Although most royalty which has gone into exile in recent years has done so without eliciting many tears on the part of democratically-minded people, we believe that most persons who have been watching the perilous events in Iran over the past few years will cheer the fact that the army has remained loyal to the Shah, overthrowing Dictator Mohammed Mossadegh and thus paving the way for the Shah’s return from Italy where he and his young wife had been forced to flee only a few days ago. The army’s action may well presage a bigger role in national affairs for the Shah, who has been successfully kept in the background in months past by the demagogic Mossadegh.

The Shah has shown himself in the past to be a friend of the West and also desirous of improving the lot of the common people of his country, ground down by the feudal practices of the great landlords. Mossadegh, on the other hand, although proclaiming his enmity for communism, has rebuffed every effort by the United States and other Western nations to work out some solution to the impasse which has virtually closed down Iran’s valuable oil wells and forced the nation ever-closer to bankruptcy.

Had Mossadegh persisted in his suicidal course, it seems certain that the Iranian Communists would have been able before long to grab the reins of government, thus making Iran another Russian satellite and placing its huge oil reserves at the disposal of the Kremlin, an action which would have tremendous importance in any future war.

Under Mossadegh, it seemed that the Iranian situation could do nothing but grow progressively worse. With the army and the Shah running the show, there is at least a chance that things will start looking up. The Western World must do all in its power once again to encourage this denouement.