Iran 's Control Over The World 's Oil Industry

In early 1951, the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry by Mosaddegh was the trigger for the United Kingdom to begin discussion with the United States to overthrow Mosaddegh and return the power to the shah. When the coup attempt was thwarted, the CIA decided to call off continuing with the operation because they did not want it to get traced back to the United States. However, Kermit Roosevelt believed that the United States should not be done interfering with Iran, and

All the Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer details the 1953 American-orchestrated coup in Iran. Iran was under British economic control, but as it modernized, Iranians began fighting for their own control. Their fledgling democracy was working to modernize, until the UK and the US decided to interfere to protect Britain’s colonial holdings from Soviet influence. Because the US was not interested in protecting a British business, British politicians emphasized the threat the USSR held to Iran, leading to Americans inserting themselves into a nation’s politics in which they had no place. They successfully orchestrated a coup, however, the negative, long-term, anti-Western results overwhelm any positive effect. All the Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer paints a picture of the results of action without adequate attention to future results.

The 1953 coup in Iran undoubtedly led to a politically destabilized nation and negatively affected the Iranians opinion of a democratic country. From the beginning, the U.S. has always supported democracy, until they sided with Reza Shah. Reza Shah was a tyrant and evidently very fond of using brutality and violence to attempt to make the citizens of Iran fear him to such an extremity that they would not consider

The American public was so captivated by the Iran Hostage Crisis because they were blindsided by this radical action and their knowledge of America’s involvement in Iran was limited. The media played a major role in influencing their emotions and they already had trouble trusting the American government. This unknown involvement began in 1943 when President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in Tehran to discuss how to remove the British and Soviet military forces from Iran because Iran wanted to be its own nation. The United States aided the young Shah, the ruler of Iran, and his government with military weapons and loans. Over time, Prime Minister Mossadegh, of Iran, gained more and more power until he was the true ruler of Iran and the Shah was just a figurehead. The United States, fearing the spread of communism, devised a secret plan for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to over throw Prime Minister Mossadegh.

The complexity of America’s relationship with Iran increased steadily beginning in 1908, when Iran struck oil. The Shah, the king or emperor of Iran, after taking the place of his young predecessor Reza Shah Pahlavi with the help of the CIA, led Iran into a period of extreme wealth and prosperity, the likes of which the Iranian people had never experienced. However, with the growth of wealth in Iran came the growth of Iranian resentment towards the West, specifically the United States. The Iranian’s resented the uneven distribution of wealth that they felt existed and the United State’s influence in “westernizing” their society. In 1963, this growing hatred led to a conflict with the Islamic clergy. The conflict was quickly settled by the Shah, but he was unaware that this dispute was the beginning

Many descendants of Muzzaffar continued to rule after him, and although the Iranian people eventually were able to nationalize some industries, the oil belonged to the British. This is really where all of the conflict begins concerning the oil, and the hatred that Iranians have for foreign

The people of Iran became angry that the United States would allow the Shah to seek medical treatment in the US, and overtook the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Many of them feared that the United States planned to return to Iran and reinstate Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as their leader, because of the close diplomatic ties that had been established with him. The United States had helped him to overthrow Iran’s Prime Minister during a power struggle in 1953 and modernize Iran (“The Hostage Crisis in Iran”). The Iranian protesters- many of whom were college students- took hostages, 66 of the hostages holding American citizenship, and refused to release them until the Unites States stopped helping the Shah and turned him over to them. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini decided to support the actions of the student protesters, and dissolved treaties that had been made with the Soviet Union and the United States, preventing international intervention towards the violent protests in Iran. Premier Mehdi Bazargan and most of the

In 1908, oil was discovered in massive quantities in Iran. Ever since, Iran has attracted a great deal of attention from other countries. In 1953, the United States felt that Iran was moving ever closer to Russia. To keep Iran out of Russian hands, the CIA overthrew Iran’s prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and placed the Shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi, in place as dictator. However, the Shah was greatly disliked by innumerable Iranians because they felt he went against Islam and he let his secret police, the SAVAK, brutally control the people. In 1963, they openly rebelled. The revolutionaries were subdued forcefully and the leader of the rebellion, Ruhollah Khomeini, was exiled and sent to Iraq. This was the start of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. The people began to rebel more and more often until, on January 16, 1979, the Shah raced away to Egypt. On January 30, 1979, thousands of Iranians cheered for Ruhollah Khomeini as he came back to Iran after fourteen years as an exile. Then there was a major question: should the United States, the Shah’s former ally, allow him to enter the country? According to Vice President Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter “went around the room, and most of us said, ‘Let him

During Jimmy Carter’s presidency, from 1977 to 1981, the Iran hostage crisis took place. In 1979, young Islamic revolutionaries took more than 60 Americans hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The built up tensions were due the oil interest from western countries especially America after 1953. After the United States feared that the Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh would be getting closer to Moscow, the United States, or more specifically the CIA, overthrew him and put the Shah in his place. The Shah tried using his powers to start economic and social reforms to transform and westernize Iran. There was much disagreement and conflict with Iranian citizens due to the westernizing influence, and an uneven distribution of wealth after 1963.

The American government is known to promote democratic values throughout the world. Though the ideals America was fighting for during the Cold War, the government still managed to participate in the overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Mossadegh threatened to nationalize Iran’s oil in 1951 and later gained the support of the Iranian government. The British companies had many investments in Iranian oil. It is with the approval of nationalization that the economies of both British and Iran were ultimately harmed. The British government requested the help of the US so that they could perform a coup to overthrow Mossadegh. With suspicions of Mossadegh supporting communism, and being supported by the Tudeh Party, the United States government was willing to sacrifice their democratic ideologies and credibility in the region for the insurance of an anti-communist leader. This would prove to cause problems that still resonate in today’s political and military negotiations in this region.

The importance of democracy took a backseat to economics and national pride when the CIA orchestrated an elaborate coup to overthrow the government of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq. In the beginning of the Cold War, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddeq, passed the oil nationalization agreement, which nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and its holdings in Iran. The CIA, with assistance of MI6, planned, funded and implemented Operation TPAJAX, a covert CIA operation. CIA collaborated with Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and the elected government of Iran. The TPAJAX plan consisted of two components a political and a military element. The political component of TPAJAX created an artificial campaign of destabilization to accumulate, in a sanctuary, by clergy-led crowds inside the Majles enceinte where a censor motion and bribing of deputies would cause the fall of Mosaddeq through parliamentary procedures. The military component of TPAJAX was only a contingency to maintain the desired outcome against resistance by Tudeh or Mosaddeq supporters. The CIA orchestrated the 1953 Coup of Iran to overthrow Mosaddeq; primarily to maintain existing western control of Iranian oil, thus preventing the collapse of Great Britain’s economic system and alleviating the risk of an Iranian government strongly influenced by the Soviet Union.

The US and its allies were very intimately involved in the politics and economics of Iran from the days preceding World War II. Prior to World War II, Iran was led by Reza Shah Pahlavi, who became monarch by way of a coup. He was sympathetic to the Nazis. The Allies removed him from power and installed his son Mohammad Reza Shah

The Pahlavi dynasty in Iran lasted from 1925-1979. In 1925 Reza Shah Pahlavi was appointed and reined until 1941 when his son Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi succeeded him after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi was considered pro – Western, who worked closely with many U.S. Presidential administrations. In 1951 the European educated Mohammed Mosadegh, Prime Minister of Iran wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry. This political, economic and ideological conflict resulted in Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi being forced into exile for a short period of time. Mosadegh’ s policies would have adversely affected the British and American governments who had previously been in control of Iran’s oil. Therefore the Intelligence

The tension in the Iran Hostage Crisis may have started almost half a century ago, when the U.S. stemmed from an increasingly intense conflict over oil .During the Cold War Era, conflicts arose between the United States and Iran over oil. Where decades ago, Iran had good relationships with America. Due to the location of Iran, it gave the country an abundance of oil reserves, making Iran particularly envied during the Cold War. Middle Eastern oil was an interest to American leaders even before World War II. With America intervening in Iran, it had created the way the state of Iran is.

The 1953 Iranian Coup overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh. The 1953 Iranian Coup did this to limit Iranian petroleum reserves. After Mosaddegh had threatened to pursue acquiring documents from the Anglo- Iranian Oil Company.