The news that the Russians seem to be getting ready to move in on the Iranian scene probably surprises nobody. The shadow of Russia in the background is what the world has really been watching, not the quarrel between the British and the Iranians.

Russia needs oil. Yet the Iranian game, as the Russians would play it for the present, probably would not be to take Iran’s oil but to prevent the west from getting it.

The Map’s Story

A map of the Middle East illustrates the difficulties of sucking oil from Abadan into the Soviet Union. Iran is a rugged country; the oil from the Persian Gulf area would have to cross several mountain ranges to get to Russia. A better railroad would have to be built, or a pipeline. The pipeline would cross such terrain as no pipeline has ever crossed before.

There is the sea, of course. But the sea lane is vulnerable even if Russia found the tankers to carry the oil. The shipping would run the gantlets of Suez and the Dardanelles to reach Russian Black Sea ports. Or it would slog through two oceans to Siberia.

On the other hand the Russians may play their hand so well that the world’s greatest refinery at Abadan will become a useless steel junk yard, a monument of warning to the west that there is no faith in the mercurial and venal governments of the “backward nations,” the prospective recipients of Point IV in Iran aid.

The Reds In Iran

It is to be doubted whether the Russians had much to do with the Anglo-Iranian quarrel. The Iranian government is anti-Communist and has put heavy restrictions on the Iranian Communist (Tudeh) Party. But having cut herself off from the west in her quarrel with the British, Iran is likely to look with more favor on the renewed Russian offer of economic aid. With her oil revenues cut off Iran is bankrupt.

The oil loss to the west is not as great in Iran as tensions would indicate. The west may take some comfort from the fact that so long as Russia does not get the Iranian oil the closing of the wells is not likely to upset the westward flow of oil.

Iranian oil was a small part of what Britain controls in the Middle East. The big problem when the crisis came was not replacing Iran’s crude oil production but its refinery capacity as represented by Abadan, which can turn out 500,000 barrels a day.

There’s Still Plenty

Production of crude itself is sufficient. No one country holds the key to the oil supply. Middle East oil is very important, but that means oil from Iraq, from the fabulous Bahrein Island in the Persian Gulf, from Kuwait and from Saudi Arabia, as well as from Iran. Last year the Middle East supplied 75 of free Europe’s petroleum needs, reversing the traditional flow of oil: in 1938, for example, 75 of Europe’s petroleum came from the Western Hemisphere—the United States and the Caribbean area.

And it can still flow from the Middle East to Western Europe in the same quantities. For example, Saudi Arabia’s production (by the Arabian American Oil Co.) was increased almost tenfold between 1945 and 1950. By last summer Aramco was producing 800,000 barrels a day, topping the Anglo-Persian’s 700,000. The increase in Saudi Arabian production, along with that of other Middle Eastern fields, is enough for the demand. The refinery capacity problem is the only immediate one to be solved.

The Iranian problem is not therefore to be forgotten. It is a key problem in the relations of the east and west. But its importance is more political than economic. The west can get along without Iran’s oil but it can’t be happy with its oil backlog, however ample, so long as the highhanded Iranian action stands as a precedent for other oil-rich “backward” countries to follow.