Premier Mohammed Mossadegh has played a rash and selfish game and lost. The personal disaste that has at last overtaken him is of little importance. What matters is the tragedy he has brought upon the government and the people of Iran through his folly.

Mossadegh has resigned because of his failure to receive further extraordinary powers. His place has been taken by Ahmad Ghavam Es Sultaneh, another aged Iranian statesman, whose earlier service as Premier was marked by a successful effort to force the Russian army out of the country. [Ahmad Ghavam] He is believed to have a more friendly attitude toward the West.

The task of undoing the damage wrought by the regime of Mossadegh will be difficult, if not impossible, of accomplishment. Determination to safeguard his own political fortunes led Mossadegh to follow the line of the extremists in the Nationalist movement.

This movement reached a dramatic climax with seizure of the property of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which automatically cut off from his government and his people their most vital means of economic sustenance. Since then, Iran, unable to operate the industry, has been sinking deeper and deeper into poverty.

It is this condition that he leaves his country. The harm he has done to the material welfare of Iran and the spirit of its people makes a dark chapter in the nation’s history.