Notes on Iran II
„Persia first assumed a position of significance in British eyes” John Howes Gleason tells us “when the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon and the subsequent machinations of his agents demonstrated that control of the sea did not ensure the crescive Indian empire against all danger of foreign attack. The governments, both at Calcutta and Westminster, dispatched missions which eventually secured the conclusion of an Anglo-Persian alliance in the definitive treaty of November 1814. Britain promised to lend Persia military or pecuniary assistance in the event of an unprovoked attack by a European power and secured in return a promise of aid against an invasion of India from Afghanistan. The treaty was designed to forestall French aggression, a danger which the fall of Napoleon completely removed, but the engagement applied equally to Russia. The Russian annexation of Georgia in 1800, the abortive plan of 1808 for a Franco-Russian expedition against India, and the campaigns on the Caucasian frontier which were terminated by the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 had awakened the Persians to a danger more immediate.”[1]
Britain gradually shifted from protector to predator in the course of the nineteenth century:
“Iran was…an arena for Anglo-Russian struggles of influence, although here economic spoils were also at stake. In order to fund their activities, the Qajar rulers, especially Nasir al-Din (1848-96) and his son Muzaaffar al-Din (1896-1907), sold economic concessions to foreigners, an activity that aroused considerable opposition from the Shi’i clergy. The creation of the (British) Imperial Bank of Persia in 1885 (part of the Reuter concession) was followed in 1890 by Nasir al-Din’s sale of a concession for the production, sale and export of tobacco to a British subject. This became the object of a national campaign of protest…Muzaffar al-Din contracted several loans with Russia (partly to finance public works projects, but also his own visits to Europe) and also sold the exclusive rights over Iranian oil to William Knox D’Arcy in 1901 for 20,000 pounds and a 16% share of future profits. In 1908, substantial oil deposits were discovered in Khuzistan; the British government bought a majority shareholding in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later British Petroleum, early in 1914.”[2]
The fact that imperial control had already been established played a key role in the deal:
“In 1907 Britain and Russia signed a treaty dividing Iran between them” Stephen Kinzer tells us. “Britain assumed control of southern provinces, while Russia took the north. A strip between the two zones was declared neutral, meaning that Iranians could rule there as long as they did not act against the interests of their powerful guests. Iran was not consulted but was simply informed of this arrangement after the treaty was signed in St. Petersburg. What had long been informal foreign control of Iran now became an explicit partition, backed by the presence of Russian and British troops. When the treaty formalizing it came before the British Parliament for ratification, one of the few dissenting members lamented that it left Iran ‘lying between life and death, parceled out, almost dismembered, helpless and friendless at our feet.’”
“As Russia was consumed by civil war and revolution, its influence in Iran waned. After the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they renounced most of their rights in Iran and canceled all debts that Iran had owed to Czarist Russia. The British, now at the peak of their imperial power, moved quickly to fill the vacuum. Oil was the new focus of their interest. The newly formed Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which grew out of the D’Arcy concession, had begun extracting huge quantities of it from beneath Iranian soil. Winston Churchill called it ‘a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams.’”
“Realizing the immense value of this new resource, the British in 1919 imposed the harsh Anglo-Persian Agreement on Ahmad Shah’s impotent regime, assuring its approval by bribing the Iranian negotiators. Under its provisions the British assumed control over Iran’s army, treasury, transport system, and communications network. To secure their new power, they imposed martial law and began ruling by fiat. Lord Curzon, who as foreign secretary was one of the agreement’s chief architects, argued its necessity in terms that crystallized a century of British policy toward Iran:
‘If it be asked why we should undertake the task at all, and why Persia should not be left to herself and allowed to rot into picturesque decay, the answer is that her geographical position, the magnitude of our interests in the country, and the future safety of our Eastern Empire render it impossible for us now—just as it would have been impossible for us any time during the last fifty years—to disinherit ourselves from what happens in Persia. Moreover, now that we are about to assume the mandate for Mesopotamia, which will make us coterminous with the western frontiers of Asia, we cannot permit the existence between the frontiers of our Indian Empire and Baluchistan and those of our new protectorate, a hotbed of misrule, enemy intrigue, financial chaos and political disorder. Further, if Persia were to be alone, there is every reason to fear that she would be overrun by Bolshevik influence from the north. Lastly, we possess in the southwestern corner of Persia great assets in the shape of oil fields, which are worked for the British navy and which give us a commanding interest in that part of the world.’”[3]
Today few are as honest or clear about western imperial interests in the Middle East and the imperial cant, mendacity and deliberate confusion on the part of Donald Trump, western governments and the western media is more nauseating than ever before.
[1] pp.37-38 The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain, John Howes Gleason
[2] p.62 Atlas of Islamic History, Peter Sluglett with Andrew Currie
[3] p.38-40 All the Shah’s Men, Stephen Kinzer