Iran gives the world an interesting sidelight on the way totalitarianism works—and how it can be combatted. The oil agreement ending three years of extremism and violence completes the cycle, with the West and Iran itself on the winning side.

Fanaticism and extreme poverty of the many were precursors of the 1951 crisis, precipitated when Mohammed Mossadegh and his extremist national front took over the country on a note of violence — the assassination of the moderate premier, Ali Razmara — and established totalitarian rule. [Lyndon B. Johnson took over on a note of extreme violence — the assassination of John F. Kennedy. What’s your point?] Nationalizing of the oil industry and expropriation of Anglo-Iranian oil property was a mark of the totalitarianism which left Iran poorer than it had been before. [Not even AIOC itself used this terminology]

But as totalitarians do, Mossadegh went too far. He tried to overthrow the shah, wreck the constitution and void the parliament and now the forsaken Mossadegh languishes in a Teheran prison. [The only accurate charge here is that he dissolved the Majles.]

He still has followers among the extremists, who will not like the oil agreement worked out by negotiation and compromise with considerable help by the good offices of the United States.

But the new oil agreement promises for Iran greater prosperity than it ever has had before, and totalitarians like Mossadegh do not usually rise to power in good times. When he took over, Iran was threatened with Communist takeover, and under him Iran moved to the verge of bankruptcy.

Now, under a shah who responds to their needs and with the prospect of better living standards, the Iranians can hardly be expected to turn back toward either Communism or the condition of poverty and fanaticism on which it feeds.

The oil agreement contributes to the stability of the Middle East. In all its implications it represents a major victory for the free West over totalitarianism.