00:00How a secret operation toppled a democracy and reshaped the Middle East for generations.
00:05It's 1951. Iran elects Mohammed Mossadegh, a 69-year-old nationalist leader who promises one thing.
00:15Iran's oil will belong to Iran.
00:17For decades, a British-controlled company had dominated the country's oil industry,
00:22taking most of the profits while many Iranians lived in poverty.
00:26Mossadegh nationalized the oil, ending foreign control.
00:30Across Iran, people celebrated what they saw as the return of their nation's wealth.
00:34Britain responded with sanctions and a global boycott of Iranian oil, pushing the country into economic crisis.
00:42Unable to remove Mossadegh alone, British officials turned to the United States,
00:47warning that instability could open the door to Soviet influence at the height of the Cold War.
00:52In 1953, the CYA and British intelligence launched Operation Ajax,
00:58A covert plan to remove him from power.
01:02Agents spread propaganda, funded opposition groups, and coordinated with sympathetic military officers.
01:09Protests filled the streets of Tehran.
01:11Violence escalated.
01:13Then the army intervened.
01:15Mossadegh was arrested, tried, and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.
01:19The Shah, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, returned to power with strong backing from the United States
01:24and ruled Iran as an authoritarian monarch for the next quarter century.
01:28But the consequences didn't end there.
01:31In 1979, a revolution overthrew the Shah and replaced him with the Islamic Republic,
01:37a government deeply suspicious of the West.
01:40The shockwaves of 1953 still shape global politics today.
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