Declassified British files highlight a little known aspect of the joint MI6/CIA coup against Iran’s democratically elected government in August 1953 – UK covert action in support of leading radical Shia Islamists, the predecessors of Ayatollah Khomeini.
British officials wanted “a non-communist coup d’etat” in Iran to install a “dictator” who would promote UK oil interests
UK and US governments backed Islamist forces to stir up unrest and even considered installing Ayatollah Kashani as a client leader following a coup
In many accounts the CIA is regarded as the prime mover behind the 1953 coup in Iran, yet Britain was in fact the initial instigator and provided considerable resources to the plot, which UK planners named ‘Operation Boot’.
In the early 1950s, the Anglo–Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), or BP as it is now known, was run from London and owned jointly by the British government and private citizens. It controlled Iran’s main source of income, oil, and by 1951 had become, according to one British official, “in effect an imperium in imperio [an empire within an empire] in Persia”.
Iranian nationalists objected to the fact that the AIOC’s revenues from oil were greater than the Iranian government’s.
— source markcurtis.info | Mark Curtis | Aug 19, 2023