Alireza Akbari
Press TV, Tehran
August 19 marks the anniversary of a 1953 US- and UK-led coup in Iran which led to the overthrow of then Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. The plot to oust the Iranian prime minister was a retaliatory move by the CIA and Britain against Mosaddeq’s initiative to nationalize Iran’s oil industry on March 20, 1951. The development put an end to Britain’s four-decade control over Iran’s oil industry. In retaliation to Mosaddeq’s revolutionary move, Britain and the United States imposed sanctions against Iran’s oil industry and later staged a coup against him in 1953 in a bid to strength the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Six decades on, in 2013, the CIA published a document for the first time confirming Washington’s role in the joint British-American toppling of the Mossadeq administration.