The "Seven Sisters" and the Oil of the Middle East

Part 1: New World Notes #385, 28:50 (July 21)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (14 MB)

Part 2: New World Notes #386, 28:56 (July 28)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (14 MB)

The "Seven Sisters" was Big Oil. It was the cartel of huge private oil corporations that ended up owning almost all the oil in the Middle East. They stole and kept this treasure by hook and by crook, in violation of many laws, with help from corrupt monarchs abroad and muscle from the U.S. government, armed forces, and CIA.

We adapt to radio a new video documentary on the very subject.

Part 1 takes us from the founding of the cartel in 1928 (by Standard Oil, Shell, and BP) to the creation of OPEC in 1960.

Of note in Part 1: The story of how BP came to own all of the oil in Iran--and how, in 1953, Iran's parliament tried to regain control of the country's oil--and how the United States government responded by overthrowing Iran's democratic government and installing the Shah as dictator of Iran. (We then gave Iran's oil to US-based oil companies, not back to BP.)

Man of the Year: The last prime minister of democratic Iran, Mohammad Mossadeq (January 1952). For his crimes against Big Oil, the CIA ousted him and installed a brutal dictator, the Shah.

Part 2 takes us from the creation of OPEC in 1960 to the fate of Iraq today (its oil weath again taken away from the Iraqi people and again handed over to the big oil companies). Includes the Suez crisis, OPEC price hikes, Iraq's nationalizing of its oil in 1972 (succeeding where Iran in 1953 had failed), the Iranian revolution, and Gulf Wars I and II.

Introductions by K.D.   

New World Notes previously broadcast these two installments (as NWN #273 & 274) in May-June 2013.