From Oil To Nuclear Ambitionter

 

Shortly, after the WW II, the cold war began in the early 1950s that marked growing US-Soviet rivalry. The US and UK were concerned not just with oil but also with the curbing Soviet influence in Iran. This was the key used for Operation Ajax focused on Iran cold war interventionism. The United States and United Kingdom played a vital role in defining Iran’s modern politics through the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. This event laid the foundation of decades of mistrust, confrontation and strategic rivalry between Iran and the West and the animosity deepened extending into nuclear negotiations, proxy conflicts and regional alignments involving Israel and the Arab world. The roots of this tension trace back to 1901, when oil was first discovered in Iran. This discovery transformed Iran from a relatively peripheral state into a critical global energy map. In 1908, British interests formed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later British Petroleum), which dominated Iranian oil production under skewed contracts that left Iran with minimal control or profit from its own natural resources. By the early 20th century, Iran’s leadership had already begun facing pressures to modernize and resist foreign dominance, pressures that would intensify following World War II. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was elected as Iran’s Prime Minister. A prominent figure in the National Front, Mosaddegh championed the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry, directly challenging British control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The nationalization of oil was a landmark moment, not just for Iran, but for the broader post-colonial world. However, it triggered a fierce backlash from Britain and, increasingly, the United States. Britain, unable to regain control diplomatically, imposed a global boycott on Iranian oil. The U.S., under the Eisenhower administration, eventually aligned with British objectives; largely due to cold war anxieties about a possible Soviet tilt in Iran should Mosaddegh remain in power. This culminated in “Operation Ajax” in 1953, a covert CIA-MI6 operation that aimed to topple Mosaddegh. Orchestrated in part by K. Roosevelt Jr., the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, the operation deployed propaganda, staged street protests, and paid Iranian military and political figures to orchestrate Mosaddegh’s removal. The coup succeeded. Mosaddegh was arrested, tried, and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. In his place, the pro-Western Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was reinstated with expanded autocratic powers. Like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, Mosaddegh was removed because he tried to take control of his country’s oil, a move seen as a threat to Western geopolitical and economic interests. Pahlavi ruled Iran for the next 26 years as a close ally of the U.S., adopting aggressive modernization programs while suppressing political dissent through a notorious internal security agency, SAVAK. Despite economic modernization and growing ties with the West, public dissatisfaction with his rule, due to authoritarianism, social inequality, and submission to foreign, continued to mount. This discontent erupted into the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which saw the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The revolution fundamentally reoriented Iran’s foreign policy and placed it in open confrontation with the United States. The U.S. Embassy hostage crisis that followed showed how badly relations had broken down and has affected ties between the two countries ever since. Today, Iran remains one of the few nations in the Muslim world that openly challenges U.S. foreign policy. Its opposition is most visible in its stance toward Israel, its support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and its alignment with anti-Western resistance movements in the region. Iran also maintains a strategic alliance with Syria and has been heavily involved in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon through proxy networks, increasing its influence in the “Shia crescent.” Iran’s rivalry with Israel, in particular, is rooted not only in ideological opposition but also in geopolitical competition. Israel perceives Iran’s nuclear ambitions as an existential threat. This concern has led to repeated covert actions, cyber operations, such as the Stuxnet virus, discovered in 2010 by US and Israel, to secretly attack Iran’s nuclear programme. On the Arab front, countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are U.S. allies and wary of Iran’s regional ambitions, have had tense relations with Tehran, exacerbated by sectarian divides and conflicts in Yemen and Syria. However, recent years have seen cautious diplomatic openings, with Iran and Saudi Arabia restoring diplomatic ties in 2023 through a China brokered agreement is an indication of shift in the regional dynamics. Iran’s nuclear program remains the most volatile bone of contention to the West. While Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes, the international community, especially the U.S., Israel, and European nations fear that Iran is moving closer to developing a nuclear weapon. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), brokered under the Obama administration, placed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. However, in 2018, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA and re-imposed crippling sanctions. In response, Iran gradually reduced its compliance with the deal, enriching uranium well beyond agreed limits. Diplomatic efforts to revive the deal have stalled repeatedly, and as of 2025, Iran is reportedly closer than ever to nuclear weapon breakout capacity. Israel has consistently declared that it will not allow Iran to become a nuclear-armed state and Trump demanding that Iran must come on the nuclear negotiation table without any preconditions. Iran is defiant of this and had to face US ire, “Operation Midnight Hammer” on Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites. As of now, the conflict between Israel and Iran though is on ‘ceased fire’ but the discontent between the two countries has heightened to boiling point and the war tension seems would erupt again anytime in the West Asia. Any miscalculation could push the conflict into WW III that looms larger than ever before.

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Courtesy:  VIJAY HASHIA   and  Spade A Spade-July 2025