The Coup: 1953, the CIA and the Roots of Modern US-Iranian Relations, by Ervand Abrahamian – review

‘What is your idea about Iran?’ friendly Iranians are heard to ask the few foreign visitors who still come their way. One is never quite sure whether by ‘idea’ they mean ‘impression’, ‘opinion’ or ‘theory’. Inspiring landscapes, fine cuisine and a tradition of hospitality make the first category easy ground. The second pertains to politics, and may lead the traveller into the most illuminating, entertaining and disturbing conversations he has ever had. The third, be warned, is dragon country.

British theories are infamous. A 1951 Foreign Office document identified Iranians as a people keen on poetry and abstract ideas, but emotional and lacking common sense. It claimed they were best understood as ‘unwilling to subordinate personal interests to communal ones’, ‘ready to do most things for money’ and ‘ready to blame other people’. A memorandum entitled ‘The Persian Character’, issued by the Persian Oil Working Company the same year, defined Iranians as dishonest, vain, unprincipled and motivated by personal gain.

Such ‘cultural diatribes’, writes Ervand Abrahamian, were the by-product of Britain’s failure to negotiate an agreement over control of Iranian oil. Winston Churchill converted the Royal Navy from coal to oil in 1912, and by the 1950s the Foreign Office regarded Iranian oil as ‘the major asset which we hold in the field of raw materials’. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company refinery at Abadan, then the biggest in the world, and the largest industrial employer in Iran, provided 85 per cent of the fuel used by the Navy and the Air Force in Asia, and significantly underpinned British trade and the Treasury.

Iran received less in royalties than the AIOC paid in British taxes. Iranians noticed that Venezuela enjoyed a 50-50 deal, while Mexico had nationalised its industry. The company limited Iranian management and encouraged segregation. It had critics in London, too: a Labour minister called it ‘imperialistic’ and ‘intransigent’.