In 1953, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), working with Britain’s MI6, engineered a coup (Operation Ajax) to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. He had nationalized Iran's oil industry, which had been controlled by the British (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now BP).
Israel played a limited but supportive role in the 1953 coup in Iran, which overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, though the main actors were the United States and the United Kingdom.
Israel’s Involvement:
While not a main player, Israel had:
Intelligence links with the Shah’s regime even before 1953.
Post-coup, Israel developed very close ties with the Shah, including military, intelligence, and economic cooperation.
Some historians suggest Israel supported Western efforts to ensure Iran remained a stable, anti-Soviet ally, but no evidence shows Israel played a direct role in planning or executing the coup.
Most people would say coups are anti democratic - I certainly don't have a dog in this fight but wonder if the world would be a different place, had there not been an overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government in the 50s - but here we are again calling for regime change -
Because it worked so well in Iraq and Libya.
Truth be told - I'll be happy to see the back of the Ayatollers.
Had that coup not taken place, the trajectory of the Middle East — and perhaps the West's relationship with it — might have looked very different:
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 might never have occurred, or taken a different form.
Anti-American sentiment in Iran — which is rooted largely in the coup and the Shah’s subsequent repression — might not have taken hold.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a political force in Iran may never have found such fertile ground.
U.S. interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya (and possibly Syria) might have played out differently if the Iran model hadn't set a precedent.
That’s a grim truth. Regime change, especially imposed from the outside, rarely leads to stable democracies. Instead, it often leads to power vacuums, civil war, extremism, or simply new forms of authoritarianism.
Shalom lekulam.
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