Fifty years ago, the English author Douglas Adams wrote that the answer to life, the universe and everything was 42. He intended it as a joke, the number actually chosen at random and having no independent meaning.

The principle however, has been absorbed by Washington. Now, whatever the question, the answer to them is “Iran”. It is a country that to them is the universal source of what are the multiple ills that now beset the Americans in their multitudinous and entirely self-centered forays into the Middle East.

It was not always so. Iran had a democratically elected government under Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh. In 1953 the Iranian government sort to limit the control that the Iranian Anglo Oil Company (now BP) had over Iran’s oil reserves. One would normally regard national resources as the legitimate concern of a sovereign government.

The Anglo Iranian Oil Company saw things differently and resisted any moves by the Iranian government to exert its sovereign influence. In the face of this refusal to cooperate, the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the company.

Iran - An Ancient Civilisation Finding New Roles