Iran Oil: The New Middle East Challenge to America

From the dramatic moment in the early hours of 26 May 1908 when a British geologist, George Reynolds, was suddenly woken in his tent by earth tremors and the sound of something violently bursting through the ground outside, Iran's oil has always been an intensely political commodity. for in the years that followed their discovery, at this remote wilderness spot known as Masjid-i-Suleiman, these enormous oil reserves were a prize of immense value over which numerous participants played desperate political games and fought often vicious military battles, typically sparing no expense in their determination to take procession or to keep rivals at bay.