1953: The US–UK Coup That Shaped Iran’s Future
Regime Change Begins: Iran, 1953
1953, The Coup That Lit the Fire, How Western Interference in Iran Sparked Decades of War
In 1953, the United States and Britain carried out a covert coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. They did it not to protect democracy, but to protect oil, British Petroleum’s interests, to be exact. Mossadegh’s crime.. Nationalizing Iran’s oil so its wealth could benefit its people.
The ANZAC Link to the Oil Wars
New Zealand and Australian troops were crucial in the World War I Palestine campaign, defeating Ottoman forces and helping the British Empire secure control over the Middle East’s oil rich regions. This military victory paved the way for Western oil interests, including BP and later American companies, to dominate the region setting the stage for decades of geopolitical interference and conflict.
By the early 1950s, British Petroleum (BP) the same company born from Iranian oil fields under colonial contracts had become one of the wealthiest corporations on earth. This was the era of post-WWII Western consumerism, led by the United States. It was a time when the suburban dream was sold through cars, appliances, fast food and most crucially, plastics. Invented in 1929 and refined through wartime research, plastics became the cornerstone of a new “disposable society”, and they were made from oil byproducts. Every plastic throwaway cup, toy, or wrapper helped fuel the profits of the oil giants. As the public bought more, the oil barons got richer and they weren’t going to let elected, Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. disrupt the flow.
The British MI6 and the American CIA orchestrated Operation Ajax, paying mobs to riot in the streets, bribing generals and politicians, and reinstalling the, Shah an autocrat who became the West’s man in Tehran. Under the Shah, Iran became deeply entwined with Western economies, including New Zealand’s. The Shah himself visited New Zealand in 1974 to place special orders for bespoke meat exports, highlighting the close trade ties and New Zealand’s direct economic benefit from the monarchy’s rule.
With the Shah came the flood of U.S. influence: Western pop culture, secular reforms, coca cola, fashion, the secret police (SAVAK), and crushing political repression. The Iranian people never forgot.
That act of foreign interference motivated by oil, greed, and geopolitical control sowed the seeds for every major crisis we now see in the region. It laid the foundation for the 1979 Islamic Revolution, for the rise of anti-Western theocracy, and for Iran’s enduring hostility toward the U.S. Britain, and Israel.
The Blowback Nobody Wanted or Perhaps Some Did..
Ayatollah Khomeini did not appear out of nowhere. His rise was a direct response to the decades of humiliation, corruption, and Western cultural saturation that followed the coup. The Islamic Republic, with its strict hijab laws, cultural controls, and religious rule, was not just an assertion of faith, it was a Reactionary Revolt, against what was seen as Western moral imperialism.
Ironically, the very regime that now imposes religious law was empowered by the same Western interference that once sought to secularise and modernise Iran. The Islamic laws, particularly those targeting youth and women, were a backlash to what clerics viewed as the corruption of Iran’s soul by American movies, fashion, and values. The same pop culture that inspired Iranian youth also helped provoke the crackdowns...
Iranians Want Freedom Not Foreign Chains
Today, many Iranians particularly the young, the urban, the educated want regime change. But they want Iranian-led change. Not another Israeli US proxy coup. Not sanctions. Not assassinations or cyberwar. Not U.S. backed monarchists or CIA-funded exiles with Western PR firms. They want to return to a secular life, one with dignity, freedom of thought, and sovereignty.
Yet every time the Iranian people rise up, they're caught between two brutal forces, the repressive Islamic regime on one side, and the lurking hand of foreign intelligence on the other. Both sides rob them of their future.
A Cold War Machine That Never Turned Off
There are entrenched factions within the U.S. Britain, and Israel what some call the deep state or the Military-Industrial Complex, a term first coined by US President Eisenhower 1960.. that don’t want peace. They want forever war. War feeds the contractors, fuels the oil giants, keeps weapons factories humming, and justifies ever-growing security budgets.
Iran is the perfect “enemy”, Muslim, defiant, oil-rich, and geopolitically central. And after 1953, it has every reason to distrust the West. The propaganda writes itself and the arms sales follow.
Israel’s CURRENT military strikes on Iranian targets are directly supported by the United States, which supplies Israel’s military with $3 billion in aid every year. This massive funding ensures the continuation of aggressive actions that fuel regional instability and prolong conflict.
Had Mossadegh been left alone, Iran might be a thriving secular democracy today. It might have remained a bridge between East and West, between Islam and modernity and possibly even an ally to Israel, as it was under the Shah. Instead, that future was stolen. And what replaced it was endless instability a slow war that has lasted 70 years and shows no signs of stopping.
The Path Not Taken
This history isn’t taught in schools. But it should be. Because the crisis in the Middle East today didn’t start in Gaza, or Syria, or Lebanon it started with oil contracts, greed, and a coup in Tehran.
If there’s to be a just and lasting peace between Iran and Israel and between Iran and the West it must begin by reckoning with this history. It means ending the cycle of regime-change thinking. It means supporting the Iranian people, not just Western interests. And it means dismantling the war economy that feeds off these fires.
Until then, we will remain trapped in a conflict whose origins lie not in religion, but in a boardroom not in ideology, but in oil.
