Mary Ann Heiss

The United States, Great Britain, and the Creation of the Iranian Oil Consortium, 1953–1954

Iranian oil crisis of the early 1950s began the readjustment of the Anglo-American relationship in the Middle East that would culminate in the Suez crisis of 1956. The period saw the decline of Great Britains influence and the emergence of the United States as the senior partner in Anglo-American efforts to defend Western economic and strategic interests in the region. To be sure, the West was seeking to protect the Middle East against possible Soviet expansion, but it was also working to combat the political and economic instability often associated with nationalist regimes such as the one in Iran headed by Muhammad Mossadegh that sought to change the relationship between the Western powers and Middle Eastern states in ways that would benefit the latter at the expense of established Western interests.

NATO and the Middle East: The Primacy of National Interests

The North Atlantic Treaty provided for alliance intervention in what were termed “out-of-area events,” a phrase that could conceivably be used to cover a multitude of sins but that ostensibly meant areas—such as the Middle East—that fell outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) geographic parameters. The Middle East, located at the juncture of Asia, Africa, and Europe, borders NATO’s southern flank and was considered geographically and strategically important to the Western alliance. Despite agreement on its importance, however, NATO countries never really formulated a coherent strategy for the Middle East. Western European partners approached Middle Eastern problems more from a perspective that protected their own local interests, while the United States tended to view the region through the lens of the Cold War and emphasized the Communist threat. Because of their different priorities and conflicting threat perceptions, the NATO nations found it impossible to replicate in the Middle East the kind of cooperation that characterized their policies in Europe. Instead, they often worked at cross-purposes, formulating Middle Eastern policy on an ad hoc, national basis rather than developing a coherent alliance strategy. On numerous occasions throughout the Cold War, the United States and its NATO allies even split publicly over how to address Middle Eastern problems, including the possibility that regional differences might escalate into superpower confrontation.