William Faulkner once mused that the past is never dead, in fact it’s not even past. The story of the coup that toppled Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 may not be dead, but it is unhinged from history. Tall tales by a scion of the American establishment—former CIA agent and presidential grandson Kermit Roosevelt—and reams of studies by left-wing professors have sustained the myth that the Eisenhower administration ousted Mossadeq. The Iranians are mere bystanders in this story, watching helplessly as a malevolent America manipulates their nation’s destiny. Most academic speculations remain cloistered in college campuses, but the...