Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh (Mossadeq (help·info))(Persian: محمد مصدق , also Mosaddegh or Mosaddeq) (19 May 1882 - 5 March 1967) was the democratically elected[1] prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953. He was twice appointed to office by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and approved by the vote of parliament [2]. Mossadegh was a nationalist and passionately opposed foreign intervention in Iran. He was also the architect of the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry which was dominated and exploited by the British through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (today known as British Petroleum (BP)).
He was later removed from power by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in a CIA orchestrated coup[3], supported and funded by the British and the U.S. governments. The coup was led by CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.[4][5], the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, and came to be known as Operation Ajax[4], by its secret CIA cryptonym and the "28 Mordad 1332" coup, by its Iranian date. [6][7]