The Cornell Daily Sun — October 18, 1951
| The Mossadegh Project | February 13, 2014 |
This editorial was printed in The Cornell Daily Sun (Ithaca, New York) on Thursday, October 18, 1951. Cornell University produced this newspaper each weekday during the school year.
Reserve and Recourse ?
Although he has since become more adamant in his position, Dr. Mossadegh stated his case thus Monday:
The Security Council has no jurisdiction to hear this complaint. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the United Nations is the supreme body capable of assuming responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It is the ultimate [sic—refuge] of the weak and oppressed nations, the last champion of their rights.
* * * If a state can bring before the Council a matter not within its competence, and Council for political reasons must take cognizance thereof, the Council will become an instrument of interference in the internal affairs of one country by another.
Indeed it was on the basis of peace and security that Iran came before the Security Council five years ago in an effort to have Soviet troops removed from its land and to withdraw foreign support from a rebel regime in its provinces.
Dr. Mossadegh now seems to have forgotten the successful manner in which world opinion was brought to bear on Russia at that time, resulting in the restoration of a degree of Iranian sovereignty. Faced with widespread popular demands for complete and absolute sovereignty, the Premier evidently prefers to bargain in private under the auspices of the U.N. while denying the world organization any active, open role in solving the crisis.
Mossadegh stood fast in his rejection of repeated suggestions from such nations as India and Yugoslavia to further mollify the watered-down proposals made by Britain. He seems quite content to play for the sharpest bargain on the basis of his nation's fortunate geographical position, regardless of its practical cost to his country. He fails quite completely to realize how such action subverts the United Nations in its efforts to promote international peace in an atmosphere of open discussion and agreement under a recognized rule of law, not force.
Related links:
"A Bad Break Is Feared" — The Knickerbocker News, October 17, 1951
Penn State Guest Column on Iran Freedom Struggle — The Daily Collegian, Nov. 8, 1968
"Mohammed Will Go To the Mountain" — J.E. Jones, October 18, 1951
MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”
