Abadan Crisis

The AIOC was the United Kingdom's "single largest overseas asset" and a "source of national pride" in the British post-war era of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin.

"[1] In stark contrast, Iranian Premier Mohammad Mosaddegh believed the 1933 concession granted to the AIOC by Iran was "immoral as well as illegal".

[4] After the withdrawal of the British workers in the fall of 1951, the Iranians felt confident that they could easily hire non-British technicians to run the industry and then quickly train their own nationals to replace them.

This did not prove to be the case; the United States, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and West Germany all refused to make their technicians available to the nationalized Iranian industry.

"[5] In July 1952, the Royal Navy intercepted the Italian tanker Rose Mary and forced it into the British protectorate of Aden on the grounds that the ship's petroleum was stolen property.