When Premier Mossadegh of Iran arrived in New York he promptly appealed to the Spirit of ‘76. The “cruel and imperialistic” attitude of Britain, he said, is the “sole reason” why Iran is full of “naked and needy people”. Hence “great similarity exists between the efforts and sacrifices of the Iranian people today with what your ancestors did 200 years ago to release their homeland from the fetters of economic and political imperialism.”

The shrewd old premier may believe that, but we doubt that many Americans will. There is quite a little difference between the overbearing and imperialist Britain of mad George III, and the Britain which fought Hitler, elected a Labor government, freed India, imposed “austerity” on itself, and set up the Colombo Plan to aid backward nations. Mossadegh would have difficulty matching the “long train of abuses and usurpations” of which the Declaration of Independence complained in 1776. And he has not, thus far, shown much of the “decent respect for the opinions of mankind” which that document stresses in its first sentence.

That, in fact, is where his parallel breaks down entirely. The declaration speaks of the “patient sufferance” of the 13 colonies, of the “repeated petitions for redress,” and of the repeated appeals to the justice and magnanimity of the British people—appeals which were not met, as Iran’s were, by offers of increased revenue. The signers of the Declaration laid the greatest importance on proving to the world that they had passed up no opportunity to settle differences by mutual consent.

If Iran had done the same. Mossadegh would not be here now. His country has the sympathy of most Americans, we believe, in its desire to get a better deal from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Britain’s attitude has been in some respects short-sighted and ungenerous, but she has not sent troops into Iran, she has offered a pretty good financial proposition, she has tried to mediate, and she has offered to be bound by the decision of the World Court on the issue. Mossadegh, on the contrary, has flown the Atlantic to oppose the “illegal interference” of the World Court. The men of 1776 would never have understood why he should refuse to settle the dispute—as it could be settled—by agreement. For this is precisely the kind of attitude they refused to tolerate when it was displayed by the British.