By Mohamad Hammoud
From Operation Ajax to Digital-Age Dissension: How History Repeats in Iran
In 1953, the United States and Britain orchestrated Operation Ajax to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mossadegh, a leader democratically elected by Iran’s parliament. As Kermit Roosevelt Jr., the CIA officer who directed the operation, later recounted in his memoir Countercoup, the central grievance was Mossadegh’s decision to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. When British corporate interests were threatened, democratic principles quickly gave way to intervention. Roosevelt described a calculated campaign of bribery, propaganda, and the use of “mobs for hire” to incite street violence and remove a legitimate government.
More than seventy years later, as Iran faces renewed unrest, the same pattern emerges. What began in December 2025 as public anger over economic hardship was quickly absorbed into a familiar Western narrative: sovereignty is treated as a threat whenever it disrupts capital flows or challenges Western strategic dominance.
Digital Mobs and Manufactured Disorder
In the early stages of the protests, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged legitimate economic grievances and instructed the Interior Ministry to allow demonstrations and pursue dialogue. Yet the character of the unrest quickly shifted, escalating into violence that Iranian authorities maintain was neither spontaneous nor organic.
Researchers at the Citizen Lab later identified an AI-enabled influence operation known as “PRISONBREAK,” linked to external military and intelligence interests. This digital evolution of Roosevelt’s “mobs for hire” relies on bot networks, coordinated messaging, and deepfake footage to fabricate scenes of chaos and project an image of state collapse. When Iranian security forces intervened in early January 2026, authorities framed the response as defensive—an effort to contain sedition fueled by foreign intelligence services whose objective was not reform, but destabilization.
Trump’s “Unmonitored Tongue” and Western Hypocrisy
Trump’s selective human-rights rhetoric exposes Western hypocrisy. While he claims to defend Iranian protesters, his administration has backed "Israel” during the Gaza genocide, where thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed. Human rights appear only when they are useful for power. Meanwhile, dissent at home is harshly suppressed: The Guardian reported that an 80-year-old in Britain was held under anti-terror laws for holding a “Stop the Genocide in Gaza” sign.
In the US, Reuters covered the recent fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a US citizen and mother of three, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, which sparked national protests and highlighted stark contrasts in the use of force domestically versus abroad.
Venezuela and the Logic of Submission
The same logic extends to Venezuela. Since Chávez nationalized the country’s oil, Roosevelt-style tactics—embargoes, sanctions, propaganda—were deployed. When these failed, Trump escalated. He ordered the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro under the pretext of stopping drug trafficking to the United States, even though Venezuela is not a major supplier of narcotics to the country. The operation, unprecedented in modern diplomacy, reveals the lengths to which the West will go when sovereignty stands in the way of its interests.
Over time, the US has used various justifications to change regimes, but the real goal has always been to advance American and Western interests. In 1953, the US and Britain justified the overthrow of Iran’s government by claiming they were defending “Iranian democracy and stability” and preventing Communist influence. For Iraq, the pretext was the threat of nuclear weapons; for Venezuela, it was drug trafficking and terrorism allegations; and today, Iran again faces accusations of human rights violations. These rationales mask a consistent goal: control over sovereign nations and their resources. Had Iran surrendered its independence and accepted US and “Israeli” dominance, it would be embraced by the West regardless of its internal governance. Democracy is championed only when it serves as a vehicle for influence; when it produces independence, it is met with destabilization, intervention, and force.
Conclusion: Independence as Defiance
Unlike in 1953, the Iranian state today possesses institutional resilience shaped by historical memory. Operation Ajax is not a footnote but a warning etched into national consciousness. For many Iranians, Western promises of “liberation” signal exploitation, not freedom.
As unrest continues, interference by the United States and “Israel”—through digital manipulation and suspected intelligence operations—threatens to hijack domestic concerns and convert them into a geopolitical confrontation. For Tehran and millions of its citizens, the crisis is a modern echo of 1953: a reminder that in the Western order, a democratically elected government is legitimate only so long as it remains obedient.
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