In a wide-ranging conversation originally featured in El País, American historian and journalist Stephen Kinzer argues that Iran’s modern political trajectory cannot be understood without returning to one defining moment: the 1953 coup orchestrated by the United States and the United Kingdom against the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. For Kinzer, that intervention did not simply alter Iran’s leadership at the time; it reshaped the country’s relationship with the West for generations and set in motion cycles of distrust, repression and backlash that continue to define global politics today.
Kinzer, a former New York Times correspondent and author of Todos los Hombres del Sha, has spent decades documenting patterns of American-backed regime change across the world, from Hawaii to Iraq. His central argument, repeated in the El País interview, is that foreign interventions often produce consequences far beyond their immediate strategic objectives, frequently destabilizing the very regions they seek to control. Iran, he insists, is the clearest example of this dynamic.
At the heart of his analysis lies the 1953 coup, a covert operation led by the CIA and Britain’s MI6 that removed Mossadegh after he moved to nationalize Iran’s oil industry. According to Kinzer, the operation initially appeared to be a geopolitical success for Washington and London, reinstalling the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a leader aligned with Western interests. But the apparent victory, he argues, masked a deeper and more enduring failure: the destruction of Iran’s only democratic experiment and the creation of a political order dependent on external support.
Speaking to El País, Kinzer emphasizes that the consequences of that decision only became visible over time. The Shah’s increasingly repressive rule, he notes, generated growing domestic resentment that ultimately culminated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. That uprising, in turn, brought to power a fiercely anti-American leadership that has defined Iran’s international posture ever since. In Kinzer’s interpretation, this chain of events illustrates how short-term geopolitical calculations can evolve into long-term strategic liabilities for the intervening powers themselves.
The historian goes further, arguing that legitimacy remains the central issue in any discussion about Iran’s political future. “Any government that comes to power in Iran backed by the United States will not have legitimacy,” he warns in the interview published by El País. For Kinzer, this is not a speculative claim but a conclusion drawn from historical experience. He points to the Shah’s downfall as evidence that regimes perceived as externally imposed struggle to maintain stability, regardless of their institutional strength or military backing.
The interview also explores contemporary geopolitical tensions, including allegations of renewed pressure on Iran involving the United States and Israel. Kinzer suggests that such dynamics cannot be separated from domestic political considerations in Washington, nor from the influence of pro-Israel lobbying and financial support in American electoral politics. While he stops short of making direct claims about current military operations, he stresses that narratives about security threats have long been used to justify interventionist policies.
Another central theme in the El País conversation is the role of perception and historical memory in shaping international relations. Kinzer argues that Americans and Iranians interpret the same events through fundamentally different historical frameworks. In the United States, the 1979 hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran is often viewed as a defining moment of Iranian hostility and irrationality. In Iran, however, the same crisis is frequently understood as part of a longer story that begins with the 1953 coup, which Iranians see as the original act of aggression that derailed their democratic development.
This divergence, Kinzer suggests, makes diplomatic reconciliation extremely difficult. Each side interprets its actions as defensive and the other’s as offensive, reinforcing cycles of mistrust that span decades. In his view, modern information ecosystems and social media can amplify these narratives, but they do not create them; they build on historical grievances that are already deeply embedded.
For Kinzer, the lessons of 1953 extend well beyond Iran. He describes the coup as a case study in the unpredictability of foreign intervention, where initial gains can lead to long-term instability and unintended consequences. The installation of the Shah, he argues, provided short-term strategic alignment for Western powers but ultimately contributed to a revolutionary backlash that reshaped the Middle East and continues to challenge Western policy objectives today.
The historian also addresses speculative discussions about restoring the monarchy in Iran, particularly involving the Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi. He dismisses the idea that any externally supported restoration could succeed, again emphasizing the question of legitimacy. In societies with long memories of foreign interference, he argues, political authority must be rooted domestically to endure.
Throughout the interview published by El País, Kinzer returns to a consistent warning: interventions designed to impose political outcomes from outside rarely produce stable or desirable results. Instead, they often generate resistance that persists across generations, embedding itself in national identity and foreign policy alike.
His conclusion is blunt. Iran’s history since 1953 is not a series of disconnected events, but a continuous reaction to a single rupture in its political development. And until that historical rupture is fully acknowledged in international discourse, Kinzer suggests, the possibility of lasting stability will remain elusive—not only for Iran, but for any external power seeking to shape its future.
