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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Tue Jun 24, 2014, 06:39 AM Jun 2014

How WW I, British Greed, and Oil Distorted Modern Iran

http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/british-distorted-modern.html

How WW I, British Greed, and Oil Distorted Modern Iran
By contributors | Jun. 24, 2014
By Farhad Malekafzali

With one hundredth anniversary of the start of WWI fast approaching, the consequences of the war for Iran deserves attention.

When it comes to European role in shaping Middle East, the better-known story is what happened in the Arab parts of that region.

There the Anglo-French machinations planted the seeds of instability and conflict among the present day Arab states and between Arabs and Israelis. The British encouraged and assisted Arabs of the Ottoman Empire to rise against their Turkish masters who were allies of Germany and Austria, promising them in return their independence in a unified state. Simultaneously and in secret, the British were dividing the same territories between themselves and their wartime allies (The Sykes-Picot Agreement) and promising Palestine to European Zionists. After the end of the War, the British and the French established their control over these so-called Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. British and French diplomats drew boundaries of new centralized states of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. For each, quasi-state institutions were established so these future states would act as clients of their former colonial masters after independence.

Less known is how the War changed the direction of Iran’s history. Iran suffered the ravages of the war as Ottoman and Russian forces fought each other on its territory. An estimated quarter of the population in the northwestern parts of the country perished as result of war related famines. In the years immediately following the end of the War, British intervention was to also change the direction of Iran’s history.
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