Egypt is cancelling 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.

Though this crisis is current, it is too much to expect that Congress shall at this moment try to find out how the tragedy occurred. According to its present time-table of inquiry, Congress ought to get around to Iran in perhaps 1953 or 1954. Right now it’s busy with the years 1933 to 1949.