U.S.-Iranain power relations, politics and conflicts in the early 1970s

Andrew Scott Cooper, author of a the book The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East, was interviewed on the excellent Conversations With History series.

The hour-long interviewed covers a range of interesting topics and sheds light on some previously unknown aspects of the U.S.-Iranian political alliance at the time.

• just how essential the Shah (personally) and Iran were to U.S. foreign policy goals in the Middle East and Asia from the late 1960s through the 1970s
• how Nixon personally gave the green light for Iran to raise it's oil prices
• how the OPEC oil embargo and rising price of oil shifted the balance of power in the Shah's favour
• the Saudi role in worsening Iran's economy and weakening the Shah's position
• the personal relationships between the Shah, Nixon, Kissinger and surrounding figures

U.S. policies led to Iran regime change

Recent evidence suggests that the US policies towards Iran created the foundation from which the Iranian Revolution and hence the Islamic Republic of Iran could spring from. In other news, the Pope is a Catholic, water is wet and bears... There's nothing original in that.

It's more interesting to look at the forces within Iran that were contesting for power and the class structure/struggle there. Bazaaris locked out the dollar economy, jealous of a Shah's new upper class, clerics locked out of power, dirt-poor but hopeful believers hoping for the return of the Madhi, etc. As Iranians love to blame "the British" for much of what has befallen them, Westerners love to blame their own governments and intelligence agencies. Iranians were involved, profited from and backed the disturbances that lead to the Constitutional Revolution, the 1953 Coup and the fall of the Shah.

Iranians are not, and have never been, pawns in a grand imperial game. They have their own, diverse opinions, politics and motives. Constantly lumping them into a single homogenous group misreads everything and won't give you any insight into politics and peoples' lives in Iran.