Iran is an excellent example of what extreme and unthinking nationalism can do to a country.

Iran had a deal with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. by which it received millions of dollars a year in oil royalties, the country’s chief source of revenue. It could have had more by negotiation.

But the Iranian government, under Mohammed Mossadegh, chose to throw the British out and expropriate the oil properties. Result: No oil business, no royalties.

Now the Shah, troubled by a financial crisis and the threatened strike of all government employes unless they get back pay and a pay raise, is reported to have summoned Premier Mossadegh home from Washington, where he has been talking but doing nothing constructive about putting Iran’s biggest resource to some profitable use.

Premier Mossadegh and the Iranian Nationalists are in a fair way to learn the hard way that not only is it impossible to have one’s cake and eat it, too, but the cake they have is definitely indigestible.