I suppose if neither side had done anything, Iran might have turned out like Egypt.The west would kill for a leader like Mosaddeq today. Too bad the US wanted to suck up to the British and French in the 50's. Another amusing piece of hindsight: Ho Chi Minh asked to be an independent US proxy after WWII. We gave it back to the French. Fools.That’s not a great option either.
Because the French were involved, it was difficult, especially with DeGaulle right after the war and into the Fifties.
Times were certainly different. I suspect Ho would have turned out no different whether a US proxy or not, but we’ll never know.
And by the way, Mosaddeq was a socialist, and was probably closer to being a dictator communist than he was to being a typical beaurocrat.
I am not a big fan of anti-imperialism simply for the sake of being anti-imperial. As Dinesh Desouza said in his book “What’s So Great About America”, being a victim of imperialism was not a bad thing in many cases for India.