Iran has joined the list of countries where American newspapermen have run into trouble.

Iran isn’t quite as bad as Czechoslovakia, where Associated Press correspondent William N. Oatis is still imprisoned on trumped-up charges of espionage.

But still the government of Premier Mohammed Mossadegh has chosen to order the ouster of Michael Clark, correspondent for the New York Times.

The Mossadegh government accuses Clark of writing “lies and insults” about it.

And this from a regime the supporters of which shout in the streets: “Death to foreign elements!”

Iran is heading for economic disaster because Premier Mossadegh deliberately sacrificed oil revenues by throwing out the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.

Apparently financial aid from the United States is the eccentric premier’s only hope. If he gets it, it will be because the United States is desirous of saving Iran from falling into the Soviet sphere of influence, not because the Mossadegh policies invite any sympathetic consideration.

Maybe the old boy is clever, at that. He is rapidly getting to a point where, if Iran is saved, somebody else is going to have to do it in somebody else’s own interest, not Iran’s. And gratitude is never guaranteed in such a circumstance.