Iran and Control of Its Oil Resources
Oil has been largely responsible for financing most of Iran's economic development since World War II, paying almost half of all the expenses of government, and providing the largest share of the country's exports and foreign exchange. Because of Iran's location bordering on the northern part of the Persian Gulf, the lack of pipeline connections with Europe, the closed Suez Canal, and the consequent necessity of transportation westward around the Cape of Good Hope, most of Iranian oil exports go to the Far East, especially to Japan. Only a very small amount is shipped to the United States-far less, for instance, than the shipments of the Arab countries,1 of which Iran is not one. Iranian oil revenues have