1953 Iran coup
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The 1953 Iran coup was the U.S.- and UK-backed overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran's democratically elected prime minister. John Kiriakou, comparing it to the CIA-backed overthrow of Guatemala's government in the same era, says the Mossadegh coup was "absolutely not" in the United States' national interest, it was in Britain's.

From secular politics to religious revolution

Kiriakou traces a direct line from the coup to Iran's 1979 revolution. With democracy "working" under Mossadegh, its overthrow was followed by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, working with the United States to crush all opposition, religious, secular-democratic, and communist alike. As harassment, imprisonment, and exile intensified to the point where the state could no longer jail or exile people fast enough, the mosque became the only remaining space where Iranians could organize, since it could not plausibly be shut down the way a political meeting could. Kiriakou argues this dynamic, not religious zeal alone, is why the resulting 1978,79 revolution took a religious rather than secular character, culminating in the Shah's February 1979 overthrow and the November 1979 storming of the U.S. embassy.

See also

- Hillary Clinton
- Iran-Contra
- John Kiriakou
