In August 1953, a frightened signalman flips a switch six minutes early—and changes the fate of Iran, the Cold War, and the entire global oil order.

Operation Ajax, the joint CIA–MI6 coup to remove Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, collapses in the streets of Tehran as his emergency broadcast ignites a popular uprising. The Shah flees. A republic is born. And the world scrambles to contain the fallout.

In this haunting alternate timeline, Iran breaks free of foreign control but plunges into decades of blockade, radicalization, and war. From rooftop picnics to brutal street purges, from oil embargoes to unlikely battlefield friendships, the reverberations reshape the Middle East—and redefine American memory.

Told through the lens of two intertwined lives—an Iranian engineer and an American pilot—“Ajax Unraveled” explores what it costs to resist empire, what it means to build a republic, and whether one act of truth can ever outpace the machines of power.

Delta-54. Recovered by The Archivist.

No speculation. Only the world that followed.