May 25 in Middle Eastern History
Notable anniversaries: Jordan, GCC, Iran
May 25, 1946: The British Mandate of Transjordan gains independence as “The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan” with the crowning of Emir Abdullah I as king. May 25 is annually commemorated in Jordan as Independence Day.
May 25, 1981: Leaders from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates sign the Gulf Cooperation Council charter in Abu Dhabi, formally marking the birth of that organization. The GCC was intended to streamline political and economic relations between the six Gulf Arab states, with the potential for tighter unification down the road. It has led to the creation of a Gulf customs union and a number of joint infrastructure projects, but big plans regarding monetary union and increased regional cohesion have been largely undermined by the Saudi-Qatari rivalry.
GCC heads of state at their first summit: Qatari Emir Khalifa bin Hamad, Kuwaiti Emir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Saudi Arabian King Khalid bin Abdulaziz, UAE President Zayed bin Sultan, and Bahraini Emir Isa bin Salman (Wikimedia Commons/Bahrain News Agency)
May 26, 1908: A British drilling operation discovers a commercially-viable oil deposit at Masjed Soleyman, in Iran’s Khuzestan province. Lucky them! This was the first oil find in the Middle East and obviously began the region’s transformation into the stable, economically advantaged paradise it is today. The strike was made under the terms of the “D’Arcy Concession,” a 1901 agreement between British oil baron William Knox D’Arcy and Iranian ruler Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar that gave D’Arcy exclusive rights to explore for oil in Iran in exchange for a payment of 20,000 pounds and a mere 16 percent of any future profits. The Burmah Oil Company, which backed D’Arcy’s operation, formed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (which goes by BP nowadays) and began extracting Iranian oil under the concession’s extremely lopsided terms. Let’s just say this led to some problems down the road and leave it at that.
Derek Davison is a US foreign policy analyst with a focus on the Middle East.