Whether one agrees with Time Magazine’s nomination of Mohammed Mossadegh as “Man of the Year” is relatively unimportant. It is important that the Anglo-Iranian oil dispute, of which Mossadegh is the nationalist symbol, has driven a wedge deep between the West and the Middle East.

And Mohammed Mossadegh, the old and ailing premier of an old and ailing nation, has proved as great a problem to Western diplomats as the oil dispute itself. Those who heard him speak before a forum of the United Nations a few weeks ago could not help but be impressed with his sincere patriotism. And perhaps secretly they could not help seeing the simplicity of what he insisted on: get the foreigners out.

But the stark fact remains that Iran is not technically advanced enough to run the immense Abadan refinery.

The West needs Iran’s oil. The West certainly does not want Iran’s oil to flow behind the Iron Curtain. Yet Poland is reported making tentative offers to swap manufactured and processed goods for that oil. And Iran’s quarrel with Great Britain on confiscation of the British properties and leaseholds has long been at stalemate.

Mossadegh would be a political phenomenon anywhere. Stepping as he has into view of the Western world out of ancient Persia, he is as astonishing as a jinni escaping from a bottle—wavering, weeping and fainting—but implacable. [The magical genie folklore is not Persian]