US’s & UK’s 1953 Iranian Coup: A Cautionary Tale
- Genocide Watch
- 5 minutes ago
- 5 min read
By Michał Jagielski
On December 28, 2025, Iranians began widespread protests against the Islamic theocratic regime’s mismanagement of the country’s economy. Food prices had surged by 72% compared to the previous year. Inflation hovered around 40%. The Iranian rial continued to lose value monthly.
The government responded with a brutal crackdown on protesters. Reliable reports indicate thousands dead, with many more arrested and imprisoned. Authorities severed the country’s access to communication channels, including the internet.
Since the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025, the United States has issued repeated threats against the Iranian government, openly hinting at regime change. The ongoing protests have provided President Donald Trump with an opportunity to escalate his interventionist rhetoric, as he has called on Iranians to continue protesting while promising that “help is on its way.”
In light of the United States’ abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and President Trump’s subsequent promises to “run Venezuela” and control its oil resources, many experts have begun to speculate about what American intervention in Iran might mean for the country’s future.
Some observers point to Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who currently resides in Washington, D.C., as a potential pro-Western ruler. If Reza Pahlavi were to return to Iran, he would be following in his father’s footsteps as the second Pahlavi Shah installed by the American government. On the last occasion, such a decision resulted in decades of repression, instability, and widespread suffering for the Iranian people.
Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and the 1953 US & UK-sponsored coup
After the end of World War II, the United Kingdom retained significant influence in Iran, securing highly favorable oil trade concessions. The creation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company granted the UK a de facto monopoly over Iran’s oil and gas reserves.
In 1951, the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, initiated the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry in an effort to restore the country’s economic sovereignty. Mosaddegh’s actions limited Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s influence and directly threatened British interests.
Unable to halt Mosaddegh’s plans and alarmed by his growing popularity, the UK turned to the United States for assistance. British officials persuaded their State Department and CIA counterparts in Washington that Mosaddegh was a communist sympathizer and that Iran’s oil nationalization would ultimately benefit the Soviet Union.
As a result, Operation Ajax, a joint MI6–CIA plot to overthrow the Iranian government, was devised. CIA-funded operatives harassed religious and political figures and orchestrated a widespread disinformation campaign.
The coup d’état succeeded in August 1953. Mosaddegh was imprisoned and spent the remainder of his life under house arrest, while absolute power was restored to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Consequences of the return of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
After returning to power, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi grew increasingly paranoid, fearing domestic opposition to his rule. He subsequently relied heavily on American support and on the National Intelligence and Security Organization (SAVAK), which was established in 1957.
SAVAK’s leadership was appointed directly by the Shah and granted broad autonomy in conducting its operations. Its primary objective was to identify and eliminate the Shah’s political opponents, both within Iran and among the Iranian diaspora. The organization relied on a vast network of informants, fostering an atmosphere of fear, distrust, and state surveillance.
Due to Iran’s status at the time as a constitutional monarchy and SAVAK’s highly secretive nature, it is difficult to determine the full scale of SAVAK’s political repression. However, estimates by international organizations suggest that between 25,000 and 125,000 Iranians were imprisoned. Imprisonment was not limited to members of political parties, but also targeted religious figures, and ethnic minorities, including Kurds, Baloch, and Azerbaijanis.
Conditions in detention violated every international treaty on the treatment of prisoners. Prisoners were denied contact with the outside world, held in unheated cells, deprived of adequate food, medical care, and treatment, and prevented from exercising or engaging in communal activities.
In prisons such as the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran, torture was routinely employed to extract confessions. Survivors of SAVAK’s torture have reported being beaten, flogged, electrocuted, and having their teeth and fingernails forcibly torn out. Many were subjected to sexual assault, including rape.
Beyond imprisonment and torture, the Shah’s tyranny extended to widespread media censorship, the banning of labor unions, the surveillance of universities, and the widespread use of capital punishment. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s authoritarian rule left deep scars on Iranian society.
In the Islamic Revolution of 1979, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and forced to flee from Iran to the United States.
Since then, the Islamic Republic of Iran has ruled with an iron fist. Revolutionary Guards invaded the U.S. Embassy and captured 66 American hostages. 52 were held for 444 days until January 20, 1981.
Thousands of Iranian civil servants and opponents of the Islamic regime were executed. Iran became embroiled in a war with Iraq that killed over a hundred thousand Iranians and Iraqis.
Under the Islamic Republic of Iran, women have been severely subjugated. They are required to wear hijabs and are subjected to harassment by the morality police. In September 2022, a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly. She was beaten to death in police custody. Her death sparked massive demonstrations by Iranian women and men for women’s rights. The protests were brutally crushed by the Revolutionary Guard.
Opponents of the theocratic regime are still arrested and held in the Evin Prison and other prisons, where torture, rape, beatings, starvation, and murder continue to be routine.
Should Reza Pahlavi, the former Shah’s son, return to lead Iran? A Warning.
As protesters in Iran continue to die at the hands of the regime, some demonstrators, members of the Iranian diaspora, and international observers have called for the return of the former Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, as the preferred alternative to the current government.
Although a Reza Pahlavi-led Iran might abolish some of the country’s oppressive religious laws and benefit from the lifting of international sanctions, the Iranian people would not be freed from official violation of their human rights. Reza Pahlavi would purport to institute a constitutional monarchy. But he would, much more likely, reinstitute an authoritarian government like his father’s regime.
Reza Pahlavi is an American. If he is installed as the new Shah of Iran, the result will be much like the U.S. attempt to impose a “democracy” in Iraq led by an Iraqi expatriate, Deputy Prime Minister and Oil Minister Ahmed Chalabi, who had lived in the USA for much of his life. Chalabi turned out to be an Iran and CIA agent. He was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Any government that owes its rise to power to a foreign nation is inherently indebted, as such support is never extended for charitable reasons.
The primary responsibility of any government is to serve the well-being of its people, not the interests of foreign states or corporations. If Reza Pahlavi were to return as Iran’s leader, his role, much like his father’s, would be to serve his own interests and the interests of his American allies rather than those of the Iranian people.
Reza Pahlavi does not possess the necessary experience required to revive Iran’s economy and restore Iranians’ trust in government institutions. If recent protests result in a political opening that allows for a new form of government to emerge, it must be the Iranian people themselves who determine their own future.
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