The Abadan Crisis occurred from 1951 to 1954, after Iran
nationalised the Iranian assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
(AIOC) and expelled Western companies from oil refineries in the
city of Abadan (see Abadan Refinery). The AIOC was the United
Kingdom's "single largest overseas asset" and a "source of
national pride" in the British post-war era of Clement Attlee,
and Ernest Bevin. Even as late as the "1940s and early 1950s
some high British officials still believed that Persian
petroleum was actually and rightly British petroleum because it
had been discovered by the British, developed by British
capital, and exploited through British skill and British
ingenuity."  In stark contrast, Premier Mosaddeq believed the
1933 concession granted to the AIOC by Iran was "immoral as well
as illegal". Mosaddeq "challenged every aspect of the British
commercial presence in Iran". The British feared that if
Mosaddeq's policies prevailed, "nationalists throughout the
world could abrogate British concessions with impuni