Tangled history and trouble today

“If this is true, all our troubles are over.”

A British businessman fast running out of cash, William Knox D’Arcy, is said to have uttered those words when he received a telegram from Persia, 113 years ago.

Oil had been discovered, after years of failed explorations under Knox D’Arcy, who had been granted the rights to hunt for the black stuff at the turn of the century.

For him, striking oil was to provide a second fortune after he’d made millions from Australian gold.

For the UK, Persia – later to become Iran – and for the rest of the world, it was the moment the Middle East’s financial and political fortunes became linked to the West like never before.

Knox D’Arcy’s cash problem might have been solved. But the…