The 1953 Iranian coup was the first successful overthrow of a foreign government by the CIA. It was seen as an action to stop a possible seizure of power by Iranian communists led by Mohamed Mossadeq, the then Iranian prime minister. But in reality, the United States and Britain were more afraid of the imposing Soviet threat in the region. As Britain and other Western countries issued sanctions against Iran as a result of the oil nationalization, Britain and the United States feared that Mossadegh would turn to the Soviet Union in an attempt to stabilize the Iranian economy. Fearing that Iran would soon be influenced by communism, the United States considered the option of regime change as a response to the ongoing crisis. In 1953, under the Eisenhower administration, a CIA coup was authorized to overthrow Mossadegh. After three days of CIA-organized riots in Iran, Mossadeq surrendered and CIA-chosen Fazlollah Zahedi succeeded Mossadeq as Prime Minister of Iran. Now that Mossadegh, once the leader of the democracy movement in Iran, was no longer a political force, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi returned to power, now with little political opposition and supported by the United States and Britain. The CIA coup was originally conceived as a solution to the Iranian oil crisis, but its later occurrence caused undesirable results in the future. Although the real reason for the CIA's overthrow of the Iranian government was to protect geopolitical interests from the Soviet threat in the region, the United States did not foresee the long-term negative effects of the coup, some of which are still evident today . Because of Mossadeq and his contribution to the nationalization of Iranian oil, Britain and the United States felt the need for a quick solution to the dangers that high-ranking officials in the Mossadeq administration such as Hossein Fatemi, the Minister of Even Foreign Affairs and Mossadegh's close friend were executed and imprisoned. The Shah had returned to power and had as allies the security of two of the most powerful countries in the world; the United States and Great Britain. The Shah's cooperation was decisive in definitively defining the terms of the Iranian oil concession. Walter Bedell Smith, Secretary of State during the Eisenhower administration, sums up the Shah's mentality at the time; “The Shah is a new man. For the first time he believes in himself because he feels he is king by choice of his people and not by arbitrary decision of a foreign power. surrendering, he was troweled into the trees