I didn’t claim it to be a factor; I said it powered the ships, which it did.
What you said was
"it was oil from the Persian basin that the British developed, that powered the navy, that prevented the dominance of two greater tyrannies in the 20th century."That's saying considerably more than just
"it powered the ships."
Regardless of how you break it down, you're left with
"it was oil from the Persian basin that prevented the dominance of two greater tyrannies in the 20th century."
I'm assuming (but could be wrong) that you're referring to WWI and WWII. In the case of WWII, the USA was the Saudi Arabia of the world and the allies were swimming in oil, and in the case of WWI, as stated before, oil to power the navy was a factor in the victory, but oil from the Persian basin alone did not prevent the dominance of a greater tyranny.
I completely agree that the Brits lied and cheated to get the oil, you did fail to mention we also stole the geological surveys from Russia first, he had a bit of style that Cunningham chap, one doesn’t get the epitaph Perfidious Albion for nothing.
There's only so much you can cover in a thread on RFF
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Do you suppose the Iranians would have preferred to be “bombed back to the stone-age” instead being cheated out of it?
Given a choice of A: get bombed back to the stone-age, or B: get cheated out of the oil, I think I'll go for C: get the contractual obligations honoured regardless of how crappy the terms are
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It was precisely because the British government-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company did not honour their contractual obligations that democratically elected (and lets not forget secular!) Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq nationalised the oil industry, which then led to America/UK organising a coup and disposing of Mosaddeq and installing the Shah in power, which then led to 26 years of autocratic rule under the Shah (in 1976, Amnesty International concluded that the Shah's CIA trained security force, SAVAK, had the worst human rights record on the planet), which then led to a backlash in the form of the Iranian revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Iranian state in its current form, which then led to the tensions we're seeing now.
Or if you'd like to cut that down to a more sizable mouthful - it was precisely because the British government-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company did not honour their contractual obligations that we're seeing the tensions in Iran now :bang:
I realise you know all this Stewart, but I'm sure you're also aware that the majority is totally clueless of the history and swallow whatever ABC/BBC/CNN/NBC etc. feeds them hook line and sinker.
