A Short History of BP

[PufPuf23]

Beyond Petroleum, Beyond Pollution, Beyond Politics

A Short History of BP

By M. KAMIAR

British Petroleum is the UK’s largest corporation. It is among the largest private-sector energy corporations in the world. It is a vertically integrated cartel that operates oil and natural-gas exploration, marketing, and distribution all over the globe.

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In 1909, D’Arcy formed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC). Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, had been following the progress of the burgeoning petroleum industry because he was thinking of converting the British navy’s ships from coal to oil, which he implemented in 1911. In order to protect its supplies of this now-crucial military resource, the British government became part owner of APOC in 1914, acquiring 50 percent of the voting stock, reimbursing all of D’Arcy’s expenditures, and granting him £900,000 worth of shares. D’Arcy remained a director until his death in 2000. In 1923, the company secretly paid £5,000 to Churchill to lobby the UK government to grant APOC a monopoly on Iranian oil resources (Myers 2009). The rush was on. Western oil companies eventually attained total control over the middle-eastern oil industry. These companies often became de facto rulers of these semi-colonial territories. All aspects of exploration, production, refining, and marketing were controlled by these multinational corporations. The owners not only discouraged but prevented native populations from obtaining the skills and education to manage their own resources, and workers were treated no better than slaves.

snip

By the post-WWII era and the beginning of decolonization, educated people in Iran realized the country was in effect occupied and controlled by AIOC. They’d had enough. Coinciding with the growth of a new nationalist fervor in the region, the shah was forced aside, remaining primarily as a figurehead, and a new prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, was elected in 1951. Mossadeq, with the approval of Majlis (the Iranian parliament), nationalized Iran’s oil industry. The British government contested the nationalization at the International Court of Law, but its complaint was dismissed. The British had, in effect, been kicked out of Iran.

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In 1953, the year Eisenhower took office, the CIA went into action, in partnership with the British. Eisenhower approved the plan, called Operation Ajax, of instigating a counter-coup designed to return the shah to total power. The director of the operation was Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson, Kermit Roosevelt, who headed the CIA’s Middle East division. The CIA paid out $1 million to hire demonstrators—mostly gang members, prostitutes, drug addicts, and thugs (Gelvin, 2005, p. 279; Fayazmanesh, 2003, p.4). This same tactic had been used successfully in Italy in 1948 to prevent the communists from winning the elections. Operation Ajax, mostly planned by Donald N. Wilbur, an architecture expert, was also supported by few ayatollahs, powerful landlords, and big merchants. The riots and chaos that ensued did the trick, and Mossadeq was forced to resign.

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In 1954, AIOC changed its name to British Petroleum. In 1959, BP expanded beyond the Middle East to Alaska, and in 1965 it was the first company to strike oil in the North Sea. Today, the oil company that began in Iran has gone global. It has oil wells and gas stations on all continents. At $1 million, the counter-coup in Iran seemed like a bargain for the US. But was it? Drawing a straight line from the overthrow of Mossadeq’s government in 1953 to the Iranian revolution of 1979—and perhaps to the events of September 11, 2001—we begin to see Operation Ajax’s ultimate cost in terms of money and lives. From 1953 to 1979, Iran was a BP prison, polluted and poor, run with an iron fist by the company and its puppet, the shah. Now it is drilling offshore near the US in the Gulf of Mexico. Many Americans in the region are beginning to feel the pain and outrage Iranians endured for 70 years—getting a small taste of how BP goes Beyond Politics.

http://counterpunch.com/kamiar06162010.html

[FiveGoodMen]

1. K&R

[Catherina]

Karma's a a bitch

"Many Americans in the region are beginning to feel the pain and outrage Iranians endured for 70 years—getting a small taste of how BP goes Beyond Politics."

Rec'd

[dipsydoodle]

2. It didn't begin in Iran

It actually began as the Burma Oil Co. If anything that article is simply a criticism of US overseas policy.

If this was the sixth then yours is the seventh : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8663247 I just searched Anglo Persian Oil in GD and came up with 9 just there.

I appreciate that dups happen in GD - but 9 !

Iran was a BP prison ? WTF - after the Shah was installed Iran was divvied up and British Petroleum actually had 40% of the drilling rights. As far as prisons go check CIA and SAVAK sometime.

[PufPuf23]

3. Sorry to have offended your sensibilities; I thought the article interesting

and would be to others at DU.

I did not realize that histories of BP had been posted before.

If you read the article itself, there is detail such as financing and drilling rights and SAVAK etc.

I think we are still free to post criticisms of US foreign policy.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Don't take it personally

Wasn't intended to be so. Apologies if that's how it read.

The article is best read in wiki from where it originated. That's more or less complete and factual.

It's been posted many times in the past to help demonstrate blowback to the USA from Iran and those posts preceeded the current event by years.

Coincidently a friend was in Tehran working for the Tehran Oil Co years before everything folded. He predicted the collapse and also the likely demise of anyone known to have been part of SAVAK.

:hi:

[PufPuf23]

5. Thanks for kindness! Posts fly through DU so fast one misses much nt