A century ago the Middle East was sliced and diced with various powers getting part of the pie. Iran (Persia) was supposed to have been 'shared' between Britain

A century ago the Middle East was sliced and diced with various powers getting part of the pie. Iran (Persia) was supposed to have been 'shared' between Britain and Russia, but the Russians had their own difficulties so the Tsar wasn't around to take on 'his share' of Iran. Nonetheless 'British Petroleum' got in there for a while. It was Roosevelt that did the deal with the Saudis. The deal was as follows: sell us your oil in perpetuity and we will make sure that nothing threatens the 'royal' family. Note the naming of the Saudi Aramco state oil business. 'Aramco' has the letters 'am' in it and that is because it is the 'Arab American Company'. You are correct that the U.S. has 'irrational' opposition to Iran. This is because the U.S. has irrational opposition to any country that does not care about the dollar. The only truly sovereign nations are the ones that the U.S. has 'irrational' opposition to, everything else is a vassal state.