News

How an Oil Company Helped Destroy Democracy
in Iran

By Stephen Kinzer

To frustrated Americans who have begun boycotting BP: Welcome to the
club. It's great not to be the only member any more!

Does boycotting BP really make sense? Perhaps not. After all, many
BP filling stations are actually owned by local people, not the
corporation itself. Besides, when you're filling up at a Shell or
ExxonMobil station, it's hard to feel much sense of moral triumph.
Nonetheless, I reserve my right to drive by BP stations. I started doing
it long before this year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

My decision not to give this company my business came after I learned
about its role in another kind of “spill” entirely -- the destruction
of Iran's democracy more than half a century ago.

The history of the company we now call BP has, over the last 100
years, traced the arc of transnational capitalism. Its roots lie in the
early years of the twentieth century when a wealthy bon vivant named
William Knox D'Arcy decided, with encouragement from the British
government, to begin looking for oil in Iran. He struck a concession
agreement with the dissolute Iranian monarchy, using the proven
expedient of bribing the three Iranians negotiating with him.

Under this contract, which he designed, D'Arcy was to own whatever
oil he found in Iran an... >>>