The Associated Press published a pretty sloppy article on Iranian animosity toward Great Britain which is highlighted on Drudge.
Reporter Gregory Katz writes: “Iran is considering downgrading its diplomatic ties to Britain, the country’s former colonial ruler.”
Problem: Iran was never formally colonized. Britain (and, at times Russia) exerted informal influence. Indeed, some Iranian historians quip that Iran’s problem was that it got all the downsides to British influence without any of the benefits — railroads, dams, etc. — that would have come from colonial investment.
He quotes a professor, reportedly an advisor to the Obama campaign, as saying, “The BBC Persian Service is very popular and respected in Iran, and the BBC is working actively to increase its satellite coverage and foil Iranian attempts to block their signal, this has made the Iranian government very suspicious.”
Problem: This is true, to some extent. But the BBC Persian service also has a reputation among Iranians of not reporting straight news, but at times as being unduly influenced by Khatami’s apparatchiks or Tudeh sympathizers. They do a very good job, but “respected” may be too strong.
“Tensions go back as far as the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan, a British-brokered treaty that ceded Iranian land to Russia and painted all British intentions as devious in Iran’s eyes. In the 1860s, Britain helped draw Iran’s borders with India.”
Problem: Blaming Britain for a loss of territory to Russia is a real stretch. Especially since Britain aided Iran at the time, and the losses were confirmed in the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay which very much overshadowed Gulistan. The Anglo-Persian War, which confirmed the loss of Herat and Western Afghanistan ended in 1857. The frontier with India was not set until the Persian Boundary Commission mission in 1870-1872, led by Sir Frederic Goldsmid.
“In 1907, Britain and Russia shared Iran under the “spheres of influence” doctrine because an independent Iran was seen as a threat to their imperial interests. The next year, British Petroleum found huge quantities of oil in Iran, exploiting it for decades until the oil fields were nationalized in 1951″
Problem: The Shah granted William Knox D’Arcy an oil concession in 1901. He transferred his shares ot the Burmah Oil Company in 1905, and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (which was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and eventually evolved into British Petroleum, but not for a further half century) was formed. Oil was discovered at Masjed-i Suleiman in 1908 but did not really become commercially produced until after Winston Churchill, at the time a young naval official, spearheaded the drive to convert the British navy from coal to oil shortly before World War I.
Hooshang Amirahmadi, a professor at Oxford and Rutgers universities who has made frequent trips to Tehran, said some of Iran’s anger at Britain stems from the firmly held belief that Britain four years ago used its military presence in Basra, Iraq, to spur uprisings across the border inside Iran. “They argued that Britain was expanding its influence inside Iran,” he said. “That was a turning point.”
Problem: Amirahmadi has long advocated on behalf of the Islamic Republic, and has also told the Iranian press that Hezbollah and Hamas aren’t terrorist organizations. He’s not exactly a neutral observer. Was Iraq really a turning point? In the wake of the Islamic Revolution, the new regime briefly attached public urinals to the wall of the British embassy compound. More recently, but well before Iraq, we had the minor issue of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie? Of course, there have also been Iranian-sponsored kidnapping of British nationals in Lebanon?
Britain has always been front-and-center in Iranian conspiracy theories. It’s interesting that Khamenei is emphasizing Britain again, but this is hardly a new phenomenon. Sometimes his speeches are like Mad Libs: Insert name here [United States], [Great Britain], [Global Arrogance], [Zionist Entity], [NATO], [Denmark], etc. This is not a new phenomenon. Where has the AP been for 30 years?