Behind the Oil Dispute in Iran

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THE outburst of feeling in Iran calls for serious examination. Was it simple in origin, just the inability of negotiators to come to an agreement about oil royalties, or were there deeper causes? Is the outburst a symptom of a social renaissance, of a determination to throw off the sloth of centuries? Such a renaissance would be particularly welcome to the British, who are by no means interested only in oil but regard the prosperity and contentment of the Iranian people as of high importance if only as the best barrier against Communist propaganda.

In the course of the oil crisis the Iranians, who when Riza Shah abdicated swore that they would never again submit to a despotism, submitted to the dictatorship of two men: Ayatullah Kashani and Dr. Mossadegh. It was Dr. Mossadegh who received full powers from the Majlis for six months, and who issued decrees having the force of law; but he shared authority with Ayatullah Kashani, in theory merely the Speaker of the Majlis, but also the religious leader of the Fadayan-i-Islam. It was this organization which furnished the men who assassinated the Prime Minister, Razmara, and his Minister of Education, and thereby, to judge from the chronology of events, hastened remarkably the passage of the oil nationalization bill into law. Kashani is one of those mujtahids (religious pundits) who hated the modernization of the realm effected by Riza Shah but were unable to resist a ruler strong and ruthless enough to use troops in the mosque at Meshed to quell religious disorders and to beat a mullah for denouncing the queen for appearing in public without a veil. The social changes, in particular the unveiling of women, were unpopular with all the mujtahids; so was the introduction of European codes of law, which restricted their field of work and carried Iran farther from their ideal of government, in which religious and secular powers are in the same hands...