British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.

of the Soviet
challenge brought the United States and the United Kingdom
together. The American Government saw a basic identity of interest with
Britain, maintaining the flow of oil from Iran. The United States viewed the
Iranian Government as dangerously unstable in a strategically important part
of the world, with its rich oil reserves.

The coming to
office of the Republican President Eisenhower in 1953 brought
about a shift in the United States’ policy towards the Iranian crisis. The
new Republican Administration of Eisenhower was considerably more worried
about the Communist threat. In view of the support that the Iranian
Government was receiving from the Tudeh Party (the Iranian Communist Party)
and the fear of communism and the Soviet influence increasingly gaining
ground in Iran, the United States changed its policy from one of diplomacy
to confrontation. The Eisenhower Administration came round to the British
view that the answer to end the crisis was intervention, and the toppling of
Dr. Musaddiq’s government. The United States’ policy was also helped by the
winding down of the Korean War and availability of more western manpower.
Additionally, in both Britain and the United States, conservative
governments were now in power. Therefore, they were ideologically close to
each other. Both administrations viewed the government of Dr. Musaddiq as
uncompromising and too destabilising, in a part of the world with huge oil
reserves, as well as its crucial strategic position, and had little sympathy
with nationalism in areas where the West had vested economic and political
interests. Iranian oil was vital for the Western economy. Accessibility of
Iranian oil reserves to the West was of paramount importance to both
Churchill and Eisenhower. Both administrations were concerned about the
threat of a communist takeover in Iran. Furthermore, as Churchill and
Eisenhower were wartime comrades their friendship was warm. By 20th June
1953, the United States Government formally took Britain’s side. In a joint
Anglo- American operation, by 19th August 1953 the Iranian Government was

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