The first commercial oil well was established in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, USA. By 1900, about 94% of the world’s oil came from the USA and Russia. During that same time the British Empire was known as the “workshop of the world,” and was powered by massive domestic coal reserves. They controlled about 25% of the Earth’s land surface and population, but produced less than 0.5% of the oil. This became a major dilemma for the British Navy if they were ever to switch from coal to oil.
In 1901, a 60-year lease of 500,000 square miles in Persia was bought by a British millionaire. With the support of the British government, this area, known for having oil seeps since antiquity, was surveyed for oil deposits by British explorers. On May 26, 1908, British explorers struck oil in Masjid-i-Suleiman.
In 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was founded. In 1911, Winston Churchill converted the Royal Navy from coal to oil, and in 1914, the British government bought 51% of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Persia was now strategically vital to the British Empire.
In 1915, the British promised Arab independence in exchange for their help fighting the Ottomans, but later excluded Palestine from the deal.
In 1916, Britain and France secretly claimed their own Middle East territories. The French Zone was Syria, Lebanon, and southeast Turkey. The British Zone was Jordan, Iraq, and Haifa. And the International Zone was parts of Palestine.
In the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain promised “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
In 1920, the League of Nations granted mandates of Iraq and Palestine to Britain, and Syria and Lebanon to the French. Leaders loyal to foreign governments were installed. New arbitrary borders were created that ignored the geography and divided ethnic and tribal groups. These new artificial boundaries served only the West for pirating oil fields and creating a deep divide among the locals.
With a coup d’etat in 1921, British intelligence installed Reza Khan as the Shah in 1925 and founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty.
Under British mandate administration, increased Jewish immigration and land purchases led to the formation of Jewish militias and the Palestinian uprising, which was suppressed by British troops.
During World War II, both Britain and the USSR invaded Iran to steal their oil. Reza Shah was forced to abdicate, and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed.
In 1948, the United Nations officially created the state of Israel, and those who had lived there for generations were forced off the land or slaughtered. Approximately 700,000 Palestinians were displaced through a combination of flight, expulsion, and violence, an event Palestinians call the “Nakba”, or Catastrophe.
Democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, taking Iran’s resources back from foreign invaders. And with another coup d’etat in 1953, the CIA and MI6 overthrew him and strengthened the Shah’s authority.
All of this chaos created by foreign invaders caused an anti-Western sentiment that greatly contributed to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who does have the appearances of being a British MI6 agent.
If the son of Mohammad Reza Shah, Reza Pahlavi, is installed as the new leader of Iran, it is just the latest act of criminal theater perpetrated by the thieves who sway world governments.
.svg){kind=logo}
By Independent News Roundup