Every college kid learns that the big bad CIA overthrew the democratically elected moderate progressive Mosaddegh. But Mosaddegh was a Qajar dynast who kept undermining Iranic self-rule—& then carried out 4 coups while plunging his country into total chaos before he was removed…
He was heir to the Turkic rulers of Iran, he married another heir to the Turkic rulers of Iran, he was involved in powerful revolutionary Masonic secret societies, & his political career began in earnest with protests against Reza Shah for beating back the Soviet invasion of Iran
When the US & Soviets forced the 1st Reza Shah to resign during WWII, because he was too anti-communist, Mosaddegh returned to public life, & got the 2nd Reza Shah to appoint him prime minister. Mosaddegh then quickly nationalized oil (among much else)—& so caused Iran’s collapse
“But how does stealing the British oil company cause collapse?” Well he couldn’t get any of the oil onto the market because he chased away all the engineers, workers, tankers, allies, etc—they were too incompetent to sell any of the vast reserves they stole, & so fell into crisis
Mosaddegh was then removed from power—as per the Shah’s constitutional power to select & deselect Prime Ministers—but Mosaddegh whipped up communist & jihadist mobs to attack & threaten the Shah until the Shah reappointed Mosaddegh as PM (this Shah was young & cowardly back then)
Oh wait I forgot that in 1952—after the Abadan Oil Crisis had begun, but before the Shah replaced & then reappointed Mosaddegh—Mosaddegh called elections to solidify his power & just openly flat-out stole the vote (which he wouldn’t have won). & then he demanded the Shah’s powers
That’s what prompted the Shah to briefly pick a different PM than the one who’d caused Iranian oil production to fall by well over 95%—among many other such “progressive reforms”—while alienating Western allies as the Soviets kept trying to invade (eg look up the UNSC’s 1st act).
But then—after Mosaddegh rioted his way back to being PM—he immediately got the parliament he’d picked in the sham 1952 election to vote on two pieces of legislation: 1st—six months of dictatorial power; then—another year of dictatorial power. No specifics, just utter absolutism.
Then in 1953 Mosaddegh put a referendum to the people to just make him dictator forever & dissolve parliament; his thugs managed the vote, & checked everyone’s ballots, & still also probably stuffed it because he got literally 99% of the vote. & then—finally—the Shah removed him.
The Shah had always—thru this crisis—retained this power under the Iranian constitution, but he’d been afraid of using it, & incompetent (eg he tried to send generals to arrest Mosaddegh but Mosaddegh whipped up his partisans to arrest those generals instead). That’s the CIA coup
CIA really did try to pep talk the Shah into using these powers—as the Shah wanted to, but was afraid to—& eg it really bought the Shah’s sister nice mink coats to guilt the Shah into manning up. But the Shah fled to Italy during the referendum—& his generals overthrew Mosaddegh
Literally the day before mass uprisings removed Mosaddegh from power, the CIA was calling it quits in Iran, despairing, preparing to make nice with Mosaddegh, etc, & their memos about the coup express nothing but surprise at it. All they’d done was pay protesters who got jailed… 
It should also be noted that the CIA was by no means uniformly anti-Mosaddegh. The protesters they paid were *pro & anti* Mosaddegh, & the Americans most in charge there were (I’m not at all exaggerating) *anti-colonial socialists*: eg look up Kermit Roosevelt Jr & Henry F Grady.
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