Troubled Spot

An old treaty clause, more or less dormant since 1921, stirred last week and sent Western diplomats into hurried conferences.

Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky summoned. Iran's Ambassador to the Kremlin and handed him a note: since Iran has agreed to accept U.S. military aid, her army is cooperating with the U.S.'s aggressive plans against the U.S.S.R.; these unfriendly actions are "incompatible with . . . the Soviet-Persian treaty of Feb. 26, 1921."

It was a pointed reference. Article 6 of the 1921 treaty reads: "If a third party . . . should desire to use Persian territory as a base of operations against Russia . . . Russia shall have the right to advance her troops into the Persian interior . . ."

Washington and London professed to believe that the note was the usual scare stuff, and no one doubted that Mossadegh, who mortally fears all foreigners, including Russians, would reject it.

Stalinist Logic. But, by the Kremlin note, Russia had established the kind of juridical basis that she likes to have handy for aggression. Western diplomats noted unhappily that in Stalinist logic a move into Iran might make sense; in fact, Iran may be the most profitable area left in the world for the kind of move that will divide the Western democracies. An active fifth column is already at work for the Communists. The British, once a formidable block to the Russians, have just about washed their hands of unhappy Iran. The West has never made a clear-cut pledge of aid to Iran; the NATO guarantee stops at . its edge, on the eastern border of Turkey. Unprotected and demoralized, Iran lies invitingly just over the Red frontier.

The Iranians themselves seemed bent on providing the kind of chaos that breeds Communism. Premier Mossadegh, Iran's political Johnnie Ray, who came to power a year ago with tears coursing down his cheeks, vowed that Iranians would loll in "ease and comfort" if only Anglo-Iranian was booted out and the oil industry nationalized. Last week, the Premier lay in a woolen coat on an iron cot, dabbed at his streaming eyes with a white handkerchief and told a reporter that he was going to quit right after the June 9 World Court hearings on Anglo-Iranian's claim for compensation. "I've tried to do my best for the nation," he sobbed.

Mossadegh's Best. In 13 months, this is Mossadegh's best: Iran's oil industry, which used to earn the country some $50 million yearly in revenues, has been transformed into a loss, costing $1,000,000 monthly for upkeep. The rial's value has been cut to one-third. To keep going, the government has stripped Persian carpets from its office floors, sold a thousand of its automobiles. Iran's economy today looks like a desolate house in which all the furniture and woodwork have been burned to keep the tenants warm.

Mossadegh blamed Britain and the U.S., saying he would have welcomed any "sound" offer but that "none have been, made." (The British made at least two offers, the World Bank another; none satisfied Mossadegh.) He acknowledged that after he resigned, Communism might sweep his weakened country, but "I can't help it." He had warned Britain and the U.S., he said, "but they don't seem to realize it."

Two days later, a government spokesman told newsmen that the Premier wasn't going to resign after all. Instead he was off to The Hague with a barrelful of documents to prove that the perfidious British had committed more evil in Iran than "anything in the Middle Ages."

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