The premier of Iran was assassinated a few days ago. [Ali Razmara] He was the obscure political leader of an obscure and backward little nation in the Middle East, but the effects of this killing already can be traced to motor car gasoline tanks, here at home.

This assassination was no Communist plot. The murderer was a religious fanatic. [Khalil Tahmassebi of Fedai’an Islam] The resulting tension, however, has been enough to permit Iranian politicians to rush through their legislative body into a law nationalizing all the oil in that nation.

This oil, from the land which long was called Persia, fills much of the needs of western Europe. The rest of Europe’s supply today comes from nearby Arabia. What Iran has done will tempt the Arab states more than ever to nationalize oil as well.

Let the contracts held by American and British firms be torn up, and Iran’s fabulous supply of oil will go to the best bidder. That bidder could well be Russia and western Europe.

Let Europe lose its present supplier, and there would be no choice for the United States but to make up the slack. And the United States, even with the help of South American production, hasn’t oil enough to fill the present requirements of the markets involved. So what there was available would have to be rationed all around.

Such developments definitely are possibilities. Fortunately there has been nothing so far to indicate them as probabilities. The assassination in Iran and what has followed, however, emphasize once more how interrelated and interdependent the world has become. Or at least that considerable part of the world which lies outside the iron curtain.