Seventy years ago last Saturday, a popular uprising drove the Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq out of office—four days after he had legally been dismissed from his position by the shah. In the West, the event has been remembered as an anti-democratic coup orchestrated by the CIA (whose station chief, Kermit Roosevelt, was all-too-eager to exaggerate his role) to subvert democracy in Persia. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright went so far as to apologize for U.S. involvement in 2000. Shay Khatiri set the record straight in a 2020 essay:

It is true that Mosaddeq’s ascendance to the premiership, on April 28, 1951, was initially democratic. . . . As he was empowered to do, Mosaddeq [thereafter] dissolved the Iranian Senate. Later, he called for a referendum to dissolve the Majlis, or lower house, as well. He had been warned that the assembly would grant Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the right to replace him. He had made the same point previously in a letter to the shah.

Nevertheless, Mosaddeq went ahead. He believed that the shah did “not have the guts” to replace him. His initiative, under questionable voting circumstances, won with 99 percent of the vote. At that point, Mosaddeq began to rule by decree. The shah, however, did have the guts to replace him—and did so. On August 15, 1953, he issued orders removing Mosaddeq and appointing General Fazlollah Zahedi as prime minister. Nematollah Nassiri, an army colonel, brought a copy of the royal order to Mosaddeq.

Here is where the actual coup took place. Although the shah’s order was legal by his own admission, Mosaddeq refused it, and arrested Nassiri. He then encouraged an uprising by nationalists, Islamists, and Communists against the shah, who left Iran out of concern for his safety.

There followed a popular uprising in support of the Shah. It caught everybody, including the monarch and the U.S. government, by surprise. . . . Following these pro-shah demonstrations, the CIA reconsidered reinstating the monarch. State Department cables show that the U.S. clandestine operation mainly involved directing ongoing protests on the national radio.

While the current Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has never been friendly to Hamas, his government has objected strenuously to the Israeli campaign in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip. Haisam Hassanein explains why:

Cairo has long been playing a double game, holding Hamas terrorists near while simultaneously trying to appear helpful to the United States and Israel. Israel taking control of Rafah threatens Egypt’s ability to exploit the chaos in Gaza, both to generate profits for regime insiders and so Cairo can pose as an indispensable mediator and preserve access to U.S. money and arms.

Egyptian security officials have looked the other way while Hamas and other Palestinian militants dug tunnels on the Egyptian-Gaza border. That gave Cairo the ability to use the situation in Gaza as a tool for regional influence and to ensure Egypt’s role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would not be eclipsed by regional competitors such as Qatar and Turkey.

Some elements close to the Sisi regime have benefited from Hamas control over Gaza and the Rafah crossing. Media reports indicate an Egyptian company run by one of Sisi’s close allies is making hundreds of millions of dollars by taxing Gazans fleeing the current conflict.

Moreover, writes Judith Miller, the Gaza war has been a godsend to the entire Egyptian economy, which was in dire straits last fall. Since October 7, the International Monetary Fund has given the country a much-needed injection of cash, since the U.S. and other Western countries believe it is a necessary intermediary and stabilizing force. Cairo therefore sees the continuation of the war, rather than an Israeli victory, as most desirable. Hassanein concludes:

Adding to its financial incentive, the Sisi regime views the Rafah crossing as a crucial card in preserving Cairo’s regional standing. Holding it increases Egypt’s relevance to countries that want to send aid to the Palestinians and ensures Washington stays quiet about Egypt’s gross human-rights violations so it can maintain a stable flow of U.S. assistance and weaponry. . . . No serious effort to turn the page on Hamas will yield the desired results without cutting this umbilical cord between the Sisi regime and Hamas.