When I was five years old, the Shah was scheduled to come to Abadan for the inauguration of a petrochemical plant. A parade had been arranged and a special float had been built for him. To avoid the large crowds, we decided to skip the parade, knowing that we would not be able to see anything. We were not, however, willing to miss our only opportunity for a brush with royalty. My father, a man whose engineering mind always comes up with a solution, devised a plan. On a scorching hot day, the day before the parade, my mother wore her Jackie Kennedy sleeveless dress, my brothers put on long-sleeved shirts and ties, and the five of us drove to the parade site in my father’s air-conditioned Chevrolet. Granted, there was no parade, no cheering crowd, no music, and, least of all, no royalty. But none of that mattered. We climbed on the beribboned float intended for the Shah, our faces protected by the awning built to shield the royal face from the blazing sun. We smiled. My father’s camera captured our royal moment.

What brought the Shah to Abadan was its seemingly endless oil supply. This natural gift was a mixed blessing, a bit like having a garden that stands out in the entire neighborhood. You know that, eventually, somebody’s going to come and pick your flowers while you’re sleeping. In our case, it was the British who came for the oil.

The British were the first to realize the huge financial potential of the vast Iranian oil reserves. With the sound of cash registers ringing in its executives’ ears, British Petroleum negotiated an agreement with the Iranian government that allowed the British to drill for and sell the oil in exchange for a small sum. In a perfect world, the kindergarten teacher would have stood up before any documents were signed and said, “Time out for Britain. We’ll renegotiate after a nap.” But alas, with no teacher present to remind the participants of the universal concept of fairness, the British applied a different universal concept, greed. The agreement between British Petroleum and the government of Iran was destined for disaster.