[12] Upon the AIOC's refusal to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.

[16] Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the British-built Abadan oil refinery, then the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee (in power until 1951) opted instead to tighten the economic boycott[17] while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government.

[18]: 3  Judging Mosaddegh to be unamenable and fearing the growing influence of the communist Tudeh, UK prime minister Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration decided in early 1953 to overthrow Iran's government.

Following the coup, a government under General Fazlollah Zahedi was formed which allowed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran (Persian for 'king'),[22] to rule more firmly as monarch.

According to American journalist Stephen Kinzer, the operation included false flag attacks, paid protesters, provocations, the bribing of Iranian politicians and high-ranking security and army officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.

It allowed for the shah to issue royal decrees (Farman), gave him the power to dismiss prime ministers, appoint half of the members of the Senate (which was not convened until 1949),[15] and introduce bills to dissolve Parliament.

[43][44] In the aftermath of World War I there was widespread political dissatisfaction with the royalty terms of the British petroleum concession, under the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), whereby Persia received 16% of "net profits".

The Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara, who opposed the oil nationalization,[13]: 30, 33  was assassinated by the hardline Fadaiyan e-Islam (whose spiritual leader the Ayatollah Abol-Qassem Kashani, a mentor to the future Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,[page needed] After the National Front dominated the voting in Parliament, Mosaddegh was confirmed prime minister of Iran by the Shah (replacing Hossein Ala, who had replaced Razmara).

[48] In July 1951, the American diplomat Averell Harriman went to Iran to negotiate an Anglo-Iranian compromise, asking the Shah's help; his reply was that "in the face of public opinion, there was no way he could say a word against nationalisation".

[18]: 106 On a visit to the United States in October 1951, Mosaddegh—in spite of the popularity of nationalization in Iran—agreed in talks with George C. McGhee to a complex settlement of the crisis involving the sale of the Abadan Refinery to a non-British company and Iranian control of the extraction of crude oil.

[13][page needed][18]: 145 The United Kingdom took its anti-nationalization case against Iran to the International Court of Justice at The Hague; PM Mosaddegh said the world would learn of a "cruel and imperialistic country" stealing from a "needy and naked people".

Tens of thousands had lost their jobs at the Abadan refinery, and although most understood and passionately supported the idea of nationalisation, they naturally hoped that Mosaddegh would find a way to put them back to work.

It has even been suggested that Roosevelt's activities between 15 and 19 August were primarily intended to organize "stay-behind networks as part of the planned CIA evacuation of the country", although they allowed him to later "claim responsibility for the day's outcome.

[36] However in 2017, the CIA released documents revealing that the networks established by British intelligence services had been used to run a campaign of propaganda and paid-for protests, resulting in the rapid destabilization of the nation.

The Shah declared this to be a "victory" for Iranians, with the massive influx of money from this agreement resolving the economic collapse from the last three years, and allowing him to carry out his planned modernization projects.

[73] Released National Security Archive documents showed that Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith reported that the CIA had agreed with Qashqai tribal leaders, in south Iran, to establish a clandestine safe haven from which U.S.-funded guerrillas and spies could operate.

's records were widely thought by historians to have the potential to add depth and clarity to a famous but little-documented intelligence operation", reporter Tim Weiner wrote in The New York Times 29 May 1997.

[83] "The Central Intelligence Agency, which has repeatedly pledged for more than five years to make public the files from its secret mission to overthrow the government of Iran in 1953, said today that it had destroyed or lost almost all the documents decades ago.

[96] In March 2018, the National Security Archive released a declassified British memo alleging that the United States Embassy sent "large sums of money" to "influential people"—namely senior Iranian clerics—in the days leading up to Mosaddeq's overthrow.

A year earlier, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill used Britain's support for the U.S. in the Cold War to insist the United States not undermine his campaign to isolate Mosaddegh.

[114] An early account of the CIA's role in the coup appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in late 1954, purporting to explain how "the strategic little nation of Iran was rescued from the closing clutch of Moscow."

[118] According to Wilber, the British Secret Intelligence Service worked with CIA to form a propaganda campaign via "the press, handbills and the Tehran clergy" to "weaken the Mossadeq government in any way possible".

In the summer of 2001, Ervand Abrahamian writes in the journal Science & Society that Wilber's version of the coup was missing key information some of which was available elsewhere: The New York Times recently leaked a CIA report on the 1953 American-British overthrow of Mosaddeq, Iran's Prime Minister.

It glosses over such sensitive issues as the crucial participation of the U.S. ambassador in the actual overthrow; the role of U.S. military advisers; the harnessing of local Nazis and Muslim terrorists; and the use of assassinations to destabilize the government.

[134] United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who visited Iran both before and after the coup, wrote that "When Mosaddegh and Persia started basic reforms, we became alarmed.

[137] According to Kinzer, "The triumphant Shah [Pahlavi] ordered the execution of several dozen military officers and student leaders who had been closely associated with Mohammad Mosaddegh".

[145] In 2000, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, acknowledged the coup's pivotal role in the troubled relationship and "came closer to apologizing than any American official ever has before": The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons.

Scholar Ervand Abrahamian suggests that the fact that Fardoust's death was announced before publication of the book may be significant, as the Islamic Republic authorities may have forced him into writing such statements under duress.

[129]: 160, 161 Ruhollah Khomeini said the government did not pay enough attention to religious figures which caused the coup d'état to take place and described the separation between religion and politics[155] as a fault in contemporary history.

[158][159] Directed by Hasan Fathi and written jointly with playwright and university professor Naghmeh Samini, the TV series Shahrzad is the story of a love broken apart by events in the aftermath of the 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh.