US President Barack Obama made a major gesture of conciliation to Iran on Thursday when he admitted US involvement in the 1953 coup which overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” Obama said in a keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo. It was the first time a serving US president had publicly admitted American involvement in the coup. The US Central Intelligence Agency, with British backing, masterminded the coup after Mossadegh nationalised the oil industry, run until then by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
