Amid all the advertisements for gas-guzzling cars, there is an interesting editorial from LIFE magazine, dated May 21, 1951. The title:
At that time, because of its location and its petroleum, Iran was caught between two great millstones of conflicting ideologies, Capitalism and Communism.
Britain, heavily reliant on Iranian oil, had directly controlled the oil monopoly through the British Anglo-Iranian Oil company (later to become BP) but now, suddenly the rules of the game had changed.The author neatly summarized the lead-up to the foreign policy disaster like this:
