Our vision is being obscured by distance which separates us from Iran. We have been propagandized by the British Information Service into believing that the oil deal which Britain offered to Iran seems reasonable, and that American support of British pressure on Iran to accept it seems justified.

Actually, we are making enemies for America in the Middle East by dabbling in the controversy at all. It will be interesting to see if Henry Grady of San Francisco, who has just resigned as Ambassador to Iran, does not concur in that opinion when he returns to the coast.
[He concurred.]

An authority on the Middle East, now in Sacramento, tells us that upon a visit to that country this summer he found hatred for America mounting rapidly, all because of our interference in the Iran oil problem. [Probably referring to scholar - diplomat Thomas B. W. Allen, set to speak Oct. 1st]

He said, also, that when 30,000 natives went on strike against the British oil operators, the British sent up an immediate cry that the strike was Communist when as a matter of fact there is not the slightest danger of Communist infiltration in the Middle East. Whereupon, the government, to prove that the talk of communism was British propaganda, asked the workers to return to work. They returned, to a man, the next day. This was met by a one-third reduction in their wages by the British oil moguls.

This country can ill-afford to lose friends in the Middle East, particularly in Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. We have no business pulling Britain's chestnuts out of the fire, and it would be well for Mr. Truman to recall Averell Harriman and let the Iranians settle the problem in their own way.

If the United States becomes identified with the British as a symbol of imperial domination in the seething Middle East, we may wake up some day to find ourselves asking why we forfeited the Middle East to Soviet imperialism.