They Don’t Care If You Die: How Iran’s Protests Became a Bargaining Chip for Oil and Power

Just like during all the recent Iran protests, the language used by Western politicians and media follows a familiar script: “freedom,” “democracy,” and “support for the protesters” is what Europe and the US present as their priorities. Washington and London present themselves as moral actors, standing on the side of the protesters against an oppressive state. Yet history shows that this language has rarely translated into genuine concern for human rights. Instead, it has consistently masked a far more concrete and enduring objective: control over Iran’s resources, especially its oil, and influence over its political direction.

The idea that the US or Europe support Iranian protests out of solidarity with ordinary people collapses the moment one looks at their historical record. From the very beginning of modern US involvement in the Middle East, Iran has been treated not as a society with political aspirations, but as a strategic asset. Its geography, its energy reserves, and its position between rival powers made it a prize worth controlling. When Iranian politics aligned with Western economic interests, the government was tolerated. When it did not, “regime change” became acceptable.

That pattern began long before the Islamic Republic existed. In 1908, the discovery of vast oil reserves in Iran led to the creation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and eventually British Petroleum. By 1914, citing both financial uncertainty and the need to convert the Royal Navy from coal to oil, the British government acquired a majority stake in the company. The timing proved decisive. World War I triggered a global oil boom, and Iranian production expanded rapidly, with the company supplying a substantial share of Britain’s wartime energy needs. From that moment on, Iran became an energy artery for the British Empire.

After the war, a 1925 coup ended Qajar rule, and Reza Khan, the minister of war, crowned himself Shah, founding the Pahlavi dynasty. This is when Pahlavi’s dictatorship, which preceded the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was one of the most brutal security states in the region, began.

Determined to modernize and centralize Iran, Reza Shah pursued a Western-style model of industrial and state development. At the same time, he consolidated power by establishing a political dictatorship, relying on his personal authority and control of the army. He outlawed political parties, crushed uprisings, created a powerful police apparatus, and sharply limited the influence of the clergy, reshaping Iran into a tightly controlled and highly centralized state.

Yet it was precisely during this period that Iran was described in Western discourse as “modernizing” and “pro-Western.” The reason was simple. Oil flowed freely to Western markets, and Iran positioned itself firmly against the Soviet Union. He renegotiated Iran’s oil concession on slightly better terms, but the increased revenues enriched the Pahlavi elite far more than ordinary Iranians. Inequality deepened, and resentment grew. British dominance over the oil sector, combined with the Shah’s failure to defend national sovereignty, radicalized large segments of Iranian society. This anger was especially intense among oil workers, who lived and labored in harsh, dangerous conditions, excluded from advancement and trapped in a rigid colonial hierarchy that stood in stark contrast to the privileged lives of foreign staff.

Human rights abuses were not only ignored, they were quietly accepted as the price of strategic loyalty.

The extent to which the monarchy served foreign interests had already become unmistakable during WWII. After Britain and the Soviet Union deposed Reza Shah, citing his closeness to Nazi Germany, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah’s young and politically inexperienced son, was installed on the throne. Mohammed’s goal was to guarantee uninterrupted access to energy resources and ensure Iran remained aligned with Allied interests. For good measure, British and Soviet forces occupied the country for the next five years.

When the war ended and the occupation lifted, Iranians renewed their demands for genuine independence. The first and most urgent symbol of that independence was control over their natural wealth. Mohammad Mossadegh came to embody this struggle. A European-trained lawyer and the leader of the National Front coalition, he represented a broad alliance of nationalists, liberals, and social reformers who believed Iran could be both democratic and sovereign. In 1951, he became Iran’s first fully democratically elected prime minister, sidelining the Shah’s authority and riding a wave of overwhelming popular support.

Mossadegh’s rise was not a local event. It resonated internationally. By 1952, Time magazine named him Man of the Year, calling him the “Iranian George Washington,” a symbol of a nation seeking to reclaim its independence from imperial control. The Soviet Union, having secured victory over Nazi Germany, withdrew its forces and did not pursue long-term control over Iran’s political or economic system. Britain and the US, however, took a very different path. London remained determined to preserve its dominance over Iran’s oil industry and to prevent any challenge to its commercial and strategic interests.

It was at this moment that the conflict shifted from political disagreement to existential confrontation. Mossadegh was not merely reforming Iran’s government. He was threatening the entire structure of postwar economic power in the Middle East. And it was this challenge, more than any fear of communism or instability, that sealed his fate and made the 1953 coup inevitable.

In retrospect, the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh stands as one of the most consequential events in modern Iranian and global history. As historian Mark J. Gasiorowski notes, it was “the first peacetime use of covert action by the United States to overthrow a foreign government.” It was when regime change became a recognized tool of foreign policy, with devastating long-term consequences for Iran and the region, shaping the trajectory of its relationship with the West for decades to come.