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Intel - History
Abadan Crisis (1951 - 1954)

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

• The National front won six seats in the new parliament and by December, Mossadegh was named head of a Parliamentary Commission on the oil issue. (Bill Enghdal, chapter 7)

• Already on March 15 the Iranian Parliament, the Majlis, had voted to accept Dr. Mossadegh's commission recommendation and nationalize, with fair compensation, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. (Bill Enghdal, chapter 7)

• In Britain the nationalisation was widely seen as an intolerable breach of contract or theft. British emissaries in the United States after the nationalisation argued that allowing Iran to nationalise the oil company `would be widely regarded as a victory for the Russians` and would also `cause a loss of one hundred million pounds per annum in the United Kingdom's balance of payments, thus seriously affecting our rearmament program and our cost of living.`"

• The final nationalization plan was approved by the Majlis the day before Mossadegh was asked to form his government, on April 28, 1951. (Bill Enghdal, chapter 7)

• ...by dispatching units of the Royal Navy to Iranian waters, and threatened the occupation of Abadan by paratroopers for the ostensible reason of protecting British interests." Abadan was the site of the world's largest oil refinery, part of Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (Bill Enghdal, chapter 7)

• On August 22, British cabinet imposes a series of economic sanctions on Iran.
• It prohibited exports of key British commodities, including sugar and steel, directed the withdrawal of all British personnel from Iranian oil fields and all but a hard core of about 300 administrators from Abadan and blocked Iran's access to its hard currency accounts in British banks.

• By September, 1951 Britain had declared full economic sanctions against Iran, including embargo against Iranian oil shipments as well as a freeze on all Iranian assets in British banks abroad. British warships were stationed just outside Iranian coastal waters as well as land and air forces to Basrah in British-controlled Iraq, close to the Abadan refinery complex. (Bill Engdahl, chapter 7)

• In July 1952, its ships intercept the Italian tanker Rose Mary and forced it into the British protectorate of Aden on the grounds that the ship's oil was stolen property.
• News that the Royal Navy was intercepting tankers carrying Iranian oil scared off other tankers and effectively shut down oil exports from Iran.

• Mossadegh personally came to the United States that September to address the UN Security Council, which timidly voted to defer the matter, whereupon Mossadegh went to Washington in a vain effort to enlist American help for his country's position. (Bill Enghdal, chapter 7)

• "The CIA, by all accounts, was a junior partner in what was a British plot against Mossadeq. But, even then, what actually happened was not the successful conclusion of a conspiracy but a genuine popular uprising provoked by economic hardship, political fear and religious prejudice against the communist movement. The plotters were, in fact, pushing an open door. It was no accident that Mossadeq...at no point blamed the Americans for what had happened. In his lengthy defense, which was read at the trial, he blamed the British as well as plotters in the armed forces and south Tehran mobsters. Mossadeq's supporters remained in contact with the CIA until 1979 and continued to believe that the United States would one day come around to supporting them.... Most of Mossadeq's closest associates had no doubt that the August uprising, which they described as a coup d'etat, had resulted from British intrigues. To them the United States remained a long-term ally. It was, therefore, not surprising that prominent Mossadeqists chose the United States as their place of exile...."
  [source: Nest of Spies, p. 36]

• Anglo-Iranian Oil, which that same year changed its name to British Petroleum, was given the lion's share of its old d'Arcy concession, or 40%. Royal Dutch Shell got the second largest,14%, giving the British companies the majority or 54% of Iran's output from the area. (Bill Enghdal, chapter 7)