"Mesoptn" notes

A BBC reporter was discussing the Iranian penchant for seeing the black hand of the Brits behind everything evil. The International British-Bolshevik Conspiracy? This is almost amusing, but given the history of the area, fathomable. The Brits after all, cut up the whole region after WWI finished off the Ottomans, laying the groundwork for much of the war, chaos, and misery since. Here’s Lloyd George in 1919, according to Arnold Toynbee, then in the British delegation to make the world safe for Empire, “Mesopotamia …yes … oil…irrigation…we must have Mesopotamia; Palestine… yes… the Holy Land … Zionism… we must have Palestine; Syria…h’m… what is there in Syria? Let the French have that.” The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, more recently known as British Petroleum (or, laughably, “beyond petroleum”) needed the firm hand of a “Shah,” that usual British urge for instant monarchs (cf. the Hashemites put into power in Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq). Along with the US national security state, the Brits toppled Mossaddeq and waved the usual red scare banner to return the rot of the Pahlavis to power. All-in-all, an excellent way to become a Great Satan.

There’s plenty of fevered conspiratorial nonsense in the hothouse autocracies of the Middle East, but at the same time there is history. A century of promises unkept, neocolonial rule, and monstrous surrogates, all in the name of controlling the oil. Pity we don't have any history in the US, only fantasies of sweetness and light.

Speaking of black hands, here’s Churchill, ever in the thick of it, complaining about, “this odious Mesoptn embarrassment.” Nothing a little gas attack wouldn't fix, eh Winnie?