POWER RIVALRY FOR IRAN'S OIL

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5301, 14 January 1947, Page 3

POWER RIVALRY FOR IRAN'S OIL

RUSSIAN4NSP1RED PLAN TO OUST BRITISH AHWAZ, Iran. In this south-west corner of Iran, where the Mesopotamian desert sweeps up into the forbidding foothills of the nerve centres of the Middle East. Through great I j3ipe liiles, rtmning 150 miles across the desert, 14,000= | I 000 tons of oil a year pass through the world's largest j single unit refinery at Abadan, down the Persian Gulf to the world at large, states Walter Lucas in the Christian Science Monitor.

This is the Anglo-Irandan Oil Company, which in treaty and by agreements with the Iranfeyi Government is allowed to exploit the oil resources of this area. It is the bigges;. oil company of the Middle East. It provides in royalties a large share of 'Iran's internal revenues and is one of Great Britair's biggest assets for the acquirements of badly needed foreign exehange. This great oil company in the wilds of Iran is one of the frontier posts where western democratic and eastern democratic commercial intevests met. It is now under attack by the forces of Communism. What happens in this Iranian province of Khuzistan, with its wealth of oil, is not solely a British concern. A few hours away, as the plane flies, lie the American fields in Bahj rein and Saudi Arabia, sheltered for the moment behind the bulwark of British interests in the Persian Gulf. As the owr.ers of 42 per cent. of the estimated oil reserves in the Middle East, America is, willy nilly, vitally oor.cerned. I I Creating a Vacuum The happenings of the past year around Ahwaz show without any possible shadow of douht that there is a well-organised and active plot to try and prise, in the first instance, the British out. It is not very difficult to guess who would fill the vacuum if the British left. The Russians have always wanted outlets to warm water seas. This explains, for instance, their ir.terest in Trieste and the Dardanelles. It explains, too, what lias recently happened along the Shatt-el-Arah through which deboucli waters of the great rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates into the Persian Gulf. But here there is something more than a warm water port at Basra. There is oil in almost inexhaustible quantities. Russia wants oil for itself. It also wants, if possible, to deprive others of oil for its own strategic I purposes. It is difficult to see any other reascn than these for the growing pressure which has been exerted by the Soviets on Iran and the territories that fringe the Persian and Iraqi oil belt. In the first place the Russians, rine months ago, extracted from the Iranian Prime Minister, with the threat of brute force, a concession for exploitation of oil over a vast territory in the northern pare of the country. At the same time there has heen a strong effort to extend Russian infiiicuce cucross the !western borders of Iran an-d into southern Iran — in fact into those regions where the Western Allies have their great oil interests. Big Power Strategy The Russians have used all sorts of tools for their purpose. They have used the Russian-supported semi-autonomous sta.te of Azerhaijan : and the restless ICurdish tribes for ' spreading their influence around the eastern borders of Turkey and north- : eastern Ira'q. 'Ti^ey hajve used the ; Palestine question, especially the 1 whole-hearted American support for i ■ 1 1 m g— ■Bnnoi ■! ■i~WTrwwwwMiwBiMn»r'irgrrTnTr*"rM^'

1 a Jewish state, to whip up animosity j against the United States and Britain ' in the Arab v/orld. Finally, the Sovietsupported Tudeh Party in Iran has been employed as the spearhead of the attack against the Anglo-Iranian oil ( fields in Khurzistan. During the past year three interesting facts have heen observable in regard to the oil issue. | First, there has been a virulent and sustained attack in the leftAving Iranian press, and also in the Moscow radio, against British fficials generally and against certain members of the Anglo-Iran-ian company in particular. The charges brought topple over the -brink of phantasy and they are levelled principally against those officials who dre thought to know too much. Second, in Ahwaz which is the nerve centre of the British oil interests, there is a Russian consulate with 20 or more employees. Over the vvay, the | British Consul-General makes do with | one assistant and four clerks. Brit- ! ish commercial interests there are immense (and not only concerned with oil). Russians interes s are almost nil, now that the traffic in Lend-Lease aid to Russia has dried up. Part of General Plan Third is the too obvious fact that j the two st-rikes of May an:l July , of this year ijn the Angtlo-L.,anian ' oil fields had little to do with indus- j trial disputes or conditions of pay j and labour. They were of a political nature. Most of the leaders were not genuine •repnes^rtatives |of tfhe coirj;any's employees. They rvvore young lmen of the Tudeh Party who had been in- ■ sinuated into the company's service. , Some were Russian trainad and some of them were from the Russan supported semi-autnomous state of Azerhaijan. ; Fourth is that strikes in the oil lields at Mosul and Kirkuk broke ou~ at about the same" time and showed every evidence that they were a part of a general plan. For the moment the position in j the Iranian. oil-fields is cairn. The | Iranian Government took energetic I steps and imposed martial law in the district and imprisoned or dei pcrted most of the leaders. But it can be said that this cairn is only a pause until the political 'position in Iran becomes defii • d. Once again; as in eastern Europe and in China, there is a clash betwecn two ideological worlds. Even if it is primai'ily oil that the Russians want, they always have and still do seek for domination in Iran. The eontrol of the port of Basra and an entry into the Indian Ocean through the Persian Gulf comes within the scope of Russia's conception of its strategic security. If it can gain political control of Iran through its allies or satellites, the Tudeh Party ani the Azerbai'fan Democratic Party, it is going- to be very difficult to prevent Russian influence from seeping over the Middle East to the detriment both of the Middle Eastern States and of the Western Allies to whom these States have looked for help and support in the past.