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5.8  Nationalism

For many centuries oil seepages were to be found across the middle east and used by the local inhabitants for a variety of purposes. In the west of Persia there were extensive oil seepages and at Naft-I-Safid, translated ‘white oil’, the crude oil passed through natural filter-beds making it suitable for burning in lamps without having to undergo any refining process. However the oil industry as we understand it today began with oil extraction in Pennsylvania, America, in 1859 and the production of kerosene which by the 1860s was already being extensively exported. This was followed by Russia in the Baku field and with its close proximity to Iran a captive market that remained unchallenged at the end of the 19^th century. It was not until 1907 when oil brought by sea to the Persian Gulf from America in competition with the inferior Russian oil began to lower prices. The Middle East was a market rather than an exporter and although it had attracted interest around 1870 it was not until just before the First World War in 1914 that oil was produced.

The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, in which the British government held a 51% share, had created the Persian oil industry and owned the oil refinery at Abadan. Europe was becomingly increasingly dependent on oil which was shipped through the Suez canal^[1] and in particular Britain to the extent that Emanuel Shinwell, Minister of Defence stated on 23 May 1951 in response to the proposed nationalistion of the company by the Persians:

 

If Persia is allowed to get away with it, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries will be encouraged to think that they can try things on; the next thing may be an attempt to nationalise the Suez Canal.^[2]

 

With impending nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the CIA staged a coup, aided by the British Intelligence service MI6, to retain control of the oil in Iran and prevent the Russians increasing their influence in the area. On the 20^th August 1953 the premier of Persia, Dr Musaddiq, was arrested. Subsequently Britain, through BP, retained only a 40% share in the newly formed Iranian National Oil Company with American companies sharing a further 40% and the Shah of Iran assumed greater powers within the country.

The Gulf oil boom in the 1950’s drew workers from all corners of Arabia including the South of Oman, Dhofar. The ideas of Arab nationalism and Marxism were absorbed and some joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM). A number of Dhofaris split off in 1962 to form the Dhofar Charitable Association (DCA) ostensibly to collect funds for the construction of mosques and to aid the poor but in reality to collect funds and to recruit members for the purpose of an armed rebellion against the Al Bu Said dynasty and the British influence in the region. The DCA was in fact the forerunner of the Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF) which later merged with the Dhofar Soldiers’ Organisation (DSO) a group of Dhofari soldiers in the armed and police forces of the Gulf. When the Protectorate of Aden gained independence in 1967, the DLF at its second congress at Hamrin in southern Dhofar decided to widen its base and changed its title to Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG). In 1971 this was changed again to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman although the initials remained the same, PFLOAG.^[3]

In 1968 Britain announced it would withdraw from the Persian Gulf by 1971.^[4] The domineering presence of the British in the Persian Gulf that had existed from the early nineteenth century lasted until December 1971 when it began its plan to withdraw from the region because of cuts in defence expenditure and the change in British policy.