The term "Arab Gulf" neatly encapsulates the history of western (mainly British) economic interests. It was Sir Charles Belgrave who first invented the term "Arab Gulf" and attempted to change the name of the Persian Gulf. Belgrave was the British advisor to the Arab leadership of Bahrain in the 1930s. Belgrave proposed his "Arabian Gulf" invention to the British Foreign and Colonial offices in London, where the project was quietly dropped. Belgrave however had succeeded in a way; he had set the stage for future Iranian and Arab friction.
The British themselves soon began to see the benefits of propagating the "Arab Gulf" project, especially after Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh took control of Iran's oil industry from the British in the 1951. Furious at this perceived outrage, Roderic Owen, a British secret agent linked to British Petroleum (originally Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) saw the potential of using "Arab Gulf" as a weapon against Iran. Owen eventually published and promoted a book called "The Golden Bubble of the Arabian Gulf: A Documentary" (London: Collins, 1957). The British were not going to be ejected from the Persian Gulf without a fight - and what better way than the famous "Parthian shot" of attacking the heritage, history and civilizational legacy of Persia herself.