Within 3 minutes on Google I found 5 sources on US resource consumption which put the US share at 23-25% of global. US population is currently 4.3% of global.
..Do you bother to study history, like the history of Iran? I've studied it from it's ancient history and all the way up to it's modern history, because it's a fascinating place with fascinating people. Since your focus tends to be around the US and Iran, go to wiki and read the recent history since WWI!...
Really? I mean, Really?!
Well then let's just limit ourselves to Wiki. But we'll push your date back to the beginning of colonialism in the 1700's as that is when the colonial empires of the British and Russians started showing up.
There were 4 main Russo-Persian wars in the 18th & 19th centuries. And the Anglo-Persian war in the 1850's. Britain was primarily, at that time, interested in protecting trade routes to India. Once established in Iran (we are talking late 1800's now) Britain, through the process of bribing local rulers who did not want to lose power, began the process of granting exclusive commercial rights to British companies to establish banks, print currency, explore for minerals, run transit lines and even grow tobacco (standard colonial mechanisms backed up by the British military). Significant territories were lost in these conflicts never to be recovered.
One of these companies (a forerunner to BP) discovered oil in 1908. In 1913, the British government maneuvered its way to a contract under which all Iranian oil became its property. Six years later it imposed an “agreement” that gave it control of Iran’s army and treasury.
The Russians occupied northern Iran in 1911 and the British occupied western Iran during WWI.
In 1921 Reza Khan, the former general of the Russian controlled Persian-Cossack Brigade overthrew the Iranian government and became the Shah. The British then withdrew their troops (the colonial man is now in charge).
In 1941 the Russians and British reoccupied the country (just securing the oil resources you know) and replaced the Shah with his son Reza Pahlavi. He retained absolute power (within the guidelines of being a ruler of a colony) until there were, lo and behold, democratic elections for a Prime Minister in 1951 when Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected.
Mosadegh was a reformer and a nationalist (not something a colonial power was going to be fond of). Amongst the many reforms he instituted was the nationalization of the Anglo-Persian oil company. As you might imagine this did not go down well with the British (and the Americans who were in the process of picking up responsibilities for many British colonies as this was the time of British retrenchment following WWII). So, big surprise, the British and Americans decided that Mosaddegh must be a communist (sound familiar). So, true to form, Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA and MI6 in 1953 known as Operation Ajax. The US (via the CIA) became the prime colonial power at this point and the Shah was reinstated in power.
.. In August 2013 the CIA formally admitted that it was involved in both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.[11][12] The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government."..
Not wishing to make that same democratic mistake twice the Shah, with the training and assistance of the CIA and the US State Dept, instituted absolute control over the country via his security service (SAVAK) and the military. The CIA was directly involved in training the SAVAK which was infamous for its use of torture and assassination of anyone who might be a dissident. Besides picking up the benefits of profiting from the Iranian oil concessions the US thus gained a great location for placing listening posts along the southern border of the Soviet Union which were staffed by CIA personnel.
Of note, and something which helps explain why the Iranians are not very friendly with the Israelis, is that in the 1960's training of the SAVAK shifted from the CIA to the Mossad who not only performed training but conducted joint operations with SAVAK.
The Ayatollah Khomeini, started out as a religious nationalist opponent of dictatorship in the 1950's. He was eventually imprisoned in the early 1960's (by the CIA trained SAVAK), eventually released and fled into exile. You can imagine what he thought of the US. One of his prime complaints about the US was our insisting that US military personnel be exempt from local courts when they committed crimes (sound familiar?).
In 1979 the country erupted in revolution and overthrew the Shah and Khomeini came into power. The US Embassy hostage crises ensued. CIA and State Dept personnel in other parts of the country fled via various escape routes, some with Canadian help, some by crossing the border into the Soviet Union, and others by hiking cross country out of the country. (this is from personal knowledge).
In 1980, with backroom support by the US and Saudi Arabia, Iraq invaded Iran with the goal of occupying territories and as a means to lessen the threat of Shia influence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This war was the longest conventional war of the 20th century and resulted in as many as 1 million Iranian dead, including as many as 100,000 child soldiers (who were used to clear paths through the Iraqi mine fields for the assault troops during mass attacks - just like WWI in a sense - I have looked through folders of pictures of the carnage following such attacks. Unforgettable). During this war the US facilitated the shipment of large amounts of arms to the Iraqi's to include chemical weapons used on Iranian troops. US intelligence provided satellite overhead information on Iranian troop placements to help the Iraqi's use the chemical weapons to effect. Additionally the Saudi's, with US urging, shifted many billions of dollars to the Iraqi's to help fund the war.
In 1987 in a desperate attempt to end the war the Iranians attempted to close the Persian Gulf to oil tanker traffic and thus starve the Iraqi's of revenue. Note that at this time the Iranian Air Force was smaller than the complement of a US aircraft carrier. Iraq at this time was receiving aircraft and parts from the Russians, training and repair expertise from the French and the US navy was providing tactical intelligence on Iranian assets and their locations to help Iraqi targeting of Iranian ships and facilities. Though badly outgunned the Iranians held their own. Tanker attacks by both the Iranians and Iraqi's continued for some time until the Kuwaiti's asked the US to reflag their tankers as US vessels. This resulted in the US Navy becoming directly involved in the conflict via operation Earnest Will which was the naval escort of US flagged Kuwaiti vessels. Iran subsequently sank two of these vessels and not long after the US shot down a civilian Iranian airliner killing all some 250 persons aboard.
...On 24 September, US Navy SEALS captured the Iranian mine-laying ship Iran Ajr, a diplomatic disaster for the already isolated Iranians. On 8 October, the US Navy destroyed four Iranian speedboats, and in response to Iranian Silkworm missile attacks on Kuwaiti oil tankers launched Operation Nimble Archer, destroying two Iranian oil rigs in the Persian Gulf.[35] During November and December, the Iraqi air force launched a bid to destroy all Iranian airbases in Khuzestan and all remaining Iranian air force. However, Iran managed to shoot down 30 Iraqi fighters with their jets, anti-aircraft guns, and missiles, allowing the Iranian air force to survive to the end of the war.[35]
Bodies of Iranian students killed in an Iraqi Bomber Attack on a school in Borujerd, 10 January 1987.
On 28 June, Iraqi fighter bombers attacked the Iranian town of Sardasht near the border, using chemical mustard gas bombs. While many towns and cities had been bombed before, and troops attacked with gas, this was the first time that the Iraqis had attacked a civilian area with poison gas.[129] One quarter of the town's then population of 20,000 was burned and stricken, and 113 were killed immediately, with many more dying and suffering health effects over the next decades.[117] Saddam ordered the attack in order to test the effects of the newly developed "dusty mustard" gas, which was designed to be even more crippling than traditional mustard gas, in addition to the area for suspected Kurdish rebels. While little known outside of Iran (unlike the later Halabja poison gas attack), the Sardasht bombing (and future similar attacks) had a tremendous effect on the Iranian people's psyche....
Following the 1979 revolution the US imposed sanctions on the Iranians and has orchestrated a series of sanctions since via various means. The original sanctions were upgraded in 1996 and UN sanctions were imposed 8 different times.
Now most of the sanctions in recent years are related to the Iranian nuclear program. We will set aside the arguments about whether the Iranians are justified in attempting to build nuclear weapons (though you know if we were in their position we would not take no for an answer). Let's just look at its history for a moment (I'll highlight a few items in bold).
The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program.[1] The participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran.[2]
After the 1979 revolution, a clandestine nuclear weapons research program was disbanded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989), who considered such weapons forbidden under Muslim ethics and jurisprudence.[3]Iran has signed treaties repudiating the possession of weapons of mass destruction including the Biological Weapons Convention,[4] the Chemical Weapons Convention,[5] and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).[6]...
Note that a clandestine nuclear weapons program during the time of the Shah could not have been conducted without US/Israeli knowledge and likely US assistance.
..Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr I reactor was complete with major assistance of Russian government agency Rosatom and officially opened on 12 September 2011.[8] Iran has announced that it is working on a new 360 MW nuclear power plant to be located in Darkhovin. The Russian engineering contractor Atomenergoprom said the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant would reach full capacity by the end of 2012.[9] Iran has also indicated that it will seek more medium-sized nuclear power plants and uranium mines in the future.[10]
In a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the United States Intelligence Community assessed that Iran had ended all "nuclear weapon design and weaponization work" in 2003.[11] In 2012, U.S. intelligence agencies reported that Iran was pursuing research that could enable it to produce nuclear weapons, but was not attempting to do so.[12]
In November 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors criticized Iran after an IAEA report concluded that before 2003 Iran likely had undertaken research and experiments geared to developing a nuclear weapons capability.[13] The IAEA report details allegations that Iran conducted studies related to nuclear weapons design, including detonator development, the multiple-point initiation of high explosives, and experiments involving nuclear payload integration into a missile delivery vehicle.[14] A number of Western nuclear experts have stated there was very little new in the report, that it primarily concerned Iranian activities prior to 2003,[15] and that media reports exaggerated its significance.[16]...
Over the years there have been a number or Iranian nuclear scientists assassinated.
Attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists
In a January 2012 article in Salon magazine, Glenn Greenwald noted the killing of at least five Iranian nuclear scientists during 2010 and 2011, by unknown attackers, with no apparent outcry in the Western media.[355]
According to Iran, and privately confirmed by unnamed U.S. government officials, the attacks on the nuclear scientists and facilities are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group called the People's Mujahedin of Iran. According to the officials, the group is financed, trained, and armed by Mossad.[356]...
I suggest reading the entire page on their nuclear program as one can see the effect of government influence on media reporting and that this is a complicated story. And one might keep in mind US insistence on Iraqi WMD efforts when the IAEA found the opposite and who ended up right. Credibility means something. Just because if we the US were in their position we would build weapons does not mean that they are doing so (though it makes some strategic sense for them to do so). Though I am not a big fan of nuclear power they do have the same justifications for developing a nuclear power industry as do dozens of other countries. Their oil resources are depleting and they need to transition away from a total reliance on such resources.
In 2010 the Iranian nuclear program was hit by the most sophisticated computer virus seen to date in the world. Many reports have indicated that development of this virus required tens of millions of dollars and the work of an extremely large staff of computer experts thus making it certain that it was government sponsored. This virus did extensive damage to their centrifuges.
Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010 that is believed to have been created by United States and Israel agencies to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.[1] Stuxnet initially spreads via Microsoft Windows, and targets Siemens industrial control systems. While it is not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems,[2] it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems,[3] and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.[4][5]...
..In May 2011, the PBS program Need To Know cited a statement by Gary Samore, White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, in which he said, "we're glad they [the Iranians] are having trouble with their centrifuge machine and that we – the US and its allies – are doing everything we can to make sure that we complicate matters for them", offering "winking acknowledgement" of US involvement in Stuxnet.[22] According to The Daily Telegraph, a showreel that was played at a retirement party for the head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Gabi Ashkenazi, included references to Stuxnet as one of his operational successes as the IDF chief of staff.[19]...
..On 1 June 2012, an article in The New York Times said that Stuxnet is part of a U.S. and Israeli intelligence operation called "Operation Olympic Games", started under President George W. Bush and expanded under President Barack Obama.[23]
On 24 July 2012, an article by Chris Matyszczyk from cnet[24] reported how the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran e-mailed F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hyppönen to report a new instance of malware.
On 25 December 2012, an Iranian semi-official news agency announced there was a cyberattack by Stuxnet, this time on the industries in the southern area of the country. The virus targeted a power plant and some other industries in Hormozgan province in recent months.[25]
...
So where does this leave us? Do the Iranians have reason to dislike, distrust and fear the United States and its allies or not? To hate us or not? To hold us in contempt or not?
Do we really have any reason to fear them, to hate them? To think that they are any threat to our national security? Or are we just being bitchy because we lost control of the place?
I say the case is closed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Persian_Warhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Persian_Warshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Persian_Oil_Companyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddeghhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tathttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAKhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini#Early_political_activityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_Warhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iranhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_Libya_Sanctions_Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iranhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet