Talk:1953 Iranian coup d'état

Definition of coup
The article considers the Shah's royal decree (Farman) to dismiss Mosaddegh the first coup. However, it is stated in the article that this act was legal according to Iran's constitution at that time, while Wikipedia's Coup d'état article defines a coup as an illegal act. This is a contradiction and needs to be addressed. 89.219.252.17 (talk) 07:06, 19 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I think there is a parallel with the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. It was, as I understand it, legal, but also made possible only by violence. It is a good point though. LastDodo (talk) 16:28, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * "legal, but also made possible only by violence" ?? By violence is by definitionn not leagal! Parliament was stormed by US trained and led NAZIs with Kalashnikows and members of the parliament on gun point were urged to dismiss the president and provide several laws. There were video where you could see these guns.
 * One should think about intelligence test for writers here. Mocvd (talk) 09:41, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Russian propaganda much comrade? What’s the going rate these days? Equinexus (talk) 21:13, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Clarification about protests
Under the section 'Execution of Operation Ajax' we find this line 'In 2014, historian Ray Takeyh conclusively showed that the US-led coup attempt was unsuccessful...the demonstrations that led to Mosaddeq's resignation took place some weeks after the Roosevelt-organized ones, and were composed of average citizens, not the thugs-for-hire that the CIA and MI6 had recruited.'

It is not clear from the article what protests that were 'weeks' earlier are being referred to. As far as I can tell, the (first, and failed) coup was executed on August 15th. The Mosaddegh regime fell on August 19th, just four days later. So when are the Roosevelt-organised demonstrations in this timeline, and when the ones that led to Mosaddegh's resignation? LastDodo (talk) 17:50, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Balance of presented information
IMO too much real estate in this article is dedicated to providing detailed and varied viewpoints on why the US participated in the coup. It doesn't seem to be intentional, but it creates the slight impression of apologism. By comparison, the content on the UK's motivations is less exhaustive, even though the UK was the driving force behind the coup. Chernorizets (talk) 01:49, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

The CIA failed, despite their later claims
Many scholars agree that the CIA coup attempt failed on 15 August. This narrative is an irritant to the CIA which would rather be seen as successful and scheming than as unsuccessful and scheming. The CIA released documents in 2013 and 2017 to try and pull the narrative back in their direction, but these primary sources do not erase the findings of WP:SECONDARY sources.

Attorney and author Dan Kovalik talks about this self-serving theme at the CIA in his 2018 book The Plot to Attack Iran. Kovalik, responding to the limited 2013 release, refers to a 1997 article in The New York Times in which the CIA is shown to have made false statements to the public about the Iran affair, and about how much material they were holding. Kovalik does not trust the CIA to present a clear picture of what happened. The "huge trove" of papers released in 2017 did not change the viewpoint that the CIA had failed; it ended up proving that British agents were more effective in continuing the coup effort during 16–18 August, along with Shah-friendly Iranians associated with General Zahedi.

Historian Abbas Milani views the CIA claims with mistrust, writing in his 2008 book Eminent Persian that "While the CIA’s account claims they masterminded every move", local Iranian sources paint a different picture.

Middle-East scholar Ray Takeyh agrees with this stance, describing in multiple places in his 2021 book, The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty, about how the CIA effort failed, no matter how they would rather be attributed to a success.

Middle-East scholar Ervand Abrahamian says in his 2021 book, Oil Crisis in Iran: From Nationalism to Coup d'Etat, that the CIA coup effort failed, and during the days when the CIA was tasked with packing to leave Iran, regular Iran citizens such as the student wing of the Tudeh were picking up the coup effort on their own initiative, organizing massive protests.

On the other hand, I must acknowledge that Middle-East scholar Mark J. Gasiorowski makes a contradictory conclusion. He writes that, following the coup failure on 15 August, further activities by the CIA were a major factor in the coup succeeding. See "US Foreign Policy Toward Iran During the Mussadiq Era" (2018).

The majority viewpoint is that the CIA was not successful, and I think we must favor this view in our summary. Binksternet (talk) 21:15, 6 July 2024 (UTC)


 * For one, this does not establish that this is in fact the majority view point. It only is a few voices that say it is. I could find just as many sources that paint a different picture.
 * In addition, not all are reliable. Ray Takeyh for instance argues that the American Democratic Party is pro-Khomeini. Which is obviously ludicrous and suggests that he is in fact biased.
 * I found one review by Iranian scholar Arash Azizi of a book called The Shah, the Islamic Revolution and the United States that touches on this (the book was written by a non-academic source and a non-historian) from Cambridge University Press which states that the view that the CIA was not involved in the overthrow of Mossadegh (which to me reads more as a defence of American foreign policy than anything else) is a fringe and revisionist view. Genabab (talk) 21:31, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The view that the CIA attempt failed is not in any way saying that they had no effect on the outcome, or that US foreign policy was not terribly wrongheaded. The critical point being made by these sources is that Kermit Roosevelt padded his own part in the coup to make himself look more capable, and that the CIA adopted this same self-serving tone. Binksternet (talk) 21:04, 7 July 2024 (UTC)