Dr Musaddiq’s triumph of the weekend has been short-lived. [Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, Premier of Iran] While the Shah was content to be his prisoner, and to give his regime an appearance (however shady) of constitutional respectability, it is doubtful if the various groups opposed to him would have coalesced sufficiently to bring him down. The Shah’s flight into exile was a masterly card led suddenly from a weak hand; it frightened the Army with the prospect of being left wholly at Musaddiq’s disposal, and it aroused all the latent Persian traditions of loyalty, if not the Shah personally at least to the idea of his throne. And Musaddiq’s own dictatorial act in dissolving the Majlis has recoiled upon him; it gave the Shah a constitutional opportunity to invite General Zahedi to form a Government, thus providing waverers with a valid reason for deserting Musaddiq as soon as it was clear that he was not going to have things all his own way. [Fazlollah Zahedi] It is not yet certain that General Zahedi is firmly in the saddle. He seems to have captured Tehran, and the powerful Bakhtiari tribesmen, who are kinsfolk of Queen Soraya, are capable of giving solid backing in their territory to his resolve to restore the Shah. [Soraya Esfandiari Bakhtiari] That is an important factor in the situation, because the writ of Tehran by no means runs automatically in some of the half-independent satrapies that are the Persian provinces. The Communist Tudeh party is probably the only organised force left capable of putting up a fight for Musaddiq, but it was his flirtations with the Tudeh party that alienated many of his former Nationalist supporters. [How did he flirt with them?] Tudeh could probably cause trouble, but without Russian backing it would be unlikely to achieve anything; and there is no evidence at the moment that Russia wants to fish openly in troubled Persian waters. Unless there is some such intervention the Shah seems likely to be restored, with General Zahedi in power as an individual, but legitimist, “strong man.” Can he set out to attack corruption with the tenacity of purpose of General Neguib in Egypt? [Mohamed Naguib] Is there a sufficient corps of New Model officers in the Persian Army who would support him if he tried to do so? The future of Persia is still clouded. The hope must be that the collapse of a regime which has brought that unhappy country nothing but further misery at least offers the chance of reform, and of a sincere attempt to tackle her many economic ills.