All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror Second Edition by Stephen Kinzer (Wiley)

The  author provides a detailed description of why and how the CIA of the United States orchestrated the overthrow of the western oriented, democratically elected, and secular government of Iran in 1953. This book is important and a must-read for anyone interested in what is currently going on in the Middle East. The sin of Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh? He had, in 1951, nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) because the company had economically and socially exploited the country for many decades and had not fairly shared proceeds of Iran’s natural resource with the country. Great Britain appealed to the United States to help them overthrow the regime in Iran. Although President Truman had rejected this appeal, Great Britain made the appeal again after the election of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. The Dulles brothers (John Foster as Secretary of State and Allen as CIA Director), who saw a communist behind every tree, disingenuously convinced President Eisenhower that Prime Minister Mossadegh’s government would fall under communist influence! The overthrow was subsequently approved by Eisenhower.

Thus, the United States handed power to the Shah and his secret police who oppressively ruled Iran until the Revolution of 1979. In 1979, the people of Iran had had enough of the Shah’s brutality and overthrew the government. During the Shah’s regime, the only viable resistance was in the mosques such that when the Shah was eventually expelled, the leadership unsurprisingly fell to the imams. Given the role of the United States in overthrowing a democratically-elected government and then supporting an oppressive and brutal dictatorship, it should not be surprising that Iran is very suspicious of the United States. The United States obviously has some culpability for the current theocracy of Iran.
An interesting note is that he CIA agent who was given responsibility for orchestrating the 1953 coup in Iran was Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of former president Teddy Roosevelt. Interesting because Teddy Roosevelt, himself, interfered in a sovereign country when he encouraged Panamanian rebels to secede from Colombia in order to build the Panama Canal.