WWI Imperialist Occupation of IRAN
- On the eve of WWI, the global shift of industry, armies and naval units from using coal to oil fuels resulted in an exponential growth in demand for petroleum products. This had enormous implications for the strategic significance of west Asia, a region that contains the world’s largest oil deposits. Persian oil became not only an economic resource of fundamental importance to British interests worldwide, but also a strategic military asset.
- Iran’s vast oil deposits and its geographic location at the gates of the Indian subcontinent turned Iran into one of the major theaters of war in west Asia.
- The Iranian government’s early reaction to the outbreak of the war was to declare Iran’s strict neutrality with a royal decree on 1 November 1914.
- in 1911 Russian military forces occupied the northern provinces of Iran and imposed an ultimatum on the government of Iran to observe the Russian interest in the country. They eventually left in 1921.
- In 1914 the British secured the flow of oil from Iran’s Khuzestan’s oilfields and the Abadan Oil Refinery, which had evolved as a cornerstone of their
geopolitical and military strategy. - The occupation of north and south Iran by Russian and British troops prompted the Ottomans to invade western and north-western Iran early
in the war. They left in 1918. - 1917-1919 Famine in Iran resulting from the WWI Occupations. (death toll of more than 2 Million).
- 1940/41Reza Shah coveted and considered the steel factory an absolute necessity of progress and modernity of the time, which the British did not allow, so he obtained it from the German’s but the British sunk the ship in the Persian Gulf.
- Initially Reza Shah Pahlavi declared Iran neutral at the start of World War II.
- In the wake of dramatic German victories against the Soviet Union in summer of 1941, both the British and Soviet governments occupied southern and northern Iran respectively, using Reza Shah’s refusal to expel German nationals as an excuse. Allied intentions in Iran were also to protect British-controlled oil fields, to direct military supplies to the Soviet Union using the Trans-Iranian Railroad (the major railway linking Tehran with the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea), and to put a stop to German intelligence operations in Iran.
- Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in (Shahrivar 20 – 1320) – August 1941. On 25 August 1941, the British assembled a naval task force under Commodore Cosmo Graham to seize Bandar Shahpur, Abadan and Khorramshahr. On September 11, 1941, British Envoy Sir Reader S. Bullard met with Iran’s Prime Minister, Mohammad-Ali Furuqi, to demand the immediate removal of Reza Shah in favor of his son, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who was known to be pro-British. Five days later, on September 16, Reza Shah abdicated and went into exile, leaving his son as Shah. Reza Shah died in Johannesburg, South Africa, on July 26, 1944.
- In January 1942, Iran, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain signed a Tripartite Treaty of Alliance recognizing Iranian territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence. They also pledged to protect the Iranian economy from the effects of the war. Most importantly, they promised to withdraw from Iranian territory within six months of the end of the war.
- Tehran Conference: Between November 28 and December 1, 1943, US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Josef Stalin met in Tehran.
WWII Aftermath, Influence Shifts from British to U.S.
- Although in September 1941, the British demanded the immediate removal of Reza Shah in favor of his son, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who was known to be pro-British, in 1953, after the toppling of Mossadegh, British initiative backed by the CIA-Ajax project, he became pro-U.S.
- Bahrain Island, situated in a relatively shallow inlet of the Persian Gulf known as the Gulf of Bahrain, was under Iranian influence off and on until 1970 when the British forced Mohammad Reza Shah for the exchange of 3 smaller islands (the Tombs) for Bahrain, that became independent. Bahrain got its independence from the British in 1971.
- Ever since Britain signed her first Arabian treaty with the Sultan of Muscat in 1798, in a successful attempt to close the Gulf to French naval forces during the Napoleonic wars, a “special relationship” has existed between Britain and the territories around the Gulf.
- Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the British Foreign Secretary, told the House of Commons in March 1971 that all permanent British forces in the Persian Gulf would be withdrawn by the beginning of 1972 he signaled the end of the last important vestige of the nineteenth century’s Pax Britannica and opened the door to what could be a major, and possibly painful, reconstruction of the Middle Eastern map.