The US had no investment in oil in the 1950's a few corporations did. Iran had no naval or armed forces to speak of in the 1950's nor did any other country in the area. Egypt, who had and has no oil had the cat by the tail... the Suez... and they closed it by sinking a few ships in it due to undue western "influence" over oil in the area.
There is never anything prudent about interfering in the internal policies of another nation over oil. Iraq who produces more and exports more oil than Iran then and again now was shut down for 8 years with little to no effect on the price of oil and the US ended up with squat... including the mysterious WMDs.The question of oil imports presented U.S. policymakers with a strategic dilemma. If what would be needed in an emergency was a rapid increase in production, oil in the ground was of little use, and even proved reserves would not be particularly helpful. The need could only be filled by spare productive capacity. Too high a level of imports would undercut such capacity by driving out all but the lowest cost producers. Moreover, reliance on imports, especially from the Middle East, was risky from a security standpoint because of the chronic instability of the region and its vulnerability to Soviet attack. However, restricting imports and encouraging the increased use of a nonrenewable resource would eventually under-mine the goal of maintaining spare productive capacity and preserving a national defense reserve.
Rising oil imports led to demands by domestic producers and the coal industry for protection against cheaper foreign oil. In contrast, the President's Materials Policy Commission, appointed by President Truman in January 1951 and headed by the chairman of the Columbia Broadcasting System, William S. Paley, had called for a policy of ensuring access to the lowest cost sources of supply wherever located. The commission's report, issued in June 1952, rejected national self-sufficiency in favor of interdependence, arguing that the United States had to be concerned about the needs of its allies for imported raw materials and about the needs of pro-Western less developed countries for markets for their products. Although the commission admitted that self-sufficiency in oil and other vital raw materials was possible, it argued that it would be very expensive, that the controls necessary to make it possible would interfere with trade, that it would undercut the goal of rebuilding and integrating western Europe and Japan under U.S. auspices, and that it would increase instability in the Third World by limiting export earnings.
Nevertheless, after attempts to implement voluntary oil import restrictions failed, the Eisenhower administration, in March 1959, imposed mandatory import quotas, with preferences given to Western Hemisphere sources. Although the Mandatory Oil Import Program (MOIP) seemed to be a victory for advocates of national self-sufficiency, the result, ironically, was to make the United States more dependent on oil imports in the long run because the restrictions meant that increases in U.S. consumption were met mainly by domestic production.
Great policies that are contingent first on the needs of others without assuring their own position continues to be the US policy today.
Read more: Coping with change - Oil http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/Oil-Coping-with-change.html#ixzz1VUL0FrouOn Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 7:50 AM, Keith In Tampa <keithintampa@gmail.com> wrote:
The United States has not only a duty, but an inherent right to "intervene" when its interests or citizens are threatened or somehow placed in jeopardy. Collectively, our Nation has used great restraint, and its not as if the United States is known for sticking its nose in other Nations' business or affairs, unless our liberty interests are somehow affected.The support of the Shah and his family was a prudent political move and kept stability in that Nation for almost thirty years. A Nation that America had an abundance of interests in, (as did Great Britain) as Iran supplied the bulk of crude oil to the West in the 1950s, and we had a ton of money invested in that oil, its exploration, the technology to retrieve it, and the supply chain to get the product to market. Just as important, geopolitically, Iran sits at the Straights of Hormuz, and it was critical especially during the 1950s and 1960s that the Persian Gulf and the Straights of Hormuz remain a viable shipping lane.--
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