Egypt is canceling treaties with Britain that cover the stationing of British troops in the Suez Canal zone and the joint control exercised by the two countries over Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

This is but a foretaste of what may be expected in the middle east as a result of Britain’s defeat in Iran. Britain is the prime symbol of colonialism to the aroused nationalists of the Arab world, and the Iranian example has not been lost upon them.

There is still an outside chance, of course, that something may be retrieved in Iran if genuine negotiations can once again be initiated. If that does not happen, it must be marked down as one of the west’s great failures of 1951.