Mohammed Pahlevi, the Shah of Shahs, hardly had his throne back under him over the week end when he called attention to Iran’s desperate economic plight. [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] Premier Zahedi’s Government, said the Shah, is in “imperative need of financial assistance” not in weeks or months but “in a matter of days”. [Fazlollah Zahedi] The Shah added, however, that Iran would not beg for aid though she would be willing to accept help from whatever quarter it might be proffered.

The balance of Iranian world trade and her domestic production tell the real story behind the Shah’s urgent plea.

Petroleum is of course Iran’s principal product and primary export. In 1950 the index of Iranian oil production (1948-100) stood at 128. The following year (in which the Iranians expropriated the refineries at Abadan from the British) production skidded down to 67. Last year, limping along under nationalization with only makeshift marketing facilities, oil production fell to a low of five, which means that production had dropped to about one twenty-fifth of what it had been in 1950.

The effect on foreign trade was disastrous. Iran’s total exports in 1950 had amounted to nearly 26,000,000,000 rials, of which 22,000,000,000 were in petroleum products. Last year the export total was less than 6,000,000,000 rials, with petroleum still accounting for more than 5,000,000,000. (It is difficult to state these figures in dollars for the reason that the value of the rial on the open market has fluctuated so as to make dollar comparisons from year to year worthless.)

The Shah has said that it is too early to speak of reopening oil negotiations with the British, and Premier Zahedi by reputation at least is anti-British. Nevertheless it is very obvious that despite whatever stop-gap aid Iran may be able to attract from the West or possibly even from Russia, what she needs most is to get her oil flowing once more into the export pipelines of the world.