August 2, 1952 — Los Angeles Times
| The Mossadegh Project | December 23, 2024 |
Foreign affairs columnist A. T. Polyzoides on Iran in The Los Angeles Times newspaper (California), reacting to false new reports that Mossadegh would be returning to the U.S.
Of Greek extraction, Polyzoides was also an editor, lecturer, and USC professor. He died in 1969.
Mossadegh’s Visit to Give U.S. Problem
It May Mean Doing Business With Iran, or Backing Britain
Now that the new visit by Premier Mossadegh of Iran to the United States early in September is confirmed, it is a safe assumption that it will constitute the kind of challenge that this country can hardly ignore. This sort of thing, coming at this particular time, is likely to prove extremely trying, because it will place before America the alternative of either doing business with Iran, against all British protests, or taking sides with Britain against the Iranian extremists now in power.
The problem in its simplest form is known: a British concern, known as the Anglo-Iranian Petroleum Co., [Anglo-Iranian Oil Company] had a contract with the Iran Government to do business in Iran on
the basis of certain mutual obligations. This in turn meant that the Anglo-Iranian would have freedom of action in opening new fields in the areas included in its concessions, extending pipelines, building and operating refineries,
getting out of the earth as large a quantity of oil as the traffic could bear, taking it to the world markets, selling it at established prices, and paying the Iranian government a certain percentage of its gross income.
Iran on the other hand should do nothing to impede the normal operation of the Anglo-Iranian’s business, or interfere with its accounting.
The Iranian Government under pressure by both the extreme Nationalists and the extreme radicals, the latter egged on by the Communists, took the position that the Anglo-Iranian's income and profits were much too large in proportion to what the Iranians were getting out of one of their major national resources.
Considered from this side it would appear that there should be a way to adjust the differences between the Iran government and the Anglo-Iranian company, but such a way was not found. The result was that Iran proceeded to declare its entire petroleum industry belonged to the nation, and in no way was to be handed out to foreigners, except on terms set forth by the Iranian government alone.
What happened after that is too well known to require repetition. The Anglo-Iranian company’s concessions were ended by Iranian law; the plants of the British concern were seized and the personnel deported when the British refused to
bow to Iran’s requests. When the British government, which has a major stake in the Anglo-Iranian, took the case to the
International Court of Justice
at The Hague that tribunal decided it had no jurisdiction in the matter.
Meanwhile, all operations in the vast Anglo-Iranian domain have come to a dead stop, the Iranian government thus losing its largest single source of income. All prospective buyers of Iranian petroleum products, duly warned by the
Anglo-Iranian, refused to deal with Iran, with the result that Iranian oil has by this time become a drug on the market.
If there is one country that could put an end to this impasse, which is costly to both Iran and Britain, that country is the United States.
It is under these conditions that Premier Mossadegh
is reported to be coming to the United States, evidently bringing along some new proposals. What these may be can only be surmised.
Iran in all probability would have this country take over the management of the Iranian National Petroleum Administration and run the whole business, pipelines, refineries and all, and subsequently enter into subsidiary agreements with
the Anglo-Iranian in order to safeguard the latter’s interests.
Assuming the United States does exactly that, and advances Iran the amount of dollars the Iranians want as a loan, which they could easily repay out of their huge petroleum income, the issue could possibly be settled.
However, such a deal would mean that for all practical purposes the United States would succeed to most of the rights and privileges of the Anglo-Iranian, and such a move undoubtedly would prove humiliating and painful to British
feelings and prestige.
[See and hear Polyzoides on KTTV, Channel 11, Sunday, at 12:15 p.m.]
Related links:
British Wise in Agreeing to Leave Iran | Polyzoides, Oct. 2, 1951
George W. Perkins: British Attitude on Iran Concerns Us (Oct. 3, 1951)
Mossadegh In A Jam | Buffalo Courier-Express, Nov. 16, 1951
MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”
