By Faramarz Kouhpayeh 

The Iron Lady and the Shah: How Thatcher’s 1978 Iran trip fueled British interference

TEHRAN – Forty-seven years ago, in April 1978, the leader of the UK opposition Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, visited Iran almost a year before the Islamic Revolution. She held talks with Mohammad Reza Shah and cajoled him into buying more British-made weapons and military equipment in a bid to create jobs in her country amid the economic recession. 

Britain ‘immediately’ supported U.S. over downing of Iranian airliner in 1988: Declassified UK

The attack occurred during the Iran-Iraq war, which had begun in 1980 with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran. The U.S. government backed Saddam, and sent warships to the Persian Gulf to support the Iraqi war effort.