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(the chief British political officer) in 1926 to the Hospital for Women in Bahrain. The two
groups spoke the same language, shared a common culture and religion, and tcndcd*to group
together in the loneliness of their posts so far from home. Their families were on friendly
terms, they expressed an interest in each other’s children, and, in general, enjoyed a healthy
personal rapport.

But a certain ambiguity in the relationship existed. While the British officials may have
liked and appreciated the American missionaries, they were always acutely aware of the fact
that, as non-British citizens, they presented a potential threat to British hegemony. As early as
1919, the Political Agent in Bahrain examined the growing anti-British feelings in the islands
which lie attributed to a number of reasons, one of which was the activities of the American
missionaries.5

This type of accusation was to be levelled by the British officers in Bahrain at different
intervals and with varying degrees of resentment throughout the coming decades. The concept
that the missionaries indulged anti-British feelings in the Bahrainis was revived whenever the
Political Agent confronted difficulties in implementing his policies. Relations between the two
communities continued to be on a rather nebulous footing — both friendly and suspicious,
particularly on the part of the British — until a major development occurred that was to focus
the issue of rivalry much more sharply.

The Open Door Policy

The entry of the American oil companies into the Gulf region was to crystallise the
ambiguity of the Anglo-American relationship, and to bring out all the latent feelings of
rivalry. The nebulous qualities of American popularity and anti-British feelings in Bahrain
now took on more tangible qualities.

Hitherto, American activity' had taken place independently of the US government. The
natural isolationism of the latter had never regarded the Arab world as an arena in which to
challenge any of the interests of the great'powers of Europe. It was only after the war, when the
importance of oil as a strategic weapon was fully recognised, that the US government became
directly involved in challenging Britain’s hold over the oil producing regions of the world.

The Anglo-American rivalry that was an outcome of this challenge seems to have evolved
at a pace which reflected the varying degrees of importance accorded oil by the US govern­
ment. During the peace negotiations in 1919, the US delegation, secure in the knowledge of
American oil reserves, “did'little to promote American oil interests and the British govern­
ment, attempting to capitalize on that fact, sought to exclude all foreign oil companies from
that area (Iraq and Palestine)” .6 Consequently, the US pressed for an Open Door policy on oil
. so that exclusive British concessions would not be granted in British mandated areas of the
Middle East. Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, was not in favour of accepting such a
policy particularly since the British share of world oil production was a mere % compared
with that of the USA at 70 %.7

Throughout the 1920s, the two countriesbecame involved in lengthy negotiations regard­
ing the Open Door policy. The US government pressed vigorously for American companies to
be accorded equal rights in Middle Eastern concessions; and Britain continued to resist these
representations. But it finally had to concede in view of the demand for both American capital
and American technical expertise in petroleum engineering. In July 1928, according to what
became known as the Red Line Agreement, a group of American companies was allowed to

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