Changes

By the eve of [[World War II]], Germany was Iran's largest trading partner.<ref>http://countrystudies.us/iran/15.htm </ref> After the Fall of France and while Hitler was preparing for [[Operation Barbarossa]], all was not well in the British zone of the [[Sykes-Picot]] (the Palestinian and Mesopotamian Mandates). Black writes,

By the eve of [[World War II]], Germany was Iran's largest trading partner.<ref>http://countrystudies.us/iran/15.htm </ref> After the Fall of France and while Hitler was preparing for [[Operation Barbarossa]], all was not well in the British zone of the [[Sykes-Picot]] (the Palestinian and Mesopotamian Mandates). Black writes,

{{quotebox|the Mufti of Jerusalem [Haj Amin al-Husseini] crafted a strategic alliance with Hitler to exchange Iraqi oil for active Arab and Islamic participation in the murder of Jews in the Mideast and [[Eastern Europe]]. This was predicated on support for a pan-Arab state and Arab control over Palestine.}}  

{{quotebox|the Mufti of Jerusalem [Haj Amin al-Husseini] crafted a strategic alliance with Hitler to exchange Iraqi oil for active Arab and Islamic participation in the murder of Jews in the Mideast and [[Eastern Europe]]. This was predicated on support for a pan-Arab state and Arab control over Palestine.}}  

So tenuous was British control in Mesopotamia (Iraq) as war broke out, the British Consul in [[Mosul]] was hacked to death by a mob with an axe<ref>http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17590728 </ref> and nearly two hundred Jews were murdered in Baghdad.<ref>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lyn-julius/iraqs-1941-pogrom_b_5430131.html </ref> The [[Luftwaffe]] took possession of the Mosul airport for a period of weeks. Iran became a haven for [[Gestapo]] agents and a plot was formulated in Tehran to overthrow the British supported regime in Baghdad [Anglo-Iraqi War].}}

So tenuous was British control in Mesopotamia (Iraq) as war broke out, the British Consul in [[Mosul]] was hacked to death by a mob with an axe<ref>http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17590728 </ref> and nearly two hundred Jews were murdered in Baghdad.<ref>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lyn-julius/iraqs-1941-pogrom_b_5430131.html </ref> The [[Luftwaffe]] took possession of the Mosul airport for a period of weeks. Iran became a haven for [[Gestapo]] agents and a plot was formulated in Tehran to overthrow the British supported regime in Baghdad [Anglo-Iraqi War].

 

When Hitler reneged on [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]] and attacked his former ally, [[Winston Churchill]] flew to [[Moscow]], assured the Soviet Union of assistance, and the fate of Reza Shah was sealed.  The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran deposed the Iranian monarch in favor of his son, [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]], who proved to be a loyal ally in the war against Hitler and continued his father's pro-Western reform movement throughout his nearly forty year reign.  The British controlled Iraqi zone remained unstable and dangerous.<ref>See Iraqforce and Tenth Army (United Kingdom) for more on British and Indian forces deployed to Iraq from 1941-43.</ref> Greater safety, but most of all Iran's geographical benefit of a direct route for supplies into the USSR across their common border, made the Persian Corridor an important conduit for [[Lend-Lease]] aid to the USSR.  The wartime [[Casablanca Conference]], [[Tehran Conference]], and [[Cairo Conference]]} were symbolic of failed German designs upon [[North Africa]] and the [[Middle East]].

====1941 - 1948====

====1941 - 1948====