Seventy years after a CIA-orchestrated coup toppled Iran’s prime minister, its legacy remains both contentious and complicated for the Islamic Republic as tensions stay high with the United States. America feared a possible tilt toward the Soviet Union and the loss of Iranian crude oil. The coup unseating Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was highlighted as a symbol of Western imperialism by Iran’s theocracy. And as tensions now again are high with the U.S., controlling which allegory Iranians see in the coup has grown more important for both the country’s government and its people.