In addition to the current oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, BP was also directly involved in a coup that led to the overthrow of former Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953.

Tehran, June 22, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) - The ongoing environmental catastrophe brought upon the world by one of Britain’s largest corporation isn’t the first time this company gets involved in such disastrous events.

The oil giant began operation in 1908 as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. In those years not too many giant Middle Eastern oil fields had been discovered except the one discovered in southern part of Iran called Masjid Suleiman oil field.

Given the enormous potential of this field the British government successfully signed a contract with the Iranian government to develop the field. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company managed to amass huge profits from this operation while it shared only a fraction of the proceeds with the Iranian government.

BP was directly involved in a coup that led to the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh who nationalized the company by 1953. Under direct order from US President Eisenhower, CIA agents hired local mobs that staged street protests near the parliament building whereby Mossadegh was forced to resign as the country’s prime minister and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.

This company was also involved in playing the former Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq against Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. US, British governments supplied Iraq with chemical and biological weapons and encouraged the Iraqis to invade Iran in 1980.

Iran-Iraq war dragged on for 8 years and during that period the Iraqi army deployed chemical and biological weapons against Iranian troops.