Oil in Anglo-Iranian relations: 1901-1954

This thesis aims to analyze the politico-economic characteristics of the relations between the United Kingdom, the hegemonic power of that time, and Iran, which was ranked as a Third World country, in a historical context. Besides, it is aimed to shed light on the foreign policy of the United Kingdom towards Iran, which sets an early strategical example for the security of oil supply in the world, as the bilateral relations were dominated by the existence of rich oil reserves in Iran. Within this direction, our study focuses on the determinative role of oil in the United Kingdom-Iran relations between 1901 and 1954. As a consequence, we hypothesize that as a strategic commodity in the United Kingdom-Iran relations, just as in the current bilateral relations and the international structure, oil became determinant both as an economical ?goal? and a political ?tool? between 1901 and 1954. Although the thesis addresses the course of the United Kingdom-Iran relations over the issue of oil, it also discusses the historical, economical and political dimensions of the bilateral relations. The thesis is significant in terms of having a relevant actuality and drawing an analogy to the current energy and security problems in international relations and its parallelism with national and international policies towards solving those problems. Keywords: Oil, United Kingdom-Iran Relations, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Nationalization of Oil, Operation Ajax