Iran's 1979 revolution is traced back to a fight over oil money, and the losers were the Western powers who feared losing control of Iranian crude.

• In 1954 Iran signed a 25-year oil deal with a group of Western countries, including the US, UK, France and Germany.
• By the late 1970s the Shah had grown powerful enough that CBS called him the most powerful man in the world.
• As the deal neared its end, Western governments expected him to take control of Iranian oil and push prices up.
• The response was a plan to remove him, with the CIA and British intelligence doing what they had done before in Iran.
• Iran then fell — and the country that emerged has been hostile to the West ever since.

Outlook: The same fight over who controls Iran's oil still shapes how Washington and Tehran deal with each other today.