Page 43 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

The Aftermath of War: Perpetuation of Control '9

be directed towards tin* exclusion of the legitimate trade of other
Powers. In the third place I say this without hesitation—we
should regard the establishment of a naval base, or of a fortified
fort, in the Persian Gulf by any other Power as a very grave
menace to British interests, and we should certainly resist it
with all the means at our disposal.5

Although the position and importance of the Gulf changed consider­
ably during the next four decades, Curzon’s address and Lands-
downc’s declaration remained the main guides to policy. Despite
the endless correspondence on the advisability of altering that policy,
in view of the new situations that arose, the outline remained
the same, and constant references to the statements of 1903 affirm
this. In September 1933 a durbar was held for the rulers of the
Trucial Coast; the Officiating Political Resident repeated Curzon’s
address with few alterations, thus reiterating the policy laid down
thirty years before. The only differences were in the way the estab­
lished courses of action were interpreted, which usually depended
on the individuals most closely concerned with Gulf affairs.
Despite the end of the pre-war rivalry with the Ottoman Empire,
Russia and Germany, and with it the resultant entanglements of
European diplomacy, British involvement in Gulf affairs was increased
after the victory of 1918. Britain had occupied Iraq during the
war, and was about to secure a mandate there; and Ibn Sa‘ud,
who had shown himself friendly to Britain, had dislodged the Otto­
mans from Hasa in 1913, thus extending his territory to the shores
of the Gulf. On the face of it, therefore, British interests could
be expected to meet with few of the challenges that had faced
them in earlier days; but the great increase in those interests meant
that even greater official involvement was called for. In 1914, after
the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in southern Persia,
the British Government took a controlling interest in the Anglo-Per-
sian Oil Company; and later there were strategic plans to develop
an air route from England to India that would pass through the
Gulf. The area was thus no longer the primary concern of India
alone; its destiny held implications that were far-reaching and that
extended to Britain and its empire as a whole.
In 1919 the Gulf emerged an undisputcdly British lake, but
shortly afterwards tw'o new countries entered the field of Gulf politics
and began to give the British cause for concern: the Iran of Riza
Shah and the Saudi Arabia of Ibn Sa‘ud. Both countries gradually
succeeded in unsettling the British position. Iran did so by directing
its militant nationalism against British domination, and constantly
attempting to assert its claims to sovereignty over the islands of