Editing History of Iran (section)

=====1953: U.S. aided coup removes Mosaddeq=====
{{main|1953 Iranian coup d'état}}
Shortly thereafter on 19 August a successful [[Coup d'état|coup]] was headed by retired army general [[Fazlollah Zahedi]], aided by the United States ([[CIA]])<ref name=BBC>{{cite news|title=CIA documents acknowledge its role in Iran's 1953 coup|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23762970|work=BBC News|access-date=20 August 2013|archive-date=9 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309131918/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23762970|url-status=live}}</ref> with the active support of the British ([[MI6]]) (known as [[1953 Iranian coup d'état|Operation Ajax and Operation Boot]] to the respective agencies).<ref>{{cite book|last=Kinzer|first=Stephen|title=The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War|publisher=Times Books|location=New York|year=2013}}</ref> The coup—with a [[black propaganda]] campaign designed to turn the population against Mosaddeq<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gölz|first=Olmo|date=2019-01-01|title=Gölz "The Dangerous Classes and the 1953 Coup in Iran: On the Decline of 'lutigari' Masculinities." In Crime, Poverty and Survival in the Middle East and North Africa: The 'Dangerous Classes' since 1800. Edited by Stephanie Cronin, 177–90. London: I.B. Tauris, 2019.|url=https://www.academia.edu/40997855|journal=Crime, Poverty and Survival in the Middle East and North Africa}}</ref> — forced Mosaddeq from office. Mosaddeq was arrested and tried for treason. Found guilty, his sentence was reduced to house arrest on his family estate while his foreign minister, [[Hossein Fatemi]], was executed. [[Fazlollah Zahedi|Zahedi]] succeeded him as prime minister, and suppressed opposition to the Shah, specifically the [[National Front (Iran)|National Front]] and Communist [[Tudeh Party]].

[[File:Newsreel - Echo News Reel Number 88 about the Rule of Shah in 1971.ogv|thumb|1971 film about Iran under the Shah]]
Iran was ruled as an autocracy under the Shah with American support from that time until the revolution. The Iranian government entered into agreement with an international consortium of foreign companies which ran the Iranian oil facilities for the next 25 years, splitting profits fifty-fifty with Iran but not allowing Iran to audit their accounts or have members on their board of directors. In 1957 martial law was ended after 16 years and Iran became closer to the West, joining the [[Baghdad Pact]] and receiving military and economic aid from the US. In 1961, Iran initiated a series of economic, social, agrarian and administrative reforms to modernize the country that became known as the Shah's [[White Revolution]].

The core of this program was land reform. Modernization and economic growth proceeded at an unprecedented rate, fueled by Iran's vast petroleum reserves, the third-largest in the world. However, the reforms, including the White Revolution, did not greatly improve economic conditions and the liberal pro-Western policies alienated certain [[Islam]]ic religious and political groups. In early June 1963 [[Movement of 15 Khordad|several days of massive rioting]] occurred in support of [[Ayatollah]] [[Ruhollah Khomeini]] following the cleric's arrest for a speech attacking the Shah.

Two years later, premier [[Hassan Ali Mansur]] was assassinated and the internal security service, [[SAVAK]], became more violently active. In the 1970s, leftist [[Guerrilla groups of Iran|guerilla groups]] such as [[Mujaheddin-e-Khalq]] (MEK), emerged and contributed to overthrowing the Shah during the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Nearly a hundred Iran political prisoners were killed by the SAVAK during the decade before the revolution and many more were arrested and tortured.<ref>Abrahamian, ''Tortured Confessions'' (1999), pp. 135–6, 167, 169</ref> The Islamic clergy, headed by the Ayatollah [[Ruhollah Khomeini]] (who had been exiled in 1964), were becoming increasingly vociferous.

Iran greatly increased its defense budget and by the early 1970s was the region's strongest military power. Bilateral relations with Iraq were not good, mainly due to a dispute over the [[Shatt al-Arab]] waterway. In November 1971, Iranian forces seized control of [[Seizure of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs|three islands at the mouth of the Persian Gulf]]; in response, Iraq expelled thousands of Iranian nationals. Following a number of clashes in April 1969, Iran abrogated [[Treaty of Saadabad|the 1937 accord]] and demanded a renegotiation.

In mid-1973, the Shah returned the oil industry to national control. Following the [[Yom Kippur War|Arab-Israeli War of October 1973]], Iran did not join the Arab oil embargo against the West and [[Israel]]. Instead, it used the situation to raise oil prices, using the money gained for modernisation and to increase defense spending.

A border dispute between Iraq and Iran was resolved with the signing of the [[Algiers Agreement (1975)|Algiers Accord]] on 6 March 1975.