Much has been written about the causes of the 1979 revolution. This vast literature tends to ignore why this impressive looking state unraveled so quickly and so spectacularly. It did so mainly because it lacked national legitimacy, and it lost this legitimacy because of the CIA-MI6 Coup of August 1953.

Historian Ervand Abrahamnian, Distinguished Professor at CUNY's Baruch College, discussed the importance of the coup in modern Iranian history and why analyses of the revolution--especially US and UK post-mortems--invariably overlook its significance.