Iran's popular, elected leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, attempts to assert Iranian control of his nation's oil industry, whose profits go to the US and Britain. A CIA coup overthrows Mossadegh, and puts `our boy' Reza Shah on the throne. Iran's US-trained secret police keep the Shah in power through a reign of terror. Islamic-nationalist revolution sweeps Iran in 1979, ending US domination.
A minor correction - while the CIA wanted to overthrow Mossadegh, they screwed up, and had very little part in actually doing it. The British were the main instigators of the coup, which had a fair amount of popular support, and which went fast enough that the CIA was caught by surprise - they hadn't even spent a tenth of their bribery slush fund yet. So why does everybody keep saying that the CIA put the Shah in power? Because in the early 60s, trying to repair their reputation after the Bay Of Pigs fiasco, the CIA put out a lot of PR taking credit for it, and since it was the kind of thing they would have done if they hadn't missed the starting gun, people pretty much believed them. And a lot of Iranians have been blaming them for it ever since. [References: Some book I read a while back. Don't remember the title or the author, but the author was Iranian, so he may have had his own axe to grind; certainly the CIA had their cloak and dagger to grind in this whole mess.] Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639