British Influence in Iran

Following the expansion of the influence of the Russian Empire and its expansionism in the south on the one hand and the significant British penetration into Iran from the south in addition to the colonization of the Indian subcontinent on the other, Iran became a battleground for the interests of the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire. Since 1857, Iran was aground in which economic and diplomatic rivalries between the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom took place. The most effective factors in this phenomenon were increasing Russian-British rivalry over Iranian markets and Iran’s geopolitical position which had strategic significance for the two countries.

 

During the period from 1857 to 1907, British and Russian rivalry was increased in Iran in an attempt to gain more economic privileges and influence.

 

During this period, the United Kingdom gained considerable privileges in Iran. During the reign of Naser al-Din Shah, many concessionary rights were granted to foreigners such that this era is called the age of foreign concessions. The Russian Empire was considered the second country in terms of receiving concessionary rights. add to these concessions the treaties that had imposed heavy territorial losses on Iran. Although the Russians failed to gain concessions from the Iranian government as much as the British did, they worked to make a balance in this regard to gain more concessions.

 

Thus, the United Kingdom gained m more influence in Iran, yet this country was still of great importance to London since the United Kingdom viewed Iran as a bulwark against the threats made by other rival powers against the British colonies in South Asia.

 

In fact, it is only since the early twentieth century when the British interest in Iran’s oil was increased, that the geopolitical importance of Iran in granting access to India has been partly affected by the increase of British direct interests in Iran.

 

Following its territorial expansion within Iran, the Russian Empire sought to expand its sphere of influence in this country, while the United Kingdom sought to increase its influence in Iran at the expense of the Russian Empire. Such measures resulted in the increasing of the common threats in Europe for these two colonial powers. In addition, they were the cause of the 1907 convention based on which Iran was divided into three separate zones; therefore, all of northern part of Iran was designated as an exclusive sphere of influence for Russian interests, a smaller zone in southeastern Iran became an exclusive sphere for the United Kingdom and the area separating these two spheres was designated as a neutral zone.

 

Russian and British Influence in Iran Through the 1907 Convention

 

This agreement ended the long-standing rivalry in central Asia between the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire. Based on the convention, the Russian Empire recognized the southern part of Iran as the British sphere of influence and all of the northern part of the country was designated as an exclusive sphere of influence for Russian interests. In addition, the area separating these two spheres, the central part of Iran, was designated as a buffer and neutral zone where both countries could compete for influence and commercial privileges. The 1907 convention somehow put an end to the shaky British-Russian relations by solidifying boundaries that identified respective control over their sphere of influence. Edward Brown believes that the convention is the result of years of rivalry between the two great powers of the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom to gain influence in Iran. Nonetheless, this agreement was not the end of the conflict between the two great powers in Iran.

 

The rivalry between the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom regarding Iran could be seen during the Constitutional Revolution of Iran. British support of the constitutionalists and Russian support of Mohammad Ali Shah along with the role that Russians played in attacking the Iranian parliament on June 23, 1908, were clear signs of the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom’s struggle to influence the political structure of power in Iran.

 

The Russian-British Competition in the Light of Morgan Shuster’s Mission

 

The influence and interference of the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom during the Constitutional Revolution of Iran and the 1907 convention afterward turned Iran into a semi-colony. But Iran was trying to use other great powers against the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire. In 1911, Iran hired the American Morgan Shuster to help manage the country’s financial position.

 

The hiring of Morgan Shuster reflected a tendency towards using a third power to counter Russian and British influence. Morgan Shuster has taken charge of reforming the country’s financial affairs. The appointment of Shuster illustrated the inability of the Iranian government to independently regulate the financial and administrative affairs of the country.

 

To that end, the United States seemed to be a good option, as, unlike the Russian Empire, it was far from Iran and had no further colonial background in this country. The Russian Empire and the United Kingdom suggested using experts from Belgium or the Netherlands that were far smaller than the United States, but Iran rejected their offer. The United States had become a major power, whereas the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire were reluctant to see another power interfering in Iran’s domestic affairs.

 

The Russian Empire and the United Kingdom Penetrating Iran in the Light of World War I

 

When World War I broke out in 1914, Iran’s role in geopolitical calculations of large powers increased the intensity of their competition over Iran. The United Kingdom, the Russian Empire, and France went to war against Germany, and in the vicinity of Iran, the Ottoman Empire joined Germany. In November 1914, Iran officially declared neutrality. But Iran’s geopolitical, geostrategic and economic significance to the United Kingdom and other major powers involved in the war has affected the country’s role in the war in a way that it was no longer seen as a neutral party.

 

In addition to Iran’s old geopolitical role in granting the Western powers and the Russian Empire access to the Indian subcontinent and maritime routes in the south respectively, the Iranian oil played a major role in supplying the British naval forces.

 

Following the October Revolution in the Russian Empire in 1917, the tsarist regime was overthrown and a Communist Soviet system of governance began to rule over the country. The Soviet attitude towards Iran in the aftermath of the World War was influenced by tactical factors. On the one hand, the Soviet Union condemned the imperialist policies of the tsars, and on the other hand, it supported the anti-government communist forces inside Iran in an attempt to counter its major Western rivals.

 

At the end of the first World War, the United Kingdom, which had ended up as the winner, completed and consolidated its dominance in Iran. To prevent the Soviets from penetrating the Indian subcontinent and Mesopotamia, the United Kingdom decided to turn Iran into a buffer state. Thus pretending to be a friend and under the pretext of stabilizing the situation in Iran, the United Kingdom imposed the 1919 agreement on Iran. The architect of the agreement was Lord Curzon the British foreign secretary who was regarded as a prominent expert in Iran’s affairs at the time.

 

The United Kingdom tried to exploit the short-term absence of the Soviets in Iran that occurred due to the October Revolution seeking to entirely turn Iran into its sphere of influence. The 1919 agreement can be assessed in this respect, but in the absence of direct Soviet presence, it was the Iranian forces that opposed the 1919 agreement. Within Iran, the constitutional movement advocated the formation of a strong government against foreign influence.

 

The constitutionalists opposed the interference of the foreign powers in Iran’s internal affairs. As a result of civil unrest and the United Kingdom’s struggles to maintain its influence in Iran, Sayyed Ziaoddin Tabatabai launched a coup with the help of the United Kingdom and Reza Khan. Immediately after the victory of the coup, Reza Khan found a strong position among the coup plotters, and finally, on October 31, 1925, Iran’s Constituent Assembly deposed the Qajar dynasty and appointed Reza Pahlavi as the legal monarch of Iran.

 

In domestic politics, while taking a nationalist stance Reza Shah set out to suppress the parties who opposed the authority of the central government. Also, as far as foreign policy is concerned, Reza Shah emphasized the independence of the country from the two great powers namely the Russian Empire and the United Kingdom.

 

Russian and British influence in Iran in the light of World War II

 

In September 1939, after the War of great powers broke out again throughout the European continent, Iran declared neutrality as it did at the time of World War I. Likewise, on June 26, 1941, during the Soviet and German war, Iran declared neutrality. However, similar to the time of the first war that took place between Great Powers, Iran was of importance for the parties involved in the war from a geopolitical, geo-strategical and economic aspect.

 

Although, comparing to the period of World War I, Iran had become stronger in military and political aspects, but still it was not powerful enough to defend its political authority and territorial integrity against the interference of great powers or to defend its declared position of neutrality.

 

On August 25, 1941, Soviet and British troops entered Iranian territory similar to the time of World War I. On August 25, 1941, the Allied forces entered Iranian territory under the pretext of the presence of a German spy in the country.

 

The Soviet Union invaded from the north and northeast, the British Royal Navy attacked from the Persian Gulf while other British Commonwealth forces came by land and air from the west, occupying different cities. The Iranian army was dissolved and Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi whom the Allied agreed to replace his father as Shah.

 

The Decline Of Direct Soviet and British Influence in Iran

 

During the reign of Reza Shah, Iran was a battleground for the interests of the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire. In the meantime, the country sought to form a coalition with Germany as an emerging power. However, the concerns over the German influence in Iran affected the large British and Russian calculations about Iran’s military occupation. Similarly, during the Constitutional Revolution, the Russian and British support for Muhammad Ali Shah and constitutionalists respectively were representing the British and Russian struggles over their sphere of influence.

 

On the one hand, the rise of political nationalism became a challenge to the influence of the great foreign powers in Iran’s internal affairs, and on the other hand, the global equations of power and the internal developments affected the sphere of influence of the Western powers in Iran. As the October Revolution in 1917 put an end to the Tsarist Russian influence in Iran in a way that led to the British attempt to fill the subsequent vacuum.

 

However, the Soviet Union, in conjunction with the Communist and Communist forces, sought to expand its influence in Iran, which eventually led to the arrival and deployment of the Soviet troops in the country during World War II. The Soviet was considered the most dangerous threat to Iran’s political nationalist elite. Iran decided to ask help from foreign powers in confronting the Soviet Union, which, as a major power, was a threat to Iranian sovereignty due to its aggressive intentions.

 

Eventually, in the aftermath of internal opposition and United States and British fears of Communist expansionism within the Iranian territory, the Soviet inevitably withdrew its troops and, following the resignation of the prime minister, Ahmad Qavam, the dream of preserving and expanding its concessions through the Qavam-Sadchikov agreement did not come true. Therefore, Iran’s foreign policy focused on the second goal, the eradication of British influence, which was more complex and much more difficult than the first one. British influence in Iran was much more radical than it seemed. In addition, Iran had counteracted the threat of the Soviet Union during the Cold War at the international level using the United States fear of Soviet expansionism which was not the case for the United Kingdom. The internal struggles during 1953 led to the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, and the prime minister ordered the confiscation of the Oil Company assets in favour of the newly established Iranian National Oil Company.

 

The difficulties of eradicating the British influence from Iran’s oil economy added to Mosaddeq’s problems and the fear of the danger of the Soviet influence in case of the success of communist forces and, on the other hand, the United States’ support for the United Kingdom despite initial stances in favour of Iran eventually led to the 1953 coup and the collapse of Mosaddeq’s government.

 

But Mosaddeq’s overthrow in 1953 coincided with the collapse of the British colonial empire and the emergence of the United States, and hence the United Kingdom never succeeded in reviving its colonial influence in Iran. The decline of the British Empire in the Persian Gulf was accompanied by increased United States influence in this geopolitical area.

Archive of The Enemies of the Islamic Revolution