MM#462--All the Shahs Men: Iran's 1953 Trade-Off

What if a single covert operation rewired the modern Middle East? We revisit the 1953 CIA–MI6 coup that toppled Mohammad Mossadegh and restored the Shah, then follow the consequences forward: repression, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and a foreign policy defined by proxies and confrontation. Drawing on Stephen Kinzer’s research, we explore a hard question with fresh urgency: did the quest for short-term stability seed decades of blowback that still shape U.S.–Iran relations today?

We walk through the Cold War calculus that made Operation Ajax feel “smart”—oil interests, fear of Soviet expansion, and a fascination with covert tools—then examine how closing civic space strengthened clerical networks as the only resilient opposition. The result was a revolution led by those best organized to seize power, and a regime that frames its identity against the United States while projecting force through Hezbollah, Hamas, and regional militias. We condemn terrorism unequivocally while refusing to erase the history that helps explain why proxies became Tehran’s primary lever.

From a conservative lens that values prudence and humility, we test whether 1953 is a warning against social engineering abroad. Can great powers restrain the impulse to pick winners and script outcomes? If Iran ever reaches genuinely free elections again, the real test may be whether we allow the messiness of democracy to unfold without trying to play God in month 22. Along the way, we wrestle with the difference between removing a regime and building institutions, and why regime change is not a strategy but a door to unknown rooms.

Listen for a clear-eyed timeline, practical takeaways, and a challenge to rethink how we measure success in foreign policy: short-term order or long-term legitimacy. If this conversation moves you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review telling us where you stand on the 1953 trade—was it worth the cost?

Key Points from the Episode:

• Kinzer’s thesis that Operation Ajax derailed Iran’s early democratic path
• Cold War logic of the Dulles brothers and Churchill’s Britain
• How repression crushed liberal opposition and left clerical networks strongest
• The arc from Shah to 1979 revolution to proxy militias
• Terrorism condemned while history used to avoid repeat mistakes
• Conservative case for prudence and unintended consequences
• The test of restraint if Iran reopens a democratic path
• Why regime change is not a full strategy so lets not make the same mistake again


Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademy.com, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources

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Transcript

Opening And Today’s Thesis

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Theory to Action Podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

Kinzer’s Provocative Claim On 1953

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Hello, I am David, and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. In our last gathering, we talked about liberty being on the march and we connected dots from the Abraham Accords to the taking out of Iran's supreme leader. So as we think about that, let's jump to our opening quote of the day. If the United States had not sent agents to depose Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadek in 1953, Iran would probably have continued along its path towards full democracy. Over the decades that followed, it might have become the first democratic state in the Muslim Middle East, and perhaps even a model for other countries in the region and beyond. That would have profoundly changed the course of history, not simply Iranian or even Middle Eastern history, but the history of the United States and the world. From the perspective of today, the perspective of those who live through the September 11th attacks, the Iraq war, and all the attendant threats that have emerged to destabilize the modern world, the 1953 intervention in Iran may be seen as a decisive turning point in 20th century history. By placing Mohammed Reza Shah back on his peacock throne, the United States brought Iran's long, slow progress towards democracy to a screeching halt. The Shah ruled with increasing repression for 25 years. His repression produced the explosion of the late 1970s, later known as the Islamic Revolution. That revolution brought to power a radical clique of fanatically anti-Western clerics who would have worked who or who would have worked relentlessly and often violently to undermine American interests around the world. In 1953, the United States deposed a popular Iranian nationalist who embraced fundamental American principles and replaced him with a tyrant who despised much of what the United States stands for. Today, the West finds itself facing a regime in Tehran that embodies the threats far more profound than those it sought to crush in 1953. In the White House, the impulse to attack Iran seems just as strong as it was then. It's not difficult to imagine the arguments some of the President Bush's advisors might make in seeking to persuade him. We suffered the September 11th attacks because President Clinton was not bold enough to crush a growing threat. They would say so. So let's be real men and crush the threat that's emerging now rather than leave it to the next administration. And that, my friends, is from a book by Stephen Kinzer, All the Shawls Men. It was written back in 2008 and it makes a pretty amazing claim. A line that would make, should make every American in 2026, that is, a little uneasy.

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Mr.

Who Stephen Kinzer Is And Why He Matters

Iran’s Path To The 1953 Coup

Operation Ajax And Its Logic

From Shah’s Repression To 1979

The Long Arc: Proxies And Terror

Conservative Prudence And Unintended Consequences

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Kinzer argues that if the United States had not overthrown Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953, Iran would have probably continued along its path towards full democracy. And he goes even further, saying Iran might become the first, might have become the first real democracy in the Muslim Middle East and could be a model for that region, and that this would have profoundly changed the course of history for Iran, the United States, and the world. And that's a huge claim. And it forces us the simple and yet uncomfortable question: what exactly did we trade away in 1953? And what did we get instead? And how does that affect us in day five of this kinetic conflict? So let's back up and answer the question: who is Stephen Kinzer and why does he matter? Well, Stephen Kinzer is an American journalist, author who's spent decades digging into U.S.-backed coups and interventions abroad. He reported for over 20 years as the foreign correspondent for the unbelievable Gray Lady, the New York Times, ran bureaus in places like Nicaragua, Germany, Turkey. He's filed stories from more than 50 countries. And his books read like case files on regime change, which is what caught my eye some time ago. All the Shawl's Men on Iran, Bitter Fruit on Guatemala, Blood Brothers on Nicaragua, Overthrow, The Brothers, and Poisoner in Chief. These are some of his book titles. These days he's in academia teaching and writing on foreign policy while continuing to arguing that American coups have very long half-lives. Yes, he does write from the left, so all my conservative friends don't ridicule me. I don't dispute that in the least. There's no question about that. He's from the left. But set the ideology aside for a minute, because his central argument about 1953 is one that every serious conservative should at least wrestle with, especially now, as we sit here in 2026 in the United States again, is using that overwhelming kinetic power to try and break the grip of the Islamic Republic in Tehran. Now, Kinzer's stories or Kinzer's story starts with the simple picture. In the early 1950s, Iran has an elected prime minister, Mahamad Mossadek. He's a nationalist. He believes in parliamentary government and he wants to limit the Shah's power. He pushes to nationalize Iran's oil, which infuriates the British, whose Anglo-Iranian oil company dominates the industry. That Anglo-Iranian oil company would later become BP, British Petroleum. At the same time, the Eisenhower administration looks at Iran through a Cold War lens. Obviously, early 1950s were right after World War II, and the Cold War is heating up. So Eisenhower administration is looking at Iran through the Cold War lens, and they see nationalization plus instability equals an opening for the Soviets. That's where Operation Ajax comes in, a joint British American covert operation run on the ground by the CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr., designed to topple Mossadegh and restore the Shah. Kinzer's core claim is this. Mossadegh, for all its flaws, represented a fragile but real path toward constitutional democracy. The coup didn't just change leaders, it changed Iran's direction. By intervening, Washington and London slammed on the brakes of Iran's democratic development and put the country back under an insecure monarch propped up by foreign power. Kinzer's asking us to imagine a Middle East where the major non-Arab Muslim power is not a theocracy born out of an anti-American rage, but a messy, evolving democracy that matures over decades, more like India than the Islamic Republic. Now you can certainly agree or disagree with the counterfactual, but that's a powerful way to reread the early way and the early start of the Cold War. So then Kinzer pivots and he follows that chain of cause and effect. Once the CIA and MI6 succeeded in August of 53, the Shah returns and consolidates power with increasing repression. And then for the roughly next 25 years, his regime leans on secret police, censorship, and torture to keep a lid on dissent. And here's the arc in plain language. We help remove a popular elected prime minister and reinstall a monarch. That monarch grows more authoritarian, more corrupt and more distant from a young and ever-growing educated population. The opposition space for liberals in the left gets crushed. So the most effective organized force left in society is the religious network. In the late 1970s, that pressure finally blows the lid off. And the Islamic movement that is disciplined enough to seize the revolution enters through the side door. So you go from an American-British coup to authoritarian Shah to deep resentment to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in a clerical regime that defines itself by opposition to the United States. Death to America came in 1979. Death to Israel right after. Short-term stability, long-term radicalization. That was the trade in 1953, and it worked itself out over the next 25 years. And then Kinzer pushes this thesis even further. He argues you can draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah's repression to the revolution, to the hostage crisis, to the rise of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and a wider pattern of anti-American Islamic movements, not only as the cause, but as one of the early detonators. So to really judge in 1953 what Washington and London thought they were doing, we got to step back into 1953 into the mindset of Washington in London at the time. Again, we have the new Eisenhower administration. They're determined to contain the Soviets. They're comfortable using covert tools to do it. John Foster Dulles at the state and Alan Dulles, his brother at CIA, see Iran as a weak link, certainly a strategic country bordering on the Soviet Union, with enormous oil reserves. From their vantage point, Mossadegh's nationalization looks like a frontal attack on Western economic interest. His political maneuvering in the turmoil in Tehran looks like a possible opening for the USSR. A covert operation looks like a smart, low visible way to fix the problem. Without sending in troops, restore the Shah, install a friendlier government, keep Iran in the Western camp. Easy peasy, right? Across the Atlantic, Churchill's Britain is desperate to protect its oil revenues and its fading imperial status. British intelligence, including MI6, pushes hard to remove Mossadegh, warning Washington that if he survives, other countries will follow his example, and Western oil control will certainly crumble. So the coup is the product of three overlapping logics Cold War containment from Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers, a CIA eager to prove it can move pieces on the global chessboard cheaply and quietly, and a post-Imperial Britain clinging to their oil, to their prestige, and leaning on its American ally. Inside that framework, Operation Ajax doesn't feel such like a reckless pursuit, does it? Might even feel prudent, necessary, a clean solution. It's only decades later that the bill comes due. It's like credit card with its twenty-five percent interest. And the worst outcomes look very different from what they really imagined. The Dallas Brothers are long gone. Ike is long gone. Winston Churchill already has passed away. Then you fast forward for over 40 years. The Islamic Republic, up until five days ago, had used terrorism and proxy militias as tools of statecraft. Support for Hezbollah and Lebanon, backing for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, arming Shia militias in Iraq that have killed American soldiers and attacked our allies. That's why Iran has been the US state sponsor of terror since the early 1980s. And events like October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, Israel's nine eleven, heavily enabled by Iranian money, possibly Obama money, training, weapons. They sit squarely in that pattern of the proxy warfare. There was no moral gray area there. Terrorism was, and terrorism is terrorism. Now where I push back is where we stop the story right there. As if Iran just woke up one morning and decided to be evil. Iran is more than a regime. There's a long backstory. The 1953 coup, the Shah's repression, the revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, sanctions, isolation. All of that helps explain why this government leans so heavily on proxies and resistance branding. But none of that excuses a single car bomb or a rocket or a kidnapping. But if we erase the history, we almost guarantee we're going to keep repeating the same policy mistakes, that overconfidence, that short-term thinking, and that blind faith that we can surgically fix countries from the outside. This is where conservatives in the classic sense should actually lean in. If you say you believe in prudence, in unintended consequences, in humility about social engineering, then 1953 isn't just a critique of liberal interventionism. It's a warning to any governing class, left or right, that becomes too sure it can rearrange other societies and only get the outcomes it wants. So back to the question we started with. What did we trade away in 1953 and what did we get instead? And were we right to overthrow a democratically elected leader in his country's first real experience of electoral politics? Kinzer's answer is blunt. We traded a difficult, imperfect democratic experiment for a quarter century of authoritarian authoritarian stability. That certainly helped midwife the Islamic Republic and a generation of anti-American radicalism. You don't have to accept every part of that argument to notice the pattern. Every time we talk about strategy, interest, strength in American foreign policy, especially as we target this current regime in Tehran, we have to decide whether we're still thinking like 1953 or whether we've actually learned anything. Maybe just maybe. If Iran ever does produce another genuinely democratic government, and if international observers agree that their elections were free and fair, our test this time is whether we can resist the urge to play God in month 22. Maybe this time we let that experiment run. We live with the messiness of someone else's democracy, and we don't repeat the same mistake we made in 1953. So back to that question. What do we trade away in 1953 and what do we get instead? We got a US president that has finally stopped playing the games. We got a US president that was bold enough to crush the growing threat and end a radical Islamic Republic. If we ever do get to a democratically elected Iran, let's not make the same mistake that we did in 1953. Just something to think about as we keep fighting the good fight. God bless our troops downrange.

Rethinking 1953 And Today’s Choices

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademy.com, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your emojoy.