pumpkinstrokemarrow

The executive summary seems to be that Brit greed and stupidity trashed about the only decent attempt to build a secular democracy in Iran.

The story seems to go roughly as follows. Despite having been a civilisation for thousands of years, by the early 20th century, Iran had not managed effective government. Along came the Brits who spent a lot of time and treasure finding then developing splendid oil reserves, striking a deal with the powers that were which gave them 80%, and the Iranians 20%, of what became a very big cake indeed. Plus the Iranians were not allowed to inspect the books, a lack of access which the Brits appear to have exploited to their own advantage. A squalid little detail. Plus the Brits live in luxury, their Iranian workforce live in overheated squalor. Little effort to train up Iranian engineers. By the end of the second world war, the Iranians were getting a bit cheesed off with this but made no headway. This lack of progess eventually propelled Mr Mossadeq into the chair. He promptly nationalises the Britoil operation. Made hero of Iran overnight. The Brits think that this amounts to theft - poor nations are supposed to respect the property rights of rich ones - and go in for all kinds of sabre rattling. Gunboats large and small. (Ironic, given that the Brits were busy nationalising everything at home at the time. The chief Brit villains seem to have been Herbert Morrison (who replaced the more sensible Bevin as Foreign Secretary at the vital moment) and Churchill. Nothing learned about giving in gracefully in good time from either Ireland or India). The Brits get chucked out of Iran. Meanwhile, the Yanks, in the form of president Truman, are rather sympathetic towards the Iranians and try hard to broker a deal, without success. Most of the world thinks that UK is in the wrong. But then Truman is replaced by Eisenhower. Cold war running hot. Are the Soviets about to make a grab for all or part of Iran? The Yanks go into reverse and pick up the threads of a civil sabotage operation put together by the Brits before they were chucked out. After various hiccups, Mr Mossadeq is deposed during an orgy of civil disturbance, something the Iranians seemed to be rather good at, and the Shah returns, rather ingloriously, to rule for a long time, rather badly. Compromise on the oil front, one which leaves Britoil (BP) alive to fight another day. (Another irony here being that the US effort in Iran was spearheaded by a scion of the Roosevelt clan, at least one of whom is remembered for good things).

So while Iran might have been in a bit of a mess anyway, both the UK and the US appear to have behaved badly, the latter after a more promising start. In our case, one more dreadul cock-up on our road out of empire. And we were so p****d off about it, that we compounded the cock-up a year or two later at Suez... Perhaps the only redeeming feature of the whole mess is that at least Mr Mossadeq was allowed to die in his own bed, in more or less his own time.

Perhaps the lesson for me is, once again, if you read something which is surprising, piquant or striking, check it before you use it. Fair chance that it is wrong.