The current Gulf tragedy and the dangers of an enthusiastic "Drill, baby, drill!" pattern highlights the issue of how big oil has flexed its mighty muscles in the international political sphere.

Today's ongoing tragedy involves the same British Petroleum that in 1953 used the CIA in a menacing way to overthrow a popularly elected leader.

Iran had just elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, that nation's most popular political figure.  

The fact that Mossadegh was elected by the will of Iran's citizens did not deter the efforts of an invigorated CIA that used the Cold War as a pretext to move away from the fact finding agency conceived of by President Harry Truman to an aggressive international political body willing to overthrow nations in contravention of popular national will.