Iran, U.S, GB, Israel and the OIL

Since 1980 The U.S. and Iran have had no formal relations, this means a host of different things, Relations formally broke down because of U.S. and British involvement in Iranian politics.  It all begins with oil, of course. 

For decades in the early twentieth century, the Iranians were in a position where their oil was controlled by the British government via a company called The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) (later named the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). An interesting fact is that in 1953, AIOC became known as British Petroleum (BP) one of the antecedents of the modern BP company. Hmmmmm looks like they've been in the business of fucking shit up for a long time...

At the time, the Prime Minister of Iran was Mohammad Mosaddegh (from 1951 to 1953) until being overthrown by a coup d'etat. His administration introduced a wide range of social reforms but is most notable for its nationalization of AIOC which had been under British control since 1913. He was very popular with the Iranian people, but because of British and American interference in Iranian politics, he became very marginalized. His quote below is an indication of his intent for Iran's democratic future. 

"Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries… have yielded no results thus far. With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence..."

On August 19, 1953 the intelligence agencies (CIA & MI-6) of the United States and Great Britain orchestrated a coup (Operation Ajax) against the democratically elected government of Mosaddegh and instilled Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi. This unnatural transition—from a democracy to an authoritarian rule—was to ensure that the nationalization of Iranian oil would cease and instead the country would continue relying heavily on U.S. and British support for their unstable economy by retaking controlling of their oil supply. This administration lasted 20 some years before it was in turn overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeni and the anti-Western Islamic fundamentalists in February 1979. 

The bottom line was because Mosaddegh threatened nationalization of the oil and effectively cut out foreign interests, Iranian oil was boycotted—Winston Churchill made sure all the oil that used to be produced in Iran was shifted to Saudi Arabia and Dutch Shell instead, and this caused a great deal of harm to the Iranian economy as well as Mosaddegh' support. 

So Western countries effectively caused Iran to transition from democracy to authoritarian rule to an anti-western Islamic republic within 26 years... Wow... it really puts a lot in perspective! If it wasn't for US and British involvement in Iranian politics, probably would have been more prosperous than Turkey is today... The US-backed coup, in effect, had ended Iran's last fully democratic government, and there would be no return of democracy even after the Shah's removal.

In March 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated her regret that Mosaddegh was ousted: "The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America." In the same year, The New York Times published a detailed report about the coup based on declassified CIA documents.

Here's a link to the classified document Clandestine Service History—Overthrow of Premier Mosaddegh of Iran – November 1952–August 1953

http://cryptome.org/cia-iran-all.htm

Given all this history of U.S. involvement in Iran it makes perfect sense why they dislike us so much... I'm certainly not justifying any nuclear ambitions they may have for non-peaceful purposes, I totally understand why they would want nuclear weapons—this way, they could ensure no one mettles in their political affairs or steal their resources for their own benefit. I'm sure they look up to Pakistan in that respect. 

There is another dimension that needs to be added to the mix; Israel. Especially in light of all of the assassinations of nuclear scientists over that last few years. Check out this Huffington Post article for a list of the black bag ops: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/haggai-carmon/iran-nuclear-scientist-killed_b_1206591.html

I know I've introduced another complicated branch here, and it is important, but getting into this side of the equation is beyond the realm of this article and is a topic which I no doubt will cover in the near future...

Knowledge is P O W E R and I hope I provided you with a strong dose of it today :)