Every attempt to understand the Iran–USA conflict runs back to August 1953, when the CIA and Britain's MI6 engineered the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh.
Why Was Mosaddegh Overthrown?
Oil. In 1951, Mosaddegh nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (today's BP), which controlled Iran's petroleum and passed most profits to Britain. London responded with a blockade of Iranian oil exports and turned to Washington for help removing him. The Eisenhower administration — sold on the argument that Mosaddegh's Iran could drift toward the Soviet Union — approved the operation the CIA codenamed TP-AJAX.
How the Coup Worked
The operation combined bribery of politicians, clergy and military officers, paid street mobs, planted newspaper propaganda, and coordination with royalist generals. After a first attempt failed on 15–16 August 1953, a second push on 19 August succeeded. Mosaddegh was arrested, tried and held under house arrest until his death in 1967. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had briefly fled the country, returned to rule with expanding power — and expanding American support.
The Quarter-Century That Followed
The Shah became Washington's pillar in the Gulf: a major oil supplier and the largest buyer of American weapons in the region. But his rule grew increasingly autocratic, enforced by the SAVAK secret police, whose torture of dissidents became notorious. Oil wealth coexisted with inequality and cultural resentment. Opposition gathered around an exiled cleric — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Why 1953 Still Matters
- It is Iran's founding grievance. The revolutionary state's slogan of resistance against American "arrogance" draws its emotional power from 1953 — proof, in the Iranian narrative, that Washington will overturn even an elected Iranian government that crosses Western oil interests.
- The US has acknowledged it. In 2013, declassified CIA documents formally confirmed the agency's role; Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had already called the coup a "setback for democratic government" in 2000.
- It shaped the 1979 hostage crisis. The students who seized the US embassy explicitly cited fear of a repeat of 1953 — the Shah had just been admitted to the US for medical treatment, and they believed a counter-revolution was being planned inside the embassy.
The Takeaway
The 1953 coup delivered 26 years of a pro-American Iran, and then a revolution that has defined the region's geopolitics ever since. The next chapter in this series covers that rupture: the 1979 revolution and the 444-day hostage crisis.
This article is part of a 20-part analysis series on the Iran–USA conflict covering the complete history, the June 2025 war, the Strait of Hormuz, oil markets, global inflation and future scenarios. Facts reflect the situation as of early 2026.
