American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region (review)

From the earliest years of the Cold War, U.S. efforts to contain the spread of Soviet Communism, to protect Western access to oil, and to support Israel led to unprecedented U.S. involvement in the Middle East, a region previously dominated by the British. Although scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to the changing geopolitical interests and influence of the United States and the United Kingdom in recent years, the Anglo-American relationship in and diplomacy toward the Persian Gulf has generally been overlooked. In American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region, W. Taylor Fain examines the transition from British imperial interest in the Middle East to the preponderant power exercised by the United States, a transformation that began in 1951 with Iran’s nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and culminated under the Nixon administration in the 1970s following Britain’s withdrawal from the region in 1968.

Based on exhaustive research in a multitude of archives on both sides of the Atlantic, Fain argues that U.S. and British interests coincided during this period but “were rooted in different interpretations of the Gulf region’s ultimate value to their larger foreign policies” (p. 202). Fain recognizes that London and Washington approached the region from two divergent perspectives: the British showed more interest in protecting their investments and clinging to great-power status, whereas the United States focused on “assessing the Persian Gulf ’s and Arabia’s value in terms primarily of its global Cold War strategy” (p. 203). As a result, the foreign policies pursued by the British and Americans—described as “parallel, for the most part, but not identical” (p. 11)—tended to come into conflict on many occasions during this period. In making this argument, Fain joins a growing cohort of scholars who contend that the vaunted Anglo-American “special relationship” described by Winston Churchill existed more in rhetoric than in reality. Yet Fain does not accept the revisionists’ argument completely. Instead, he characterizes this as a “story of two close allies struggling mightily to overcome mutual suspicions and to cooperate in a critically important region of the world” (p. 206).

The decline of British influence and the concomitant rise of U.S. interest in the region created tensions between the allies in the 1950s. According to Fain, Anglo-American relations reached a low point during Anthony Eden’s tenure as British prime minister in the wake of the coup against Muhammad Mossadeq in Iran, and the situation deteriorated further during the Suez crisis in 1956. After Suez, Fain suggests, “a new period of relative harmony” (p. 84) developed between London and Washington, although subsequent intra-alliance strife repeatedly disrupted the relationship over the next several years. Complicating the situation further was the fact that policy divisions within the U.S. and British governments and between government officials and business executives made Anglo-American diplomacy more challenging.

Moreover, domestic political considerations in both countries factored into policymaking and served to constrain available options for both sides. In fact, as Fain cogently describes, the British decision to withdraw from the Persian Gulf resulted from the financial crisis facing the government of Harold Wilson. London’s desire to maintain a role in the region was palpably demonstrated by Edward Heath’s efforts to reverse the withdrawal decision after he took power. Although the attempt failed for a variety of reasons, British influence in the region continued into the 1970s with the tacit support of the Nixon administration.

Fain does a good job of placing the events in the Persian Gulf into a broader context, both regionally and in terms of the broader Cold War paradigm. For example, he demonstrates that the embroilment of U.S. forces in the Indochina war spurred Washington first to subsidize and later to seek proxies for British power in the Persian Gulf as U.S. policymakers attempted to balance Cold War considerations, Arab nationalism, and support of a continued...