Dr. Moussadek's Odyssey
Dr. Moussadek, having lingered in the United States till no possible excuse for lingering longer remains, is to leave on Sunday for Tehran via Cairo. His movements, or rather in the former case lack of movement, are significant. The Prime Minister of Persia has always favoured alibis (in the correct sense of that much-abused word). When there is an inconvenient debate in the Majlis his health compels him to stay in bed ; to stay in New York or Washington has clear advantages over that. But Dr. Moussadek's sojourn in the United States had other purposes. He needed money to replace the revenues he had wantonly sacrificed by the expropriation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company ; but, as he told the Press Club at Washington on Wednesday, he is returning home empty-handed. Nothing else could have been expected by any serious politician, even though the State Department feels considerable concern at the prospect of chaos in Persia resulting from the Prime Minister's disastrous machinations. What Dr. Moussadek goes back to is far from clear. A rival Candidate for the Premiership, Quavam es Sultaneh, is in the field, but two hostile newspapers have thought fit to warn him that assumption of office is as much as his life is worth. But meanwhile, Dr. Moussadek is to visit Cairo. There at least he will find, if not the funds he needs, at any rate riotous acclamation at the hands of a people as resolute as the Persians themselves to repudiate engagements solemnly and formally contracted. The situation in neither country can be viewed with anything like equanimity. There is ground in either case for much concern. But the wise course is to give the peoples more time yet to see what their leaders have done for them. There is indeed no alternative open at the moment short of the use of force.
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