CIA Agents Successfully Executed a Plan for Regime Change in Iran in 1953 – but Trump Hasn’t Revealed Any Signs of a Plan

The operational details, especially those declassified in recent decades, paint a striking picture of a carefully planned clandestine political intervention that was successful, rather than a simple military invasion.

A Far Cry from ‘Bomb and Hope’
The British-American budget for the joint plan was modest by military standards. It was aimed at propaganda and influence operations, and it sought to shape public perception and political support.

It was composed of three elements. First it funded newspapers and printed propaganda designed to discredit Mossadegh, portraying him as corrupt or sympathetic to communism. The propaganda also promoted fears of instability and communist infiltration.

Second, according to declassified histories, agents staged “false flag” incidents – attacks attributed to communists, for example – to stoke fear and backlash against Mossadegh among religious and conservative groups.

Third, the coup planners attempted to engage influential clerical leaders and organizations to amplify anti-Mossadegh sentiment.

Shaping the crowds on Tehran’s streets proved critical to the operation. The CIA organized demonstrators to pose as pro-shah protesters, including paying individuals to chant slogans and confront Mossadegh supporters.

These orchestrated demonstrations climaxed on Aug. 19, 1953, when pro-shah forces and sympathetic leaders in the Iranian military – with CIA financial and logistical backing – seized key points of the country, confronted Mossadegh loyalists and helped topple his government. Estimates suggest around 200 to 300 people were killed in the chaotic fighting in Tehran.

What Might Have Been, and What Might Be
The Mossadegh coup occurred in a less transparent world. However – and regardless of how you feel about it – the coup suggests the value of having a strategy to accomplish political change and, beyond Israel, bringing allies along if possible.

So far, Trump has called for the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guard to lay down their arms. But the Trump administration has provided no guidance on how to do so, or to whom to do so.

Surely, the administration should be able to devise a plan for potential political change in Iran. It has insight from the years it has spent negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. Recent events suggest the extent of Israeli, if not American, penetration of Iran.

In 2018, for instance, Israel’s Mossad national intelligence agency broke into an Iranian facility and stole archives on Iran’s nuclear activities, 55,000 pages and another 55,000 files stored on CDs.

In June 2025, Israel conducted covert drone operations deep inside Iran, in concert with airstrikes on Iranian missile and military infrastructure. Mossad reportedly established an undercover drone network and launched explosive drones to neutralize air defenses and missile launchers before the main attack.

The successful targeting of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his close associates in the latest round of airstrikes suggests the extent of likely Israeli monitoring of Iranian communications by Mossad and the CIA.

Crises tend to put pressure on governments to open communications channels, and the take from any successful eavesdropping might be passed to opposition groups to help them organize and avoid capture.

If Israel can smuggle explosive drones into Iran, it should be able to make the satellite internet provider Starlink and its kin available to enable the opposition to better – and more safely – organize.

It is late in the day to emulate the Mossadegh coup with information operations, and it is probably more difficult in an era of ubiquitous social media, not newspapers. But it’s not too late to try.

I believe those brave opposition elements in Iran, who have been killed by their government and bombed by the United States and Israel, deserve no less.

Gregory F. Treverton is Professor of Practice in International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.