Part 2/11:
Number 5 on the list is Operation Ajax, the CIA and UK-orchestrated coup that overthrew Iran’s elected Prime Minister Muhammad Mosad in 1953. Mosad’s government had angered Western powers, chiefly Britain, by nationalizing the Iranian oil industry—previously controlled by the British through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). Amid Cold War fears that Iran might align with the Soviet Union, the U.S. and UK decided to act.