. The Central Intelligence Agency had successfully pressured the weak monarch to participate in the coup, while bribing street thugs, clergy, politicians and Iranian army officers to take part in a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh and his government. At first, the coup appeared to be a failure when on the night of 15–16 August, Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri was arrested while attempting to arrest Mosaddegh. The Shah fled the country the next day. On 19 August, a pro-Shah mob, paid by the CIA, marched on Mosaddegh's residence. According to the CIA's declassified documents and records, some of the most feared mobsters in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-Shah riots on 19 August. Other CIA-paid men were brought into Tehran in buses and trucks, and took over the streets of the city. Between 300 and 800 people were killed during and as a direct result of the conflict. Mosaddegh was arrested, tried and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court. On 21 December 1953, he was sentenced to three years in jail, then placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life. Mosaddegh's supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed.

After the coup, Pahlavi ruled as an authoritarian monarch for the next 26 years, until he was overthrown in a popular revolt in 1979. The tangible benefits the United States reaped from overthrowing Iran's elected government included a share of Iran's oil wealth as well as resolute prevention of the possibility that the Iranian government might align itself with the Soviet Union, although the latter motivation produces controversy among historians. Washington continually supplied arms to the unpopular Shah, and the CIA-trained SAVAK, his repressive secret police force. The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to anti-American sentiment in Iran and the Middle East. The 1979 Iranian Revolution deposed the Shah and replaced the pro-Western royal dictatorship with the largely anti-Western Islamic Republic of Iran.

Info via: Wikipedia