his energy into modernizing Iran, which by his definition included suppressing tribal
leaders in rural areas and reducing the influence of Islam on state institutions and some
aspects of daily life, such as prohibiting women from wearing the veil. Reza Shah also
changed the country’s name from Persia to Iran, as a way of emphasizing its origins
as an Aryan nation. Reza Shah’s transformation of his country was similar to, and in
some respects modeled on, the contemporaneous modernization of Turkey by Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk (Turkey Emerges from World War I, p. 631).
In August 1941, with World War II under way, Britain and the Soviet Union
invaded Iran to ensure the British transport of military supplies across Iran to the Soviet
Union, its beleaguered war-time ally. Reza Shah, accused by London of having pro-
German sympathies, surrendered his throne and fled the country. His twenty-two-year-
old son, Mohammad Reza, succeeded to the throne, while London and Moscow essen-
tially divided Iran into spheres of influence for the remainder of the war. Britain was
particularly keen to control Iran’s oil-producing region in the province of Khuzestan,
neighboring Iraq. The London-based Anglo-Iranian Oil Company obtained an exclu-
sive contract to pump Iran’s oil under provisions highly favorable to the company.
After World War II, Britain withdrew its military forces from Iran, but the Soviet
Union kept its armies in the north for several years. The decade after the war saw
almost unending turmoil as the young shah struggled to gain his footing, a handful
of civilian political leaders emerged to challenge him, and foreign powers intervened
repeatedly to protect their interests.
Aside from the shah, Mohammad Mosaddeq, a longtime government official,
emerged as a key figure during this period. Mosaddeq had spent several years under
house arrest in the late 1930s because of his opposition to Reza Shah’s authoritarian-
ism. He won election to the Majlis in 1943 and quickly rose as the leader of the
National Front, a nationalist movement opposed to foreign influence in Iran.
In the late 1940s, Mosaddeq and the National Front became concerned about the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company acting as a virtual state within a state. This issue came
to the fore in 1950, when the shah’s government submitted to the Majlis a revision
of the agreement under which the oil company operated in Iran. Mosaddeq and his
allies used this opportunity to launch public demonstrations against the presence of a
foreign-owned and -operated oil company on Iranian soil. The Majlis responded in
1951 by adopting legislation nationalizing the oil industry and by installing Mosad-
deq as prime minister. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company initiated an international boy-
cott of Iranian oil to force the Majlis to back down. The British navy enforced the
boycott, and the United States joined it in 1952, effectively freezing Iran out of the
international oil market and plunging the Iranian economy into a deep recession.
In the face of such pressure, Mosaddeq sought to strengthen his position by
requesting that the Majlis grant him sweeping emergency powers, which he then used
to try to undermine the shah’s authority. By 1953, however, Mosaddeq’s position had
weakened, as key allies defected from his coalition and as the leftist Tudeh (Masses)
Party gained strength at the expense of the National Front.
In summer 1953, pro-shah military officers collaborating with the British govern-
ment and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency set in motion a plot to overthrow
Mosaddeq and return full political authority to the shah. Their first two attempts failed,
and the shah fled to Rome. The third attempt succeeded, on August 19, 1953. A mil-
itary force under the command of Gen. Fazlollan Zahedi captured Mosaddeq as he tried
376 IRAN