British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.
The Republican
Administration took over from the Democrat Administration in
January 1953.
On both sides of the Atlantic
Conservative governments were in power. The
new American Republican Administration was considerably more worried about a
communist takeover of Iran, and came to see the Iranian Government as
uncompromising. Iranian oil was vital for the Western economy, and easy
access to the rich Iranian, oil reserves by the West became the United
States’ concern. This led to a shift in the United States’ policy towards
the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s crisis. On 20th June 1953 the United States
Government formally took the United Kingdom’s side, as Chapter Four will
show.
In the meanwhile the economic
sanction by Britain and the oil blockade began
to have an effect on the Iranian economy. This in turn led to a considerable
degree of discontent in Iran. The Iranian Communist Party, the Tudeh Party,
called for a People’s Democratic Republic and gave its support to the
Iranian Government. At the same time the Soviet Union announced that they
would provide aid to Iran. The backing of the Tudeh Party to the Iranian
Government and the fear of the Soviet challenge brought the United States
and the United Kingdom together in the Iranian crisis. The United States
Government saw a basic identity of interests with Britain, maintaining the
flow of oil from Iran. The United States viewed the Iranian Government as
dangerously unstable in a part of the world with huge oil resources as well
as its crucial strategic position. The United States Government decided
firmly to seek the Iranian Government’s overthrow. In a joint Anglo-American
operation of 19th August 1953, as Chapter Five will show, the Iranian
Government was overthrown. Britain achieved her objective. A detailed study
of the plan to bring the Iranian Government down will be given in Chapter
Five.
In 1954 the new oil consortium
was formed. The British Government in
the aftermath
of the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the
main British interest in the Persian Gulf, sought to safeguard the national
interest of
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