A Reckless Adventure

December 4, 1951 — The Ogdensburg Journal


The Mossadegh Project | November 19, 2016                   


An editorial from The Ogdensburg Journal in New York, shortly following Dr. Mossadegh’s return home from the United States..




Crisis Unchanged

As it was not quite clear to most of us what Premier Mossadegh expected to accomplish in his visit to this country, so it is not clear what his tears of joy were all about on his return to Iran. Even if it be granted that he has made good his defiance of the British so far and has received some vague promises of help from the United States, the problem of how to produce and sell oil without British assistance remains where it was. Even the 90-to-0 vote of confidence he received from a jubilant Parliament in Tehran does not change the fact. It probably expresses the popular sentiment in favor of Mossadegh’s oil policy, but precisely where that policy expects to go is as mysterious as ever.

The fact is that Iran’s economic hopes run on oil, and without British technical and financial support, they are bound to stall. Expressions of United States sympathy with the general aims of the Iranian people, even when coupled with veiled promises of loans and purchases of Iranian goods, do not meet the immediate situation. Premier Mossadegh’s recently announced “austerity program,” designed to tide over the country until it is able to run its oil industry, is rather ironical in a country in which the majority of the people are only a little above subsistence level.

Eventually, say those close to the scene, Iran must either go back to her agreements with Britain and work out some form of cooperative enterprise (as she should) or she must turn to Russia for assistance. Russia of course would be very willing to take Britain’s place, but she has no pipe lines, no oil transports and no legal agreements. The last named item might not seem important until she tried to take over British contracts and ran smack into international complications. Premier Mossadegh seems to have bought a few months time, but little else, before his reckless adventure in nationalization catches up to him.



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Related links:

More Than Iran Can Chew | Lawrence Daily Journal-World, December 12, 1951

Mossadegh Appears Ready For Business | The Troy Record, October 9, 1951

Exit, Weeping -- Mossadegh | U.S. editorial, August 20, 1953



MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”

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