Excerpt:
Britain And The Iranian Revolution: Arms & Secret Deals
by Mark Curtis
...
The Shah was put in power in 1953 in an Anglo-American covert operation – known as “Boot†– instigated by London, removing Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalised British oil operations. “Our policy,†a British official later recalled, “was to get rid of Mosaddegh as soon as possible.†In fact, declassified files show that Britain’s ambassador in Tehran preferred “a dictator†who would “settle the oil question on reasonable terms.â€
A little known aspect of the 1953 coup is British plotting with Ayatollah Sayyed Kashani, a predecessor of Khomeini. Kashani helped fund mobs that rioted against Mosaddegh in collaboration with MI6, which had bribed army, police, political and media figures. “These forces,†explained MI6 officer Christopher Woodhouse, who ran the U.K. end of the operation, “were to seize control of Tehran, preferably with the support of the Shah but if necessary without it, and to arrest [Mosaddegh] and his ministers.â€
The Shah ruled for a further quarter of a century, brutally repressing opposition through his notorious internal security service, SAVAK, which the U.K. helped train. A year before the revolution, in April 1978, then Conservative opposition leader, Margaret Thatcher, visited Tehran and described the Shah as “one of the world’s most far-sighted statesmen†who had given Iran “dynamic leadership†and is “leading Iran through a twentieth century renaissance.â€
Read more at: https://iranian.com/2019/02/09/britain-and-the-iranian-revolution/
See the above, the Mullahs played a part in that overthrow of Mossadegh. A lot of history here.
