The Shah’s personal animosity toward the great powers started here. His father, Reza Shah, already deeply resented Britain for its constant interference in Iran’s internal affairs and the long history of foreign powers treating Iran as something they could divide into spheres of influence. After only 13 years in... power, Reza Shah had built Iran’s first modern national army in centuries, independent of Western financing and control. Yet in 1941, that young army suddenly found itself facing two of the world’s greatest powers invading Iran simultaneously from the north and south. The Allies forced Reza Shah to abdicate. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, inherited the crown because any other route risked throwing Iran into chaos. The young Shah then faced the Soviet Union. The Soviets refused to fully withdraw from Iran and set up separatist governments in Iranian Azerbaijan and Mahabad. Iran restored its sovereignty over both. Then came Britain. The Shah inherited an oil industry that had been dominated by Britain since the Qajar era. After the oil crisis of the early 1950s, the 1954 Consortium Agreement replaced Britain’s near-monopoly with a consortium dominated by Western oil companies, including BP, Standard Oil, Texaco, Gulf, Socony and Shell, under a 50/50 profit-sharing arrangement with Iran. But that agreement was set to expire in 1979. And the Shah had no intention of renewing the old relationship. By the 1970s, this was a completely different Iran. The country Britain and Russia had once divided into spheres of influence had become the dominant military power in the Persian Gulf. Iran was moving toward full control over its own resources, backed by a military no foreign power could simply confront head-on as Britain and the Soviet Union had done in 1941. 1979 was supposed to mark the final chapter in that struggle for Iran’s economic sovereignty. Instead, it became the year of the Islamic Revolution. So for those western commentators spreading the “Western-installed puppet Shah” nonsense. The Shah spent his reign confronting Soviet territorial ambitions, breaking foreign control over Iranian oil and building a military specifically designed to ensure that Iran could never again be treated the way it was in 1941. If you want to talk about a leader whose rise was facilitated by the West, talk about Khomeini. The West abandoned the Shah, opened channels with Khomeini’s movement and convinced itself that Khomeini could become the Gandhi-like figure they hoped he would be and continue the 50-50 profit sharing agreement over oil. Unfortunately for the West, and catastrophically for Iran, Khomeini turned out to be something entirely different.show more

Arsalan Naamdar

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