It has been just a year since Premier Mossadegh pushed through the Iranian Parliament and saw the shah reluctantly sign the decree nationalizing the oil industry and setting off the chain of circumstances which closed the world’s largest refinery and drove the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company from the country.

Premier Mossadegh, who promised much from the seizure and the break with the British, has lived to learn that he has no markets for the oil he has repossessed, that the world can get along without Iranian production, but that Iran can not get along without oil revenue.

The nation’s endurance without visible means of support since the stoppage of the oil revenues is more apparent than real, and Mossadegh is scraping the bottom of the financial barrel.

Far from surrendering, however, the old premier is calling for new sacrifices and deprivations. For the moment at least, the Iranian people must forget oil and concentrate upon exports of wheat, cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco. They must, says he, develop their other natural resources such as iron, ore, and coal, reduce government spending still further, and revise the tax system so that the rich will contribute more to the nation’s support.

If all those things were to come about by order of the Parliament and co-operation of the Iranian leadership, the oil fiasco might go down as a good thing and the awakener of Iran. The chances are, however, that the Mossadegh holy year is beginning to look unattractive to wealthy Iranians, what with talk of revising the tax structure, and that there may be some backsliding done.