the United States quickly moved to convert Iran into an anti-communist bloc, thus considerably diminishing Britain's influence on Iran for years to come. Operation Ajax and the fall of Prime Minister Mosaddegh was perhaps the last of the large British involvements in Iranian politics in the Pahlavi era. The Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi paid a state visit to the United Kingdom in May 1959. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom paid a state visit to Iran in March 1961. The British forces began to withdraw from the Gulf in 1968. This was done, quite literally, out of pure economic considerations. The British simply could not afford the costs of administration. (See also East of Suez). As part of this policy, in 1971, the then British government decided not to support the Shah and eventually, the patronage of the United Kingdom ended, and consequently, this role was filled by the US. The Islamic Republic On 30 April 1980, the Iranian Embassy in London was taken over by a six-man terrorist team holding the building for six days until the hostages were rescued by a raid by the SAS. After the Revolution of Iran in 1979, Britain suspended all diplomatic relations with Iran. Britain did not have an embassy until it was reopened in 1988. During the Iran–Iraq War, Saddam Hussein acquired metal tubes from firms in the United Kingdom, intended for the Project Babylon supergun. All were intercepted by customs and excise and none ever reached Iraq. The suppliers were under the impression that their tubes would have been used in a pipeline project. A year after the re-establishment of the British embassy in Tehran, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims across the world to kill British author Salman Rushdie. Diplomatic ties with London were broken off only to be resumed at a chargé d'affaires level in 1990. Relations normalized in 1997 during President Mohammad Khatami's reformist administration, and Jack Straw became the first high-ranking British politician to visit Tehran in 2001 since the revolution. Relations suffered a setback in 2002 when David Reddaway was rejected by Tehran as London's ambassador, on charges of being a spy, and further deteriorated two years later when Iran seized eight British sailors in Arvand River near the border with Iraq. The sailors were pardoned and attended a goodbye ceremony with President Ahmadinejad shortly after they were released. In February 2004,