 This is ThinkTech, more specifically, this is History Lens, and we are so happy that John Davidan can join us today. He's Professor of History at HPU, and today we're going to talk about Iran, which is so totally relevant. We're going to find out what happened here with U.S. and Iran over the 20th century and into the 21st century. We need to know about this to understand the context of the confrontation that's going on right now. Hi, John. How are you? Jay. Jay, I'm good. First of all, I want to, quite frankly, apologize to my listening audience. I took a hiatus here from History Lens, and I'm back. So we're going to do a couple of shows maybe on the Iran crisis, and then we're going to move on. We'll probably look at the history of economic crises, and so we should have some very interesting shows this spring. Yeah, it's looking forward. Yeah, good to see you, Jay. Same. So let's talk about Iran. Iran is, at least last week, it was on everybody's minds. It's funny how the fickle finger of the media moves on, but we should still look back. We should still figure out where we are with Iran. So where have we been? How did it all start? The relationship between the U.S. and Iran has been very complex for a long time. Talk about it, will you? Yeah. So, right. It's the midst of this crisis with Iran, and it doesn't look like it's going to become a war, but it's very serious, actually. It could have easily become a war in the last couple of weeks. There is an intense amount of distrust between these two nations. And that should actually, I mean, most Americans would assume, oh, this is normal. This is the way it should be, right? We don't trust the Iranians. Come on. We don't trust Islamic people. They're Middle Easterners. We just don't trust them. The interesting thing is Iran is one of few democracies in the Middle East. I say it again. Iran is a democracy. It's also a theocracy, so it's got this kind of mixed form of government between the two, but so this is, it's a very interesting place. Iran is a place that in the 1970s and the 1980s had a very active middle class, well educated, somewhat wealthy, politically active, and I mean, that's declined certainly since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but still you have this very outward-looking people in Iran who are very interested in what's going on in the West. I think there was a study a few years ago that said that Iran had more satellite dishes than anywhere else in the Middle East, very engaged with the media of the West, the popular culture of the West. So when you talk to an Iranian who's come from Iran and been born and raised in Iran, he or she seems to be almost Western. They are, they sound like, act like, think like Western people. That's the remark. Exactly. Here's the theocracy, which they may or may not agree with, but they are essentially Westerners. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. I mean, this is a country that modernized between World War II and 1979, and you know, it's so it's like I say, it's a surprise that this there's this level of tension between countries that actually should be at least respectful to each other and maybe even partners. But so then the question is, why is this the case? Why are these tensions there when they shouldn't be? And so we're going to go back into history and we're going to, we're going to find out why Iran and the United States, why these letters, so such deep animosity between the government. So. Yes. Okay. So, so really, Jay, it boils down to one word. Guess what word that is. Let me make a wild guess, John. Oil. Oil. Yeah. Jay, you win the prize. Yeah. So oil is exceedingly, it's an exceedingly important part of the economy of Iran. It constitutes maybe maybe 80% of all of Iran's revenue. It was if the oil production in Iran was in some ways a break on Iran's modernization. There were several plans throughout the 20th century to try to modernize Iran and really and use oil revenues to do that modernization and none of them really worked. So Iran today is still a country like Venezuela in some ways. It's very dependent upon oil, very dependent upon those revenues. So where did this start and when did it start? So it started in 1912 when oil was discovered in Iran and an oil company was established in Iran. It was then called Persia and the Iranians, the Persians, as they were called, did not own this oil. Okay. The discovery was made by a person named Sir Darcy and we actually have a picture of him if you want to pull up image one, there he is. So this is the guy who actually made the discovery of oil in Iran and he helped to set up a company called Anglo-Persian and this company, even though the oil was in Iran, the company was not in Iran. The company was actually founded in Great Britain and it was actually owned a majority by the British government. And they decided, the British government decided right before World War I to go off of oil but to use, pardon me, to go off of coal but to use oil in their naval fleet and they decided this because with Anglo-Persian, this new oil company, they actually had access to oil. So the Iranians had oil and yet they didn't have oil because the British actually controlled oil there. Now, in this early period, the British paid royalties to the Iranians by terms of an agreement, a royalty agreement but the amount of money that the British were making off of this oil was much greater than the revenues they paid. In fact, I think in 1948, the sum of the revenues of the Anglo-Persian oil was greater sorry, the taxes that Anglo-Persian paid to the British government was greater than the revenues they paid to Iran. So there was this enormous amount of wealth that was being sucked out of Iran by the British. And that's the other part of the story. Sounds like expectation to me, John. Well, I mean, it was part of British imperialism, quite frankly. And that's the other part of the story that we don't hear much about. That's the British, Iranian animus against the British in the 20th century. It's very deep. It's much deeper than their animus against the United States. So the company was set up and became a going concern. The British made a lot of money off of this company. Iranians started fighting back in the 1930s. They complained to the British government. They said, look, these revenues are not enough. And so the British had to step back and sign an agreement that gave the Iranians more revenues. And then after World War II, the British government, understanding now that it was no longer the biggest stick around that the United States and the American oil companies were the biggest stick around, the British negotiated agreement by which the United States actually got a share in the oil of Iran. It became a consortium between Anglo-Persian and American oil companies. Why did the American oil companies have the leverage to require that? Well, simply because they were by this time the largest oil companies in the world, the most profitable and largest in the world. And the British felt that they didn't want to get left behind by these companies. So it was the British decision. It wasn't an American decision, but the British decided, hey, we're going to sign this. We're going to allow the Americans into the Iranian market because there's safety in that. Because the Iranians just couldn't target, couldn't just target the British on this. They'd have to look at other entities that were involved. So this agreement goes into effect, I believe it is 1948. And soon after, Iran catches what I'll call the oil nationalism bug. Now, this is a bug that the Mexican government had caught early in the 20th century. It's a bug that the Venezuelan government was catching in the 1940s and 50s. But the Iranians are quite early to this idea that the resource in their country and under their soil actually belongs to them. I know that sounds funny, right? Today we, okay, of course it belongs to Iran. It's Iranian oil. But back then, you actually had to assert sovereign rights over oil. And eventually, the oil companies actually recognize this part of it. This is not such a big problem. It sounds like it was the end of oil imperialism. You have imperialism for land, I suppose, for control over the country. And then you move to resources like oil and you retain that for as long as you can. There's lots of money in it. And then finally, the country realizes that you're just doing resource imperialism and they have to take charge of their own resources. And that's what happened all over the world, including Africa too, right? That's right. So this is, I would say this is the beginning of the end. Iran is, after Mexico is the second country in the world to declare to what we call, is to nationalize their oil. And they did this in 1948. Then in 1951, they elect a new prime minister, a guy named Mohamed Mossadeq. Mossadeq is an oil nationalist. So it was no surprise that he was elected, but, and Mossadeq is a very, you know, he's elected president, he's a popular guy. And he's also making Westerners angry because as part of this oil nationalization, the Iranian government actually takes over the oil facilities at the Abadan oil refinery. And they're planning to take over the other facilities at these, you know, these other, you know, the pumping stations and the refineries. So, so the British take over, do you mean appropriate? Take over by force? Yes. And invite the British staff members, the British oil workers out of the country. It's like, okay, you're done and we're in. So this was, yeah, this was the concrete nationalization of Iranian oil. And this made the British, not the Americans, but the British very angry. And so the British decide to, first of all, they put an embargo on Iranian oil. They send warships to the Persian Gulf and they actually refuse to, you know, they don't allow Iranian oil to leave port. And the other thing that happens is the British are thinking about going to war against Iran to take care of this issue. The Americans say no, so ultimately the British do not. But the other thing that's going on here, so you have oil nationally, and this is, this pits the British against the Iranians. But you also have the Cold War going on. Cold War is brand new. The Soviet Union actually occupied Northern Iran during World War II. And only in 1946 had they withdrawn from Northern Iran and Azerbaijan. So the Iranians, I mean, which way are they going to, you know, twist? Which way are they going to go? Are they going to go towards the Soviets? Are they going to stay with the West and with Great Britain and the United States? So the British are also very concerned about losing, potentially losing Iran. So that's another reason why the British were acting very strongly and threatened war against Iran in 1951. And then this crisis between Great Britain and Iran spreads. It spreads to the United States. And then in 1952, you have the election of a new president, Dwight D. Eisenhower in the United States. And Eisenhower is going to be tough, a tougher guy on this kind of thing. Going to draw the line against the Soviets. And so Eisenhower sends his man to Iran, actually an operative of the CIA. His name is Kermit Roosevelt. And he is, in fact, the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, one of our presidents. If we could bring a picture of Kermit Roosevelt up. Yeah, there's Kermit. So Kermit spent some time in the Middle East. You can see there by his outfit, you know, he was all decked out for the Middle East. But he was at that point in 1952 and then in 1953, he was actually working for the CIA as an operative in the Middle East. One of his main kind of areas of responsibility was Iran. And so Kermit Roosevelt enters Iran and he brings these big satchels with him. And the question is, what was in the satchels? Jay, any ideas? No, but it's a cliffhanger, John. And because it's a cliffhanger, we're going to take a short break. So everybody watching will wonder and wait and come back to us one minute from now and find out what was in Kermit's satchels. John David and history professor. Wow, what a story. We'll be right back. Hi, guys, I'm your host, Lillian Cumick from Lillian's Vegan World. And I come to you live every second Friday from 3 p.m. And this is the show where I talk about the plant-based lifestyle and veganism. So we go through recipes, some upcoming events, information about health regarding your health. And just some ideas on how you can have a better lifestyle, eat healthier and have fun at the same time. So do join me. I look forward to seeing you and aloha. Aloha, y'all. My name is Mitch Ewan. I'm from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, and I'm the host of Hawaii, the state of clean energy. We're on every Wednesday at four o'clock. And we hope that we have interesting guests who talk to us about various energy things that are happening in Hawaii all the way from PV to windmills to hydrogen, close to my heart, electric buses and electric vehicles. So please dial in every Wednesday at four o'clock on Hawaii, the state of clean energy. Aloha. OK, we're back. We're live with John David. And I couldn't wait to get back because I wanted to find out what was in Kermit's satchels. Right. It's Jay. It's that currency of currencies. There were bags of money in the satchels. And why was Kermit Roosevelt, the CIA operative, carrying bags of money into Iran? Well, there was a plan. The plan was called Operation Ajax. And the plan was to destabilize the government of Mossadec. And then get him out and replace him with somebody they were more amenable to, like the Shah, the Shah of Iran, who had been deposed from Iran and was living abroad. So Kermit uses the money in the satchel to pay people off on the street to essentially it's these are people are our protesters and they could care less about politics, but they're being paid to engage in protesters against the government of Mossadec. So if we could bring up, there's another image here. Can we can bring up the protest image? OK, that's Mossadec. Then that's a good one because there he is. And Mossadec is a very interesting character because he's a guy who's he's a very emotional guy. He's you could see there he's giving a passionate speech to his citizens. He's also a very kind of a flighty guy. He's when things get really rough, Mossadec goes to bed. So in hopes that things, you know, the rough times will pass. So but if you can bring up the other slide, this is the next slide is a slide. This is a protest slide. This is actually anti Mossadec protesters who have more than likely that you see you look in that crowd. Those people have more than likely been paid off by Kermit Roosevelt to participate in this rose in this protest. And this is how the government of Mossadec falls. This is so interesting. Going in the protests, you know, we've been thinking that the United States is pure as the driven snow. Yeah, never pay protesters. It would never pay to bring a regime down this way. OK, now you're funny, Jay. That's Putin. That's Putin doing. Yeah, but now you're now you're now you're being funny. OK, you know, I'm sorry, I can't take this seriously. Right. So the problem is the United States has done this. We still do it. So yeah. So so we deposed Mossadec. We brought the Shaw back in the Shaw of Iran, whose whose father really founded the monarchy. Honestly, it's it's not much of a monarchy at all. It's it's actually I mean, his father founded the monarchy in the 1920s. It's kind of made up. And and so there's not much legitimacy behind it. It's just convenient for the Americans, because now they need a leader. They've deposed the other leaders. So you bring back the Shaw. OK, so the Shaw becomes a real he's very authoritarian. I mean, Iran does actually not have a democracy at this point. They've lost their democracy to the Shaw. And he's he's somebody who is he's, you know, he he jails dissenters. He covarts with other dictators. But he does have a very strong alliance in the United States. And so the Shaw and he's immensely unpopular in Iran. As as as we talked about before the show, you know, Iran is this country that has a growing middle class in the 1960s and the 1970s. They have some prosperity with the oil. You have a good university system. And so Iran is on more of a path to Westernization than maybe any other country in the Middle East. Now, they do have this issue of the mullahs. The conservative religious elites who have at times in the history of Persia have actually run things. So there's always been this tension between the secular rule and the in the religious role. But so the Shaw actually puts down the mullahs and they have no power under him. And he's I mean, he tortures them. And he makes them actually into very popular people because we're talking about the religion, the Islamic religious leaders. He makes them very popular because they're put upon there, they're there, you know, they're persecuted by by the Shaw. And so in 1979, the Shaw reaches the end of the line and a rebellion breaks out. And of course, this is the 1979 Islamic rebellion that takes place in Iran, which ends in the shaping of this Iranian state, which is a mixed democracy and theocracy. Now, Americans, you know, most Americans, I think, don't understand that Iran is still an active democracy today. Well, it's hard to understand that. It's hard to understand democracy, which is also a theocracy. You know, I mean, we were taught over our lifetime that two are essentially inconsistent when you have a religion. That's true. That's true that we were taught that. But but it works in the Iranian case. It actually appeases the mullahs and then they can run private lives, private behavior. And then the the everyday running of the government actually happens through the parliament, through departments and through the president's office and the prime minister's office. So Iran does, in fact, have a functioning democracy. Now, it's complicated because of the because of the the the itola and the the mullahs and the, you know, the military that's grown up on the the religious side of the government. So the the the the so-called Iranian guards, right? You know, so this was just was this a bloody a bloody experience this transition where the shore was thrown out, and I suppose because by and large, it was not. No, it was a popular rebellion. So no, there was not an intense civil war that took place afterwards. What happens is of wealthy Iranians who have means, they immigrate. They go outside the country. So you see this intense immigration to Scandinavia, to the United States, to other parts of Europe. So that's one of the things that happens is the opponents of the of the itola and they actually leave the country and that's too bad. But so so the situation between the United States in Iran, that tension then because they have been allies in the 1970s. I mean, Jimmy Carter, president of the United States actually attends a big celebration that the Shaw holds in, I believe it's in 1977 or 78 out in the middle of the desert, celebrating the thousand year anniversary of the kingdom of Persia. And Carter attends that. And so the Shaw has got this kind of outward legitimacy, but he has no legitimacy with his people. So when the rebellion takes place, the American reputation in Iran also, it disappears like the Shaw. You have a picture of Jimmy Carter, don't you? One of your slides. Yeah, I do actually so during, so what, okay. This is a picture of Jimmy Carter and Elbrus Langen, who by the way is actually born and raised in my hometown of, right near my hometown of Butterfield, Minnesota. Langen was the charge to fare in Iran when the hostage crisis occurred, when the hostages were taken. He actually was the leader of the hostages and tried to, you know, keep them, keep morale up. And it did a great job and I claimed some credit because he was from my hometown. Okay, I can't claim any credit, but he in fact was from my hometown in Southern Minnesota. So there he is with Jimmy Carter after the hostages have been released. I see, but in fact the hostages were not released until right after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, yeah. Well, no, they were actually released. Actually, I'm not sure about the timing of that, but that picture would indicate that, I mean, Jimmy Carter, why is he meeting with them if he's no longer in office? Yes, yes. I think they were in fact released right before Reagan took office. A deal that was negotiated by the incoming Reagan administration. I see, okay. So you have this Islamic rebellion and it means that the United States is no longer gonna have influence in Iran. So this is a big problem for the United States. And, you know, the oil continues. The oil continues to be an important issue, but so you have Operation Ajax in which, you know, in 1953 in which a duly elected president of Iran was deposed by the United States. That's very clear. There's no second guessing or saying, oh, that's not true. That's absolute historical fact. And so this turns many Iranians against the United States. And then you have this Islamic rebellion that takes place and you have the hostage situation and, oh, this exacerbates bad feelings between the United States and Iran. And so if you want- And this turns the United States of people in the street in the United States against Iran. All of a sudden, you know, it was very clear to everybody that they must be a rogue nation. They were no longer our friend. And that has had a big shadow from then till now. We only have a minute left, John. And I wonder if you said you were gonna talk about other elements of the history between the U.S. and Iran. Could you give us a praisey on what's gonna do next time in the next show? Yeah, so actually, I think in the next show I might invite a friend in who was a real expert on Iran, on that region. And we'll dig more into depth on the, for instance, the Iran-Iraq war. What was the U.S. role in this? The Iran-Contra incident affair in the Reagan presidency where the actual, so where the United States actually attempted to sell arms to Iran, they're supposed to, you know, the supposed devil, the evil empire. And then of course, the time period after the 9-11 attacks when the Bush administration identified or labeled Iran, Syria, and North Korea as the new axis of evil. There's miles to go, there's miles to go before we reach current times. I mean, there's a lot more to talk about. Yeah, Iran is an important country in the Middle East. It's still, it's a major oil producer in the Middle East and it's a place that still has the potential to be a stabilizer in the Middle East. Ah, from your lips to God's ears, yeah. Okay, John, David and HPU history professor. My favorite history professor. So we'll be back next time. Now you're talking. Thank you so much, John. All right, take care, Jay. Bye-bye.