The counter-coup

Eli Lake: Mossedegh had dissolved the Majles, replaced the army leadership and Supreme Court and closed newspapers by the time the Shah used his constitutional authority to fire him.

The first Parthava Shah, Reza Khan, served under Ahmad Qajar, whom the parliament - which we'll agree to spell "Majles" - had installed over his father. The Qajars were Turks; Khans are also usually Turks, but Reza claimed to be Pahlavi. Someone would have to test that Y chromosome. Anyway as it happens, Khan did the coup - in 1921. This vacated the throne, although the Qajars lingered on, until 1923 when Ahmad gave up and left the empire. The Majles then installed Reza as shah, 1925; as he remained until 1944, when he died and Iran got the Shah we 1970s kids know and love, Mohammed Reza.

I know that it may be bad form to bring Greek standards into an Iranian context. Luckily for you, readers; bad form is exactly what we do here. Mohammed Mosaddegh (sorry, I'm insisting on this spelling) was a tyrannos. This, as opposed to a dictator; we can argue the legality of Reza's rule, but at least the Majles formalised his term, in retrospect, in 1925. For Mosaddegh, there was no Majles. He was simply the commander-in-chief of his own pet army. As well as the supreme Judge. And the arbiter of information.

The only in-house centre of power left as could reinstate any norms at all was the institution of the shah. Off-house, I'll admit, we Brits didn't want Mosaddegh either and who was in charge of the north in 1952-3... well, after March, that's actually a good question, and whoever wanted to be in charge had some motive for a quick victory abroad.

The shah did the only thing he could do, and the Brits were right to support him. This does not excuse how the shah chose to run Iran until the 1970s. But it can't have been worse than arbitrary rule by a tyrant and the likely Soviet invasion to follow.