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

It was
the possibility of the Suez Canal going under Egyptian
control and British legal rights in other parts of the world that
the Foreign Secretary was having in mind. Morrison was fully aware
of the international difficulties that the British would face at the
United Nations and elsewhere, but he strongly wanted to use whatever
means that existed, to prevent British personnel in Abadan from
getting expelled.

The British military strike
force was prepared to seize the island
of Abadan, the site of the largest oil refinery in the world. Units
of the British army, navy and air force grouped themselves around
the eastern Mediterranean and in the Persian Gulf. When the Iranians
protested by drawing attention to the Labour Government’s
nationalisation programme in Britain, and pointed out that Iran was
also entitled to nationalise its industry, as long as she
compensated its owners, the Guardian replied by arguing that
‘this was altogether a different case, because it involved British
property which had been acquired by an international agreement.26 ‘In Teheran the
government ordered all oil
installations be blown up if any foreign forces attempted to
land on Iranian soil.’ 27

Clement Attlee, the British
Prime Minister, however, was
overwhelmingly against military intervention and took a firm stand
against any form of use of force. He said to the Cabinet:

If we attempted to find a
solution by force, we could not expect
much support in the United Nation, and Asiatic Governments would be
hostile to us. Military intervention might not topple the present
government and might even strengthen Musaddiq’s