Mossadegh Faces New Test on Iranian Oil Policy

Checks and Balances
April 8, 1952 — The Buffalo Courier-Express

The Mossadegh Project | February 18, 2016

An editorial in The Buffalo Courier-Express from Tuesday, April 8, 1952.

Mossadegh Faces New Test
on Iranian Oil Policy

A new test is due Thursday on the policy followed by aged Premier Mossadegh of Iran in shutting down the operations of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. On that day the Iranian Senate is to vote on a motion of no confidence in that policy.

The Senate consists of 60 members chosen in 1950 for six-year terms—30 appointed by the Shah, 15 elected from Tehran, 15 from outside the capital. The government is supposed to be responsible to the Parliament; so that a Senate vote of no confidence could mean the replacement of Mossadegh by a premier who would follow a new policy on Iranian oil.

The Iranian government nationalized the oil industry last May, taking over the properties of the Anglo-Iranian company in which the British government holds a controlling interest. Iran said it was willing to compensate for the properties taken over and to furnish oil to Anglo-Iranian (at a price, of course) for transportation to its customers. But actual production was denied to “foreigners,” and no oil has been produced in Iran since Midsummer.

**Divvying Up the Loot: The Iran Oil Consortium Agreement of 1954**

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Related links:

Collapse Faces Oil-Rich Iran While Neighbors Coin Money — Buffalo Courier-Express (1952)

Iran Votes For Mossadegh — The Times Record, February 1, 1952

More Oil in Middle East — Lawrence Daily Journal-World, October 29, 1951

MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”