In the first minutes of the 2012 film Argo directed by Ben Affleck, we are shown documentary clips of the 1953 Anglo-American coup d’état that overthrew the popular Iranian Prime Minister Mosaddegh and reinstated the Chah Reza Pahlavi. The film tells the story of the “Canadian caper” that was used to rescue six American diplomats stranded during the 1979 hostage crisis in Tehran.
A few weeks after the film was released it was reported that the Iranian government planned to sue the producers (George Clooney and Ben Affleck) for “insulting Iran” and that Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, a French lawyer, was hired to defend the interests of the Islamic Republic in this case.
