Premier Mossadegh of Iran has just displayed his first touch of political realism. He has withdrawn the 15-day limit on his ultimatum to Britain to renew the oil talks on Iran’s terms. There is a report that Mossadegh did not do this solely because Britain appeared adamant, the United States was taking the side of Britain, and his country’s economy was declining as oil stopped flowing from the wells and through the refineries. He did it because he realized that the British government could not afford to yield in view of the setting of fall elections.

Quite possibly this recognition sprang from the fact that Mossadegh himself is the prisoner of political realities. He cannot afford to modify his own line to any serious extent even if he wished to in the face of Iran’s political extremists. Behind him stands not only the shadow of adverse ballots, but the shadow of the assassin’s bullet.

Whether Mossadegh and Attlee could come to a reasonable settlement of the oil matter in a political vacuum is very much open to question. [British Premier Clement Attlee] That they can come to such a settlement with the political realities taken into account is almost beyond belief. Here are two parties to a dispute deprived of freedom to negotiate by the force of politics, a phenomenon which hampers not only governments in their efforts to find a common ground, but also a host of other corporate institutions.