The 1953 Iranian Coup

In early 1951, the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry by Mosaddegh was the trigger for the United Kingdom to begin discussion with the United States to overthrow Mosaddegh and return the power to the shah. When the coup attempt was thwarted, the CIA decided to call off continuing with the operation because they did not want it to get traced back to the United States. However, Kermit Roosevelt believed that the United States should not be done interfering with Iran, and

Furthermore, the Shah purchased billions of dollars worth of weapons of security from the US. In 1979 the realm was overthrown by extreme Islam’s that were followers of Ayatollah Khomeini. The intention of the Iranian students was to display their displeasure against the Shah. Their demand was the return of the Shah for a trial followed by his death. In addition, they asked that the US stay out of their country’s affairs. Carter’s approach required the safeguarding of American hostages but also guaranteed an alliance with Iran. Carter’s tactics on the situation had devastating effects on his run for re-election (Hamilton, 1982).

All the Shah’s Men details the Iranian coup of 1953. The British, as a colonial power, ran the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which provided much of the oil Britain needed during World War II. Not only that, but it provided large amounts of revenue for the nation. Meanwhile, the Iranians were not benefiting from the arrangement, as the British mistreated the Iranian workers and paid only a minute amount of the profits to the Iranian government. A politician, Mossadegh, arose who would work to nationalize Iranian oil production, taking away economic and political power from the British. Obviously, the British were unwilling to accept this, and, incensed at

In the late 1970's, the world was hit with the events of the Iranian Revolution, a movement in which the Shah was overthrown in replacement with Ayatollah Khomeini. Causes for this movement included the economic, political, and socio-economic conditions in Iran before the Revolution. Economically, the Shah's hopes for the country ended up being their downfalls while politically, the Shah's ruling as a dictator prohibited the freedom of the Iranians. Socio-economically, the Shah didn't place much emphasis on religion, angering the majority of the population. The overthrow of the Shah led to the uprise of a religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, a figure supported by many. Unlike advice

Various factors influenced the 1979 Iranian revolution, but at the core of this significant event was Islamic fundamentalism. The Iranian religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, led this movement to end the thirty-seven-year reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, also known as the Shah of Iran (Diller 1991, p.152). The revolution was a combination of mounting social, economic, political and religious strains. The nation of Iran was never colonized, unlike some of its bordering countries, making its people intolerant of external influences. The Shah had gradually westernized and secularized his country, creating a strong American presence that was being felt

The complexity of America’s relationship with Iran increased steadily beginning in 1908, when Iran struck oil. The Shah, the king or emperor of Iran, after taking the place of his young predecessor Reza Shah Pahlavi with the help of the CIA, led Iran into a period of extreme wealth and prosperity, the likes of which the Iranian people had never experienced. However, with the growth of wealth in Iran came the growth of Iranian resentment towards the West, specifically the United States. The Iranian’s resented the uneven distribution of wealth that they felt existed and the United State’s influence in “westernizing” their society. In 1963, this growing hatred led to a conflict with the Islamic clergy. The conflict was quickly settled by the Shah, but he was unaware that this dispute was the beginning

On November 4th, 1979, a group of enraged of Islamic revolutionists invaded the United States Embassy in Tehran. They had taken 60 Americans hostage for 444 days until President Ronald Reagan had taken Oath of office. It was nearly minutes after Reagan had taken office that they were released. Ayatollah Khomeini enforced an anti-Western Islamic theocracy, overrode the pro-Western monarchy of the Shah of Iran. Iran had felt that the United States was interfering with their internal affairs. They feared that they would return the Shah to power. The Shah had fled to mexico and the doctors there had uncovered that he was suffering an aggressive cancer. With this recent discovery they pushed the Shah to be admitted into a

The people of Iran became angry that the United States would allow the Shah to seek medical treatment in the US, and overtook the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Many of them feared that the United States planned to return to Iran and reinstate Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as their leader, because of the close diplomatic ties that had been established with him. The United States had helped him to overthrow Iran’s Prime Minister during a power struggle in 1953 and modernize Iran (“The Hostage Crisis in Iran”). The Iranian protesters- many of whom were college students- took hostages, 66 of the hostages holding American citizenship, and refused to release them until the Unites States stopped helping the Shah and turned him over to them. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini decided to support the actions of the student protesters, and dissolved treaties that had been made with the Soviet Union and the United States, preventing international intervention towards the violent protests in Iran. Premier Mehdi Bazargan and most of the

In 1953 American intelligence agencies helped royalists led by the Shah seize power from the Prime Minister in a coup de tat. After the coup the Shah made the country into an absolute monarchy. The United States helped the Shah tighten his grip on power over the next twenty-five years, training his special police and providing financial and military aid. During this period the Shah used the secret police to purge opponents and ruled with an iron fist. While he did bring significant reform to Iran, including modernizing the country, many were resentful of his ties to the West and angrily saw the reforms as attempts at Westernization. Popular support remained tepid and eventually led to protests and a coup in 1979.

for cancer treatment. The specific reasons for the Iran Hostage Crisis were the oil conflict, Iranian Revolution, U.S. overthrow of government, and forced modernization. These things created a lot of tension between Iran and the U.S. The oil conflict was the start to creating tension between the United states and Iran. The United States controlled Iran's oil, and Iran's minister wanted to nationalize the oil supply. The US and Britain did not want that to happen so they created a plan to overthrow the prime minister and get someone who would support their interests in oil. Finally, the Shah was their new leader and had close ties with the US. The Shah was replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini and the United States started to get away from Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini formed anti-American groups that held more than sixty people hostage from the American embassy. The people from Iran did not like Americans getting involved with their government. Since the Shah was able to come to the United States and get his treatment, it made the Iranian’s think that the United States was helping him out. That was the final straw to cause the students and militants from Iran to

This caused the Iranians to become angry with the

I learned that the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddegh and the Iranian parliament nationalized the oil industry including the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British corporation. The British were furious with Mosaddegh’s actions and instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil. However, Britain’s efforts made little difference and they turned to the USA for help in a plan to overthrow the Iranian government and replace it with the Shah. The USA initially refused to be involved but the British officials managed to convince Eisenhower that Iran posed a communist threat. The CIA convinced Reza Shah to participate in the coup and bribed newspaper editors and civilians to make it appear as though the Shah had popular support.

In mid-1953, democratic leader Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran was overthrown in favor of electing General Fazlollah Zahedi the new Iranian Prime Minister. This was caused by a coup led by the British Secret Intelligence Service and the US Central Intelligence Agency, though plans for the coup began in Britain about 2 years before the US became involved. Britain, since the early 18th century, had been very involved in Iranian economic affairs, due to Iranian leader Nasir al-Din Shah selling large chunks of Iranian industry to foreign investors in order to fund his well-known over-exuberance. Of his foreign investors, Britain bought into Iran heavily, purchasing rights to run a telegraph through Iran to India, exclusive rights to tobacco in Iran, and exclusive rights to industry, farmland, resources, roads, banks, and currency in Iran, though the latter would later be revoked (31). This decision to subsequently, over time, led to “control over the nation’s most valuable assets” to be given to foreigners, rather than the Iranian people (32). After Nasir al-Din Shah’s death in 1901, his son Muzzaffar sold the rights to Iranian oil to Britain for 60 years. This decision led to Iranian riots because this would take oil out of Iranian control and Iranian economy would suffer as a result. To combat this, in 1906, Iran formed an Iranian parliament, known as the Majlis, to defend the Iranian people and keep Iran out of poverty. Feeling threatened, Britain stepped in and integrated

Before the revolution, Shah Reza Pahlavi was the ruler of Iran. Under his leadership power was clustered and concentrated among his close allies and networks of friends and others with whom he had close relations. By 1970s, the gap between the poor and the rich was widening and huge distrust about his economic policies grew. Resentment towards his autocratic leadership grew fuelling people to dissent his regime further. Shah now was considered an authoritarian who took full control of the Iran government preventing the Iranians from expressing their opinion. The government has transformed from the traditional monarchial form of government to authoritarian with absolute authority replacing individual freedom of the Iranians. This transformation to Iranian was unacceptable because they needed to control their own affairs. They wanted self-government where they could take control as opposed to what Shah was doing. Shah was seen as a western puppet for embracing authoritarian form of government (Axworthy, 2016).

The breaking point finally came in 1979 when a fire broke out at an Abadan cinema and 40 people died. As depicted in the graphic novel Persepolis, protesters flocked to the streets claiming that the Shah perpetuated the attack and blamed it on the political agitators and the revolution began. Each day the protests got marginally stronger and larger until the Shah declared martial law and the protestors refused which exacerbated the conflict further to the point where the Shah fled the country. Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution maintained its power over the people in two distinct ways. The first way was through the Ayatollah’s plan to alleviate the economic woes of the working class that fueled the revolution from the vey beginning. Khomeini had the constitution incorporate promises to end poverty, lower unemployment, encourage home ownership and remedy the Shah’s land reforms. These claims deeply resonated with the poor and working class Iranian who made up the majority of the country. But Islamic Republic’s was truly able to maintain a hold on the populace by exploiting the Iran-Iraq War that broke out in 1980. The government needed to not only build up a national army, but suppress dissent and propaganda and create industries that could help the war cause. Such drastic needs led to drastic actions as the Ayatollah created censorship laws that