ISSUE 308
Prophetic Brief
Insight and Analysis for the 21st Century
The Afghanistan
Briefs
General David Petraues is the
new Commander in Afghanistan
after General Stanley McCrystal
was relieved of command by
President Obama. Can Petraues
do in Afghanistan what he
accomplished in Iraq?
 
In a series of short video
b r i e fi n g s , S c o t t We b s t e r
addresses Afghanistan from the
perspective of the Word of God.
Included in the video sessions
are:
1. Why Be Aware
2. The Formative Process
3. U.S. Involvement
4. Key Players
5.What Does the Future Hold
6. Kingdom Insights
 
Visit scottwebsterministries.org
where all 6 videos have been
posted for viewing.
© 2010 SCOTT WEBSTER MINISTRIES.
What you Sow you will Spill?
The BP Crisis
As Alex, the first named storm of the
2010 hurricane season, moves into the
Gulf of Mexico there are concerns about
how this or a future storm may impact the
ability to contain the millions of gallons
of crude which has spewed into the Gulf.
I want to offer some thoughts about the
BP oil spill and also look at some
historical events, and then ask some
questions that are important for us to
consider as we look at the continuing
crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.
We know that there are natural causes
behind the blow out of BPs Deepwater
Horizon well. But apart from human
error, mechanical failure and the
complexity of trying to cap a well located
one mile beneath the surface of the
ocean, could there be other causative
factors that don’t have their origin in
drilling rigs or oil company policy? More
succinctly, could there be spiritual
causes, or, as Hosea said about Israel,
could BP have sown to the wind and now
be reaping a whirlwind? (Hosea 8:7)
The idea of sowing and reaping is very
familiar to us as believers. Throughout
the Word of God we are admonished and
instructed that the quality of the seed will
determine what kind of harvest is
produced. The seed is the core act or the
key philosophy and motivation of
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JUNE 30TH 2010
actions, while the harvest is the intended
(or unintended) consequences of what is
produced in the long run. The sacrifice of
Christ was so extensive and the seed –
the life of Christ – so pure, that He has
reaped and is yet reaping many sons who
are coming unto glory. Likewise, if we
sow to please our sinful nature, then from
that nature we will reap destruction
(Galatians 6:8).
The principle functions in both a
productive / investment context and also
as inevitable payback for wrong. So in
order to see what “the seed” of the BP oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico might be, we
have to look back in history and examine
events in light of Kingdom ethics and
principles.
Anglo Iranian Oil Company
Iran has massive oil reserves and is
located directly south of what used to be
the Soviet Union, making it strategic to
United States interests on both an
economic and political level throughout
the 20th century. The British had a
dominant presence in the region through
their colonial expansion, and they had
forged a relationship with Iran which
allowed them to extract oil under the
auspices of the AIOC – the Anglo Iranian
Oil Company. In 1901 William Knox
D'Arcy, a millionaire London socialite,
negotiated an oil concession with the
Shah Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar of
Persia, who was short of cash. The Shah
lived well beyond his means and he had
 ISSUE 308
extravagant personal expenses that the
national treasury could not pay, so he
financed his lifestyle with loans to Iran
from the UK and Russia – two powerful
nations who wanted his nation’s
resources.
The Shah didn’t negotiate very well; he
gave D’Arcy exclusive rights to prospect
for oil for 60 years in a vast tract of
territory including most of Iran. In
exchange the Shah received the mere
pittance (even for that time) of £20,000.
He also received some shares of D'Arcy's
company, and a promise of 16% of future
profits. The English company found oil
in Iran, a nation that has since proven to
possess the 3rd largest oil reserves in the
world.
By 1950 the AIOC had built the largest
oil refinery in the world at Abadan just
upriver from the Persian Gulf. The
© 2010 SCOTT WEBSTER MINISTRIES.
JUNE 30TH 2010
Galatians 6:7
Do not be deceived, God
is not mocked ; for
whatever a man sows,
that he will also reap
(NKJV)
company controlled all of the oil in Iran
despite repeated attempts by Iran’s The admonition from
leaders to renegotiate the original terms.
The Iranians suspected that the profits
were highly understated to reduce
the Word of God is not
AIOC’s obligation to Iran, and they had
been unable to negotiate new accounting to be deceived
practices that ensured they would receive
their full share of the profits. The British concerning sowing and
government made more in taxes from
AIOC profits than Iran did in royalties reaping. The danger is to
from the oil drilled from their own
reserves, a position the Iranians found
more and more difficult to accept. Wages
disconnect one set of
for the laborers at the oil wells and the
refinery were very low at .50 cents per events from the other,
day. Refinery workers lived in a
shantytown without running water or or to think that actions
electricity.
have no consequences;
Mohammed Mossadegh &
Nationalization that is a state the Bible
Mohammed Mossadegh was elected
Prime Minister by the parliament of Iran calls deception. God is
in 1951; he was a secularist who argued
vigorously for Iranian nationalism. He not mocked; He does
was educated in Switzerland and France
as a lawyer, and his graduate thesis
argued in favor of fully secularizing the
not let avarice and
legal system in Iran and that is the
platform he was most aggressively in
rapaciousness go
support of. He opposed military alliances
with the Great Powers, and he had unpunished. What a
previously led the 1944-45 opposition to
the granting of an oil concession to the man sows, that he will
Soviet Union. His position concerning
the nationalization of the oil industry was
clearly stated in a speech in June of 1951:
also reap.
"Our long years of negotiations with
foreign countries…have yielded no
results thus far. With the oil revenues we
could meet our entire budget and combat
poverty, disease, and backwardness
among our people. Another important
Page 2 of 5
 ISSUE 308
consideration is that by the elimination of
the power of the British company, we
would also eliminate corruption and
intrigue, by means of which the internal
affairs of our country have been
influenced. Once this tutelage has
ceased, Iran will have achieved its
economic and political independence. It
has been asserted abroad that Iran
intends to expel the foreign oil experts
from the country and then shut down oil
installations. Not only is this allegation
absurd; it is utter invention.”
Mohammed Mossadegh
Prime Minister of Iran
Time’s Man of the Year (1951)
Mossadegh nationalized British owned
AIOC, and in response England shut
down the refinery and pulled out their
engineers. Production was cut drastically
for two years and economic sanctions
against Iran nearly starved out the
government position, but Mossadegh was
resolute even when England formed a
military blockade to stop oil tankers from
entering or leaving the Persian Gulf.
Mossadegh also shut down the British
embassy in Tehran and ejected the
ambassador.
e Coup
There were lengthy negotiations between
Iran, UK and the US over the
nationalization of oil in Iran, but the
Iranian Prime Minister stuck to his guns.
It was decided to overthrow Mossadegh
in a coup and return the country to a pro-
Western business / oil point of view by
implanting a regime friendly to the West.
The coup was a cooperative action by the
UK & US governments utilizing MI6 and
the CIA, respectively. The Anglo-
American alliance was a long standing
one and it applied particularly in the area
of oil.
© 2010 SCOTT WEBSTER MINISTRIES.
In 1944 FDR sat down with Lord
Halifax, the British Ambassador to the
U.S., and showed him a hand drawn map
of the Middle East he had prepared in
which he carved up the oil reserves in the
region between the Americans and the
Brits. FDR figured that America would
take the Saudi Arabian oil, Britain could
have Iran, and the two countries would
share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait (those
positions sounds quite familiar in terms
of troop deployments in recent wars).
The decision to oust Mossadegh came
primarily at the instigation of Winston
Churchill, and the U.S. went along for
several reasons: a) they were seeking
British support of the U.S. action in
Korea b) the shutting down of the
refinery of Abadan upon Mossadegh’s
ejection of the British had cut Iranian oil
production; at a time when 40% of the oil
in the Middle East was coming from the
Iranian refinery, production fell from
666,000 barrels per day in 1950 down to
22,000 in 1957 c) Iran’s geographic
location on the Soviet Union’s southern
flank made it strategic for the U.S. to
have a foothold in the country.
Operation Ajax
The successful coup was named
Operation Ajax by the CIA, and it was
planned by Kermit (“Kim”) Roosevelt Jr.,
grandson of Theodore and chief of the
CIA’s Near East and Africa Division.
According to Roosevelt, he slipped
across the border under his CIA cover as
"James Lockridge" on June 19, 1953. He
was put up in the capital, Tehran, in a
place rented by British intelligence (after
leaving the CIA, Roosevelt worked as
a Gulf Oil executive and later was a
Washington lobbyist for foreign
governments).
Kermit (Kim) Roosevelt
CIA Chief of Station
The coup involved a multi-faceted
undermining of Mossadegh, including: a)
launching a propaganda campaign
Page 3 of 5
JUNE 30TH 2010
through the press, with handbills
distributed by local Islamic clergy who
were wary of Mossadegh’s secular
tendencies b) U.S. officials made
diplomatic statements in the press that
ensured Iran was aware that American
economic aid would not be forthcoming
and generally U.S. support for his regime
was non-existent c) $5 million in
American cash was delivered within two
days of the new administration assuming
power so they could make immediate
payrolls before the U.S. could provide
large scale grant aid, which would have
to be pushed through the U.S. Congress.
This substantial influx of CIA money into
the Tehran bazaar on the eve of the 1953
coup became known as "Behbehani
dollars” after Ayatollah Behbehani, the
senior cleric in Tehran. Once Mossadegh
realized what was happening he didn’t
resist since he didn’t want bloodshed and
he believed that the coup was inevitable.
The new regime imprisoned him for three
years and then put him under house arrest
until his death in 1967. The coup placed
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi back in
power, and U.S. military forces trained
the Shah’s oppressive police, the SAVAK.
In Foreign Policy magazine, former CIA
agent Richard Cottam wrote that “The
shah’s defense program, his industrial
and economic transactions and his oil
policy were all considered by most
Iranians to be faithful executions of
American instructions.”
The Anglo Iran Oil Company resumed
operations at the Abadan refinery; the
company was renamed British Petroleum
and, in 1998 became BP.
“Blowback”
This operation has been documented in a
CIA after action report which can be
viewed on-line, and the report is
interesting to read on several levels. It
contains the first use of the word
“blowback” in a CIA document, a word
which means reaping the unintended
consequences of covert action or policy.
This part of the report proved to be
prophetic, as intense blowback occurred
when the Shah of Iran was overthrown
and the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was
 ISSUE 308
stormed in 1979. U.S. personnel were held
hostage for nearly two years and the
mullah’s declared Iran to be an Islamic
Republic, the ramifications of which are
still impacting regional and global
developments.
Sowing and Reaping
Beyond the political and natural elements,
blowback is simply another word for
reaping what has been sown. In this regard
there are a number of striking parallels
and similarities between Operation Ajax
and the BP oil spill, among them:
The fact that it is BP which is spewing oil
all over the U.S. I suppose the history of
many multi-national corporations could be
reviewed to see what type of seeds have
been sown in their development – this is
just one. There are many oil companies
with drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico
and on the North Shore of Alaska, but it
just so happens that it was a BP wellhead
which broke and which cannot be capped
to date – and it was BP, acting in accord
with the Anglo-American alliance, that
removed a president and destabilized a
c o u n t r y s o c i a l l y, p o l i t i c a l l y a n d
economically.
Both occurrences were in a body of water
known as the Gulf. In Iran the Abadan
refinery is located near the Persian Gulf,
on the delta of the Shatt al Arab (a river
that forms the border between Iran and
Iraq). It is the terminus of major oil
pipelines and is an important oil refining
and shipping center. Change the name to
Gulf of Mexico and the river to
Mississippi and these salient facts
describe the location of the BP oil spill
nearly perfectly.
Sowing was filled with intrigue and
covert action by government agencies,
reaping is occurring on an international
stage with the eyes of the world on the
gulf oil spill. Few knew what happened in
Iran in 1953, the report was classified for
decades. As an American I had no idea
until a few years ago (although many
Iranians would have known – it is a
historical offense in the nation, where it is
known as the 28 Mordad coup de etat
based on the Iranian calendar). But now
Releasing The New Prophetic Dimension • Activating The Capacity To Build • Obeying The Command To Finish
© 2010 SCOTT WEBSTER MINISTRIES.
JUNE 30TH 2010
the oil in the Gulf of Mexico is being
played out by the international media on A Developed PROPHETIC
the world stage, to the point that video can PERSPECTIVE
be accessed that shows the blown out well
gushing oil one mile beneath the sea –
even the hidden things are open to anyone A fresh look at
who wishes to look: For there is nothing Prophetic
covered that will not be revealed, nor
hidden that will not be known. 3 Therefore Operations
whatever you have spoken in the dark will from a
be heard in the light, and what you have Kingdom
spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be
Viewpoint.
proclaimed on the housetops (Luke
12:2-3).
Coming Soon>
The sowing in Iran focused on the use of
any means to extract oil for massive
profit; reaping in the Gulf of Mexico is the same realm in the political systems of
using every means but still being unable the U.S. & the U.K.
to stop the oil while money is being
hemorrhaged. Calculating the spill to date
Economic Impact
varies based on estimates, but it is
probably between 1.9 million to 3.5 The greatest reaping of the Gulf oil spill is
million barrels, or about 80 million to 150 the devastating economic impact in a time
million gallons since the rig exploded on when the nation is trying to emerge from
April 20 (by contrast, the Exxon recession.
Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989 released an
estimated 10.8 million gallons of oil). The ✦ In Louisiana, seafood and tourism
oil is spilling out at the rate of one Exxon generate $2.4 billion a year and $8.3
Valdez every 4 days…for the last 2+ billion, respectively – both of which are
months. Is the glut of oil fouling the Gulf nearly eliminated in the immediate.
✦ In May, Nathaniel Karp, chief economist
of Mexico the moral equivalent of Israel’s
quest for meat in the wilderness, and God for the Alabama bank BBVA Compass,
granting it to them until it ran out their projected eventual losses for the four gulf
nostrils and killed them? (Numbers states at $4.3 billion, including $191
11:18-20, 33)
The alliance of political will between the
U.S. and the U.K. has turned to
adversarial views about the oil spill. In
1953 Winston Churchill then prime
minister and his foreign affairs minister
conspired with Dwight Eisenhower and 2778 Cumberland Blvd
the Dulles brothers about how to reassert
BPs extraction of oil from Iran. The two Suite 163
governments agreed to pool their Symrna GA 30080
resources on a joint strategy to get access
to the oil in Iran. However, the two Tel: 678.302.3052
governments are now having adversarial admin@scottwebsterministries.org
discussions; David Cameron expressed
www.scottwebsterministries.org
concern to Barack Obama at the recent
© 2010 Scott Webster Ministries.
G-20 meeting about the negative views of
Americans towards BP because of the oil All Rights Reserved.
spill. It is yet to be seen if the political
destabilization sown in Iran via the coup © 2010 Copyright by SWM, copy and
duplication without permission is prohibited.
of Mossadegh will produce a reaping in
Page 4 of 5
 ISSUE 308 JUNE 30TH 2010

million in losses to Alabama. In June
he raised that projection to $11.5
billion.
✦ If the oil continues to wash up on more
of Florida’s beaches it will drastically
impact tourism, the state’s largest
industry which generates about $60
billion a year; the Gulf Coast counties
alone stand to lose $11 billion and
200,000 jobs if visitor numbers decline
50 percent.
The economic impact extends far beyond
the immediate gulf states however. Just
as BP and the oil companies (and their
shareholders and respective
governments) were enriched through the
exploitation of Iranian oil, the same
parties are now paying dearly for the
spill. The price of BP stock has
plummeted by more than 50 percent since
the April 20 blowout, from just over $60
a share to below $30.
The proportion of ownership of BP
stock in 2010 – those taking the primary
financial hit – is the same as those
enriched by Iranian oil in 1953. A
consortium of companies was put
together to divide up AIOC so that 5 U.S.
oil companies each got 8% of the oil
extracted from Iran for a total of 40%
American ownership. AIOC was allowed
to keep 40% also, and the rest was spread
over a few other companies in other
nations. That is almost exactly the
percentages of stock ownership of BP in
2010, so that stockholders and pension
funds in both the UK and US are being
negatively impacted in almost the precise
proportion of how they were enriched 60
years ago. There are mutual funds and
pension funds that will be affected on
both sides of the Atlantic. The erasure of
about $100 billion in BP stock value has
translated into big losses for several
funds that directly affect the U.S.: a) the
California Public Employees’ Retirement
system has lost more than $284 million in
value b) Nebraska’s retirement fund, for
instance, reportedly will lose $1.3 million
each quarter that BP suspends its
dividend.
Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived,
God is not mocked; for whatever a
man sows, that he will also reap
The admonition from the Word of God is
not to be deceived concerning sowing
and reaping. The danger is to disconnect
one set of events from the other, or to
think that actions have no consequences;
that is a state the Bible calls deception.
God is not mocked; He does not let
avarice and rapaciousness go unpunished.
What a man sows, that he will also reap.
Understanding this aspect of God’s
nature causes us to ask: Are we living in
a time of reaping in the earth, a time
when “the teeth of the great lions” are
being broken by God?
Job 4:8 As I have observed, those
who plow evil and those who sow
trouble reap it. 9 At the breath of
God they are destroyed; at the blast
of his anger they perish. 10 e
lions may roar and growl, yet the
teeth of the great lions are
broken.
If in fact it is a time of reaping that
produces crisis and destabilization, what
is the response that the Lord requires
from us?

Resource List for Further Study

The following can be accessed to learn more about the history and events contained in this article.

1.All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Stephen Kinzer, (John Wiley & Sons, 2004)

2.The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, Daniel Yergin (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1991)

3.Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, Ervand Abrahamian, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)

4.U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran, Mark J. Gasiorowski (Cornell University Press: 1991).

5.The CIAs after action report on Operation Ajax can be found online @: http://web.payk.net/politics/cia-docs/published/
one-main/main.html

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