British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.
States’
participation, increasingly concerned about Soviet
expansionism and the spread of communism to the Middle East,
paramount.
Consequently, Iran also being a member of the Central Treaty
Organisation, was now to be given even further increase in the
amount of aid and arms that she had already been receiving from the
United States, in order effectively to help her in the role of the
buffer zone between the threat posed by the Soviet Union, and the
oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Drawing a lesson?
Iran was never a British
colony, nevertheless it was seen as
something of an important concern to Britain because of the oil
supplies and because of the Russian position, and so Britain felt
she had to make things happen there although strictly speaking she
had no colonial role to play. The fact that Iran had international
dimensions made it rather difficult for Britain to handle the crisis
since she could not claim that it was within her legitimate right to
do so, and yet clearly she felt it was her legitimate right to do
so.
Britain
still saw the Middle East as important. She tried to
maintain her relationship with the other Middle Eastern states, for
example, through her connections with the ruling families. That is
why Britain still could enjoy what, in retrospect, are delusions of
grandeur in that she thought that her skilful diplomatic networking
and her long established connections with Egypt and her relationship
with Jordan in particular enabled her to exert influence in the
Middle East. Britain had no reason to doubt her capacity to use
military force in the Middle East if it should come to that. The
Iranian crisis demonstrated that there were good reasons why she
should not use it, but did not rule out the possibility of using it
if it were politically and diplomatically feasible.
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