Except for the violence involved, the sudden, dramatic events which have just taken place in Iran are probably the most hopeful that could have occurred. This is said, of course, from standpoint of western nations which wished to see the ancient Persian kingdom retain its freedom from Soviet communistic pressures and regain its standing as a solvent, progressive national economy.

Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi is returning to Teheran, restored to his throne by the Army and police, who remained loyal to him after he apparently had been deposed. [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] They have overthrown former Premier Mossadegh, to whom they were nominally responsible, after he and his Foreign Minister, Hussein Fatemi, had drawn the country through two frenzied years of oil nationalization and its consequences. [Hossein Fatemi]

Striving to expropriate the British, the Mossadegh nationalists threatened for months to let themselves fall into the jaws of the Soviet bear. The Shah carefully bided his time. Some thought he was weak. And when he appointed Premier Fazollah Zahedi to succeed Mossadegh it looked too late. [Fazlollah Zahedi]

But the low ebb to which the economic activity of the country had been brought by wily fanaticism and unreasonableness on the oil issue finally told on public sentiment. Moreover, at this juncture, it became plain that the Communist mobs of the Tudeh Party, which Mossadegh had partially unleashed, were threatening to set up a Soviet-style “republic.”

Thereupon the Army and other supporters of the Shah and of national order overthrew Mossadegh and Fatemi and at the same time managed to put down the Communists. In this they were doubtless aided by genuine alarm lest their whole country, including the huge petroleum resources they had sought to retrieve from British control, should fall under the iron domination of Moscow.

It is significant in this connection that the region in which General Zahedi’s forces rallied was Azerbaijan, on the Russian border. This is the province where Soviet forces sought to remain in occupation after World War II, and is, moreover, the province from which Reza Khan Pahlevi, father of the present ruler, became Shah in 1925. [Reza Shah Pahlavi] It is a region long acquainted with Russian ambitions.

It should not be inferred that Premier Zahedi will immediately come to terms with the British. He has a record as a vigorous nationalist. There is also the question of how firm is the control held by the government forces.

But the new regime under the Shah raises strong hope that government in Iran will henceforth be more stable, more reasonable, and more in accord with a constructive development of the country.