Operation Ajax: Coup that made Iranians hate America | WION Explains

Israel-Iran War: The year was 1950, and Iran was under the leadership of Mohammad Mosaddegh. He was not a king or a dictator; he was the elected prime minister of the Islamic Republic. Iran's greatest treasure, its oil reserves, was under the control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British organisation that operated with near-total autonomy. The company used to send a large portion of the profits that Iran's oil reserves used to make to London, and a mere pittance used to go to Iranians. This continued for decades.

In 1951, Mosaddegh sensed the winds were changing and made a bold decision: he nationalised AIOC. The move was an open declaration of economic independence. From the busy markets of Tehran to remote oil fields, a slogan echoed in Iran, "This oil is ours." The move, as expected, triggered a furious reaction from the UK. It was a huge blow to London's economic interests and global prestige.

Britain reacted. It reacted swiftly and brutally. The UK government imposed a crippling international embargo on Iranian oil. This proved as a move that strangled the Mosaddegh-led government economically, and it submitted to the Britishers.

Meanwhile, America was having a new administration led by President Dwight D Eisenhower. His views on the Iran-UK conflict over oil were very different of the previous US administration of Harry S Truman. Truman wanted a peaceful negotiation and settlement to the oil dispute, but Eisenhower saw the entire conflict through a different lens.

The then British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, approached the US and painted Mosaddegh as an unpredictable, even dangerous, figure whose nationalist fervour and the ensuing economic chaos could inadvertently create a power vacuum, a fertile ground for the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party to seize control.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched a coup against Mosaddegh. The coup was named Operation Ajax. Kermit Roosevelt Jr, the grandson of US President Theodore Roosevelt, was leading it as an intelligence officer in Washington.

As Stephen Kinzer, author of the book All the Shah's Men, mentioned in his book, Roosevelt quickly seized control of the Iranian press by buying them off with bribes and circulating anti-Mossadegh propaganda. He also convinced the shah of the Islamic nation that Mossadegh was a threat.

The coup, in its last attempt, tried to apprehend Mossadegh in a dramatic attempt at his house in the middle of the night. But the Iranian PM knew about the US-led plan and fought back accordingly. The next morning, he announced over the radio that he had won. But - there was more to come.

Roosevelt orchestrated a second coup against Mossadegh, and that became successful. Mossadegh was placed on trial and spent his life under house arrest. The shah returned to power and ruled for another 25 years until the 1979 Iranian Revolution.