Mohammad Mosaddegh was a democratically elected leader of Iran who nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951, a move that sought to assert Iranian sovereignty over its natural resources. His government, which pursued policies of national economic sovereignty, democratic governance, and social reform, was overthrown in the 1953 CIA-backed coup known as Operation Ajax, which was conducted jointly with the British Secret Intelligence Service. This coup restored the autocratic rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ending the brief period of secular nationalist governance that Mosaddegh represented.
The author argues that the 1953 coup destroyed a secular nationalist government that had broad popular support across Iranian society, including from secular nationalists, the Iranian left, and religious figures who supported Iranian sovereignty against foreign control. This destruction set the stage for the Islamic revolution of 1979, which the author contends was not predetermined by the revolutionary coalition’s composition but rather emerged from the post-revolutionary political struggle in which the Khomeini-led religious faction outmaneuvered and ultimately destroyed the secular and leftist factions that had participated in the revolution alongside it.
Mosaddegh himself was a secular liberal democrat trained in European law and politics, committed to constitutional governance, popular suffrage, and the assertion of Iranian national interests against foreign domination. His government had broad popular support, and its destruction in 1953 marked a turning point in Iran’s political trajectory, leading to decades of repression under the Shah’s regime and ultimately to the 1979 revolution.
Related: iran.md, capture.md, shah-mohammad-reza-pahlavi.md, constructed-catastrophe.md
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