# Mohammad Mosaddegh Mohammad Mosaddegh (1882–1967) was Iran's democratically elected prime minister from 1951 to 1953 and the central figure of modern Iranian nationalism. His government nationalized the country's oil industry, ending decades of British control — and was destroyed for it in the CIA- and MI6-engineered [[1953 Iranian Coup]]. He remains the great "road not taken" of Iranian history: the secular democrat the West chose to overthrow in favor of a king. ## Background Born into the Qajar aristocracy and Western-educated (he held a doctorate in law from Switzerland), Mosaddegh entered politics as a constitutionalist committed to parliamentary rule and national sovereignty. He built his career on opposition to foreign domination — first the British, then any power that treated Iran as a resource colony. ## Oil Nationalization As leader of the National Front coalition, Mosaddegh championed the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (the forerunner of BP), which had paid Iran a fraction of its oil profits while reaping enormous returns for Britain. Parliament nationalized the industry in 1951 and Mosaddegh became prime minister on a wave of popular support. Britain responded with a global embargo on Iranian oil and a covert campaign to remove him. ## Overthrow and Legacy When Britain could not topple Mosaddegh alone, it convinced the [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] administration that he was opening Iran to Soviet communism via the [[Tudeh Party]]. In August 1953 the CIA's Operation Ajax, run by [[Kermit Roosevelt Jr.]], engineered his fall and restored [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]] to absolute power. Mosaddegh was tried, imprisoned, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest, dying in 1967. For Iranians across the political spectrum — secular and religious, monarchist-skeptic and revolutionary alike — Mosaddegh is a national martyr and the symbol of stolen democracy. For the vault, his overthrow is the original sin of US-Iran relations and the foundational case of [[CIA]] covert regime change, the grievance that the [[Iranian Revolution]] would later avenge. *See also: [[1953 Iranian Coup]], [[Iranian History Hub]], [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]]*