All free countries of the world are concerned in the remote problem of British oil in Iran. It is more than a problem between Iran and Great Britain. Oil is the backbone of the British economy. And American interests are directly tied to British interests. What happens in Iran in the next few days and weeks will determine the strength of the free world against the Communist world. It is that important.

Americans are vitally concerned. Our state department, having no policy in the Middle East, has made no offer nor taken any move to assure Iran that our interests are not identical to the colonial interests of Britain. We have not offered help for Iran’s economy nor tried to convince Britain that exploitation is not the way to friendship.

Pressure from Russia has been gaining power in typical Soviet fashion—by playing upon the natural desire of the poverty-stricken Iranians to strike back, to demand freedom from the so-called “imperialists” and to grab the wealth of the oil fields which were developed by the British. The Communist-dominated “National Society to fight the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company” is aiming at those oil concessions.

Iran’s only substantial wealth lies in the oil underground. Without the income she derives from British enterprise there, Iran would be bankrupt. She cannot run the oil wells herself. If she nationalizes her oil interests and throws the British out, she cannot operate the wells and will fall into the grasping clutches of the Soviets. That rich oil source would vastly increase Soviet power.

The British could make no greater mistake than to move troops into south Iran. The United States need not be sucked into this dilemma and identified with the imperialism of the British if the state department gains some wisdom—which to date it has lacked. The problem is not hopeless.

Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh is almost powerless. Excited members of Iran’s parliament, who demand expulsion of tha British, may threaten that Iran will be driven to the Communists. If the British land troops there, “to protect the lives of British nationals,” this would be an imperialistic act that might touch off a Russian invasion of north Iran.

The Communist Tudeh party is poised, waiting to seize power in Tehran.

It is a matter of Iran respecting her contracts with the British—but such things do not appeal to uneducated tribesmen prodded by the Communists, and to political aspirants who do not have the interests of Iranians at heart. They will be the first to suffer. It is a hard choice. There appears to be no possible miracle to save the legal contract between Iran and the Thus, the British are left a bitter alternative—invading the oil refining center at Abadan island, and that reqiures American support. Thus the British are appealing to America for backing.

The United States has needlessly been brought into this picture as an ally of British imperialism, which has taken as much as possible out of Iran while putting as little as possible back into the country.

We cannot support that kind of policy. Nor would Americans fight for that kind of policy. So we are faced with a crisis demanding emergency measures—but not military force.

The south Iranian refineries cannot be operated by military occupation forces. They cannot be operated by the Soviets, if they gained control. They could not transport oil across the 1,600 miles and the mountains to the Caspian sea. The oil pipe lines are laid to supply Europe and the western world. Iranians recognize this fact. They can sell oil only to the west.

This is not a time for emotional thinking. Iranians are deeply stirred against both Britain and the U.S.A., but there is a possibility of our regaining what we have needlessly lost by some imaginative action by the state department. Our standing in all of the Middle East hangs in the balance. [The mood was anti-British, not anti-American]