In the middle of the 20th century Iran was on the road to becoming
a secular Democracy. In 1951 the Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq
moved to nationalize Iranian oil. In response to this in 1953 the
governments of the United Kingdom and the US sponsored a coup,
known as Operation AJAX, which overthrew the Prime Minister and
instated the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Shah was strongly
supported by- some say of puppet of- the United States. His reign
was known for its brutality, corruption, and forced Westernization.
The period from the 1953 coup to the Islamic Revolution in 1979 was
a time of great radicalization. The 1979 revolution transformed
Iran from a Monarchy to an Islamic Republic.
