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

and
getting it away from Persia and he might then be driven to
accept some form of agreement with this country.40

When Attlee used the word
‘humility’ he no doubt had in mind the
British public and the impending general election. Financially, the
British Government was under constraint to act generously, there was
also too much pressure and goings on in the press and Parliament to
act rationally. The Iranian oil crisis became a very serious issue.
In the eyes of the British public, ‘a British possession had been
stolen’.41 In the October 1951 General
Election the Conservative Party came to power, headed by Churchill.
The Tories blamed the Labour Government for being shamefully weak in
dealing with the Iranians. ‘If a strong Conservative Government had
been in power the Persian crisis would never have arisen in the way
it did,’ 42 said Churchill. ‘No intelligent
government would have got into the position in which the government
got itself,’
43 added Anthony Eden. The Newretorted:

If Mr. Churcill had been in
power, and as bad as his word, we should
have wasted our resources, our manpower and our credit on a war [in
India and Asia generally] even more terrible, wrong and useless than
the French struggle in Vietnam. India, like Vietnam, would now be in
the hands of our bitter enemies; Indian nationalism, like that of
Vietnam, would by now have turned into Communism.44