FASCINATED and paralyzed as if caught in the hypnotic stare of a coiled cobra, the Truman Administration is standing by motionless while Britain’s quarrel with Iran threatens the peace of the world.

The do-nothing attitude that weakly permits British policy to expect and demand American support in Asiatic affairs can easily lead us into a sorry mess in Iran as bad or worse than the one which now embroils us in Korea.

Under the guise of another “United Nations police action,” the controversy over Iran’s oil could force us into a second major conflict, that would benefit World Communism and no one else.

BRITISH cupidity, haggling for profits in the face of disaster, trusting in the complaisant support of the United States, provoked the Iranians into nationalization of their petroleum industry.

Our State Department seemed at first to believe that the only loss involved is profit to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. It took comfort in presuming that the Iranians, volubly anti-British and anti-American but theoretically anti-Communist, had promised to sell no oil to Russia.

But now suddenly our administration and Mr. Attlee’s Socialist government realize that the trouble in Iran is of much greater gravity than a mere argument over profits. [Premier Clement Attlee]

For Iran contains the precious oil that Russia badly needs for her military machine, and it lies at her very doorstep within instant reach of the Red Armies. And a few days’ march beyond lies India, for centuries the shining goal of Russian imperialism.

HAD the Truman administration had a policy of non-participation in matters not directly affecting American peace and security; had that policy been so clear-cut and firm that no one else could mistake it or alter it; had it been subject to the influence and direction of none but American interest and welfare, the Socialist government of Britain would never have allowed the Iranian controversy to flare into revolt.

Now that it has done exactly that, how that our complaisant drifting of no-policy has directly contributed to an explosive situation, we must face the serious hazard either of defending the commercial interests of one intemperate friend or losing another exasperated friend to the Communist bloc.

We are confronted also by the danger that, should the Iranian affair be brought to the legal jurisdiction of the United Nations, our docile heedfulness to the decisions of that body and our lack of a forceful, definite policy may order us into another Korea.

AMERICA might thus find herself in an ambiguous situation which neither policy nor lack of policy could justify or mend.

For in one Asiatic theater we might be ordered to intervene for the safety of an ally’s commercial interests while in another Asiatic theater we have trouble convincing the same ally to discontinue trading with the enemy. [Britain was still trading with Red China, despite their adversarial role in the bloody Korean War]

Which of these possibilities or probabilities come to pass, however, is not the core of the question.

The glaring and tragic fact is that Mr. Truman and his clique of confidants and advisers have no idea, no plan, no program of any kind in Asia, and that consequently they lack the force of conviction to eschew the blandishments of shrewd allies or to assume the leadership for which America, but not her government, is fit, ready, and drastically needed.

World Communism need not risk a single party member or fire a shot to seize the priceless advantages that no-policy in Washington is so wilfully and blindly forfeiting