British oil companies and the government controlled the oil in Iraq and Iran. Mossadeq was elected as the prime minister of Iran and he nationalized Iranian oil because the British were cheating Iran in revenues and treated the Iranian workers worse than animals. The scheming but emasculated British (after WW2), played on the fear of communism of the paranoid US Secretary of State Dulles and his brother who headed the CIA. They in turn persuaded Eisenhower to overthrow the legitimate government of Iran to install the cowardly Shah (who had run away in fear) as an absolute monarch. In return the Americans got a share in the Iranian oil company. Earlier president FDR had signed a deal taking control of Saudi oil for a pittance from the foolish Saudi king, and the promise of protecting his power and Palestinian rights. His successor Truman betrayed the Saudi king by supporting the formation of Israel to appease American Jewish voters. The leftist populist General Qasim of Iraq was overthrown by the CIA and Saddam was installed as the Iraqi leader nearly twenty years later.
