The 20th century has been an unsettled time for the state of Iran. In 1925 the Qajar Dynasty, which had ruled for over a century, was overthrown by a general named Reza Khan, who founded the current Pahlavi Dynasty. He aggressively pursued a policy of modernization, and remained skeptical of the British and Soviets. Despite his attempts to remain neutral in the Second World War, the British and Soviets agreed that they could not risk having Iranian oil supplies remain unsecured. They jointly invaded neutral Iran in a surprise attack in 1941. The British gave Reza Shah one option, abdicate and leave Iran. It was then that the Shah Mohammad Reza came to power. He was not as sure of himself as his father had been and was only 22 at the time he came to power. The two great powers did not leave until 1946, with the Soviet Union trying to delay their departure as long as possible. A mere decade after assuming his father's throne, the rising power of the marxist Tudeh Party and its leader Mohammad Mosaddegh provided the first domestic challenge to the young shah's rule. Mosaddegh pledged to nationalize Iran's oil production, a move which the British and Americans could not allow. The British planned a coup to overthrow Mosaddegh, but it failed. The shah fled to Baghdad. The task fell to the American CIA, and in 1953, they were able to engineer a coup that brought down Mosaddegh and returned the shah to power. The shah feared that the generals who had brought him back to power would soon depose him as his father had done, and so adopted many of the social and economic reform policies of Mosaddegh. Close ties to the United States are now in question. The shah had ties to the Republican Richard Nixon, but was unsure what stance the incoming Kennedy administration would take.

Will the shah be able to reform Iran into a modern nation or will a conservative backlash remove him from power?