Mohammad Mossadegh
Iran's nationalist prime minister (1882–1967) who nationalized the oil industry and was overthrown in the 1953 coup engineered with CIA and MI6 involvement.
Read in context →Biography
Mohammad Mossadegh (1882–1967) was a European-educated jurist and nationalist politician who entered public life after the Constitutional Revolution and served as parliamentarian, provincial governor, and cabinet minister before becoming prime minister in 1951. He led the movement to nationalize Iran's oil industry, ending the concession of the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company; the nationalization law passed the Majlis in March 1951. His government became the focus of an international standoff, including a British-led oil embargo, and in August 1953 he was removed in a coup organized with covert CIA and British support (Operation Ajax/TPAJAX). He was convicted of treason, briefly imprisoned, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest until his death in 1967. He remains a contested symbol — revered by many Iranians as a champion of national sovereignty and democracy, while critics question his political tactics and confrontation with the monarchy; the 1953 coup is widely cited in scholarship on foreign intervention.
Quotes & narrations
«My greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran's oil industry and dismantled the apparatus of political and economic colonialism.»
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Also appears in
Sources
- Ervand Abrahamian, The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.–Iranian Relations (2013)
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Mossadegh, Mohammad"
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Mohammad Mossadegh"