Major Issues of Iranian Oil Nationalization: Dr. Siavush Randjbar-Daemi

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Video Transcript -

By 1946 Iran is free of foreign occupation by and large, and the next big issue that deals with Iranian sovereignty comes up and it is the oil issue. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company that was Anglo-Iranian in name but fully Anglo by fact held a monopoly and ruled over Iranian oil as it pleased. The issue eventually became a national issue, so much so that in the March of 1951 Mosaddegh finally announces the bill for the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. And from then onwards the spiral of confrontation with the West starts in earnest.

There were two major issues that appeared here. One of them was the attempts by the British to declare the oil nationalization as illegal under international law, and this led to a series of high profile appearances by Mosaddegh in international arenas.

He appeared once at the International Tribunal in Hague that judged in his favor, and then at the UN in New York that there was, I think, a session with the security council and the secretary council refused to act against Iran and impose, for example, security council sanctions.

Once the British realized that the first port of call towards resolving this issue, they resorted to other mechanisms. They progressively started to convince the Americans that Iran was in turmoil, that Mosaddegh, while not being an overt anti-communist, would increasingly rely on the Tudeh Party to cling on to power, and this, in turn, could mean Iran slipping on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

While Truman was not really receptive to British calls for covert action against Mosaddegh. This would change with the rise to the White House of Eisenhower and a simultaneous return to the – almost simultaneous return to the British Prime Ministership of Winston Churchill.