In 1953, a US-backed military coup overthrew Iran’s first democratically elected leader, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, in response to his decision to nationalize the highly lucrative oil industry, cutting off the gravy train the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company had been riding since 1909.
Time had honored the Western-educated leader the year before the coup as its man of the year, hailing him as “the most world-renowned man his ancient race had produced for centuries.” Suddenly, because he wanted to use Iran’s oil wealth to benefit his country, he was deemed a pinko.
Using American tax dollars to develop a network of Iranian agents and to bribe the regime’s opponents, the CIA launched political warfare against Mossadegh. It distributed fake news via posters and newspapers that called him corrupt, anti-Islam, and the Soviet Union’s ally, it encouraged religious leaders to criticize the prime minister from inside their mosques, and it enlisted street mobs to incite riots across Tehran.
Success finally came on August 19. Paid infiltrators played both sides: some posed as Tudeh party members attempting to foment revolution while others convinced the citizens to rise up against this threat. Eventually, amid growing anarchy, General Fazlollah Zahedi, paid off by the CIA, ordered his bribed military units to seize government facilities and Radio Tehran. He proclaimed himself “the lawful prime minister by the Shah’s orders” and collected $1 million in cash from the CIA.
Soon after, the Shah — Washington’s chosen dictator — assumed the throne, American oil companies moved in, and US-Iranian relations quickly warmed as the new regime squashed dissent, imprisoned opponents, and received unprecedented US arms shipments
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/01/russ...mossadegh-chile-allende-guatemala-arbenz-coup