High tension as the world awaits Iran’s response to our attacks
After the US attacked Iran, major cities increased security as US agencies issued alerts and world leaders encouraged them to get detached.
In the days following the US strike in Iran, President Donald Trump has evicted Iranian leaders, threatened to enact a change of government, sparking debates over interventionism, and threatening to resurface memories of the time when he helped America defeat the government decades ago.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term “change of government,” but why would there be no change of government if the current Iranian regime cannot make Iran great again?? Miga!!!” Trump wrote in the Truth Social Post on June 22.
Trump’s post came after officials in his administration, including US vice president J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegses. As the next step remains unknown, the ghost of America’s involvement in the plan to retire from Iran is immediately compared to the 1953 coup, in which the American and British Intelligence Agency supported the forced removal of democratically elected leaders.
While the current crisis is far from the national and international events surrounding the 1953 coup, the story of the change of government evokes memories of the US support operations that had widespread effects across Iran and the region more than 70 years ago. This is what you need to know what happened.
Iran and the United States – have they always been hostile?
With the Cold War in place in the 1950s, Washington relied on Iran’s governing shah to help Soviet influences spread further in the oil-producing Middle East. The British relied on almost free access to Iran’s oil industry through Anglo-Iran’s oil companies.
However, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his monarchical rule continued to grow at home among Iranians, and in 1951 Mohammad Mossadegh was elected prime minister. Shortly afterwards, he nationalised Iran’s oil production in order to regain profits from the country’s oil industry and important foreign controls.
What led to the 1953 coup in Iran?
The UK was locked out of Iranian oil and leaned against the US for support. The US government at the time was concerned that the Mosadegu government signaled an end to the western foothold of the region in the face of Cold War unrest and the Soviet push to widen its impact.
In 1953, the CIA and MI6 coordinated the Mossadegu overthrow with Operation Ajax, led by senior executive Kermit Roosevelt Jr., grandson of US President Theodore Roosevelt. This led to the subversion of the Mosadegu. Mosadegu was brought to trial and sentenced to house arrest, and restored power to Pahlavi and concentrated. He will be Iran’s last Shah.
The 2013 National Security Archives officially acknowledged the US’s role in the coup when it released declassified CIA documents on operations.
“The 1953 coup remains a topic of global interest as much of it is still under intense debate,” wrote Malcolm Byrne of the National Security Archives along with a 2013 release. “Even the fundamental question is, who hatched the plot, who ultimately did it, how they supported it and succeeded within Iran – is under debate.”
In his 2003 book All the Shah’s Men, journalist Stephen Kinser stated that the 1953 coup was “a major trauma for the Iran, the Middle East and the colonial world,” with the US being the first to overthrow foreign governments, showing millions of changes, especially in the region.
How did the relationship between the US and Iran unfold after the coup?
The Iranians overthrow the Shah in 1979, accusing the Islamic revolutionaries of “training the Shah’s secret police,” accusing the CIA of vowing to fight Western imperialism in the region. They branded America as “Great Satan.”
In November 1979, an innovative student seized the American Embassy and held dozens of diplomats and other staff hostages for more than a year. Known as the Iranian hostage crisis, it marked the end of the strategic alliance between the US and the Shah regime, and marked a new era of hostility between the two countries. The 1953 coup was smashed into the rhetoric of revolution.
The enduring impact of the 1953 coup
The US and Iran have butts on a variety of issues since the 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis, including many years of conflict over Iran’s nuclear program, but the 1953 coup remains a significant event still being called in modern Iran.
Iranian historian Elband Abrahamian wrote in a 2013 book about the crisis that the coup had lasting impact on American foreign policy and US-Iran relations, casting “the darkest shadow” on Iran itself.
“The coup left a deep mark on the country, not only its politics and economy, but its popular culture and what some call mentality,” the Abrahamians said in the “coup.”
Contributed by: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA Today; Reuters.
Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA Today. You can contact her kapalmer@usatoday.com And with x @Kathrynplmr.
