or years, Britain had a spiffy trade deal with Iran regarding their prodigious oil fields. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was basically a giant money machine for the Anglo half, while the Iranian half got shafted. That all changed in 1951 when Iran nationalized the AIOC and the Iranian parliament elected Mohammed Mossadegh as Prime Minister. Mossadegh was relatively secular, something that pissed of Iranian clerics, but he was also very nationalistic. He was a democratically elected, pro American figure but the West saw his nationalizing of the oil fields a communist move(something Mossadegh thought was the right of the people to profit and pay for services in the country with). Those oil fields were under the control of British Petroleum, but unfortunately Mossadegh overruled this long standing business control. The United States sent Kermit Roosevelt, FDR’s nephew and CIA coordinator in to figure out the mess. The best he could come up with was to confront Mossadegh and have him overthrown and this was accomplished by bringing in what the agency refers to as “jackals.” The United States backed the return of the Shah of Iran, one of the most brutal dictators the country had ever seen and intentionally overthrew years before with the democratic leader, Mossadegh. Until 1979, that is, when a pissed off Iranian populace finally revolted and replaced the monarchy with an anti-West Islamic Republic. The result was a violently anti-American revolution lead by the Ayatollah Khomeini which overthrew the Shah and took hostage US Embassy workers, many of whom were involved in the plot with Kermit Roosevelt that installed the Shah. The planning for the Coup took place largely in that embassy, but Americans were told this was due to the rise of radical Islam and rise of democracy hating Muslims, which of course was far from the truth.
Part 1 of a video done on Operation Ajax history:
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