ELEVENTH HOUR IN PERSIA
EVENTS in Persia arc moving rapidly towards a final break- down. In his statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday Mr. Morrison spoke of the evacuation of the Oil- fields as something which could not be long delayed, Persian action, particularly the new anti-sabotage Bill and the form of receipt now demanded from the masters of tankers, making the position of British officials in Abadan henceforth intolerable. Not even the advocates of the biggest of sticks could pretend that there is any way of stopping the Persians from bringing the oil industry to a halt if they really want to. Even if some means could be found for ensuring that British officials at Abadan were enabled to carry on their lawful occupations without interruption, it would still be easy for the Persian Government to withdraw its own nationals from work at the wells and refineries, and without this army of skilled and unskilled labour the industry would be as moribund as without its foreir...n technicians. The only way in which outside effort could preserve sanity in Persia and the free flow of Persian oil would be by direct intervention, not in Abadan, but in Tehran. But the days are past when the forcible overthrow of even the stupidest Persian Government could be considered practical politics. The bounds within which the use of force can be contemplated were set by Mr. Morrison: they include the protection of British lives, but no more. With this end in view a cruiser has already been sent to the neighbour- hood of Abadan, and troops in the Middle East have been alerted.
Even these precautions have a mainly symbolic significance. As far as is known all British nationals have been withdrawn from the area of the oil-wells and concentrated at Abadan and Bandar Mashur. A withdrawal by sea fro% either of these ports ought to be a comparatively simple matter, unless the Persian authorities became obstructive over such matters as exit visas and the removal of personal property. They are, as the events of the last few weeks have shown, quite capable of creating diffi- culties simply for the pleasure of humiliating foreigners, and for this reason the sight of a cruiser may have a beneficial effect on both Persians and British. It is also possible that official inter- ference or, more likely, some malicious rumour working on the emotions of a deliberately over-excited mob, might result in violence to individual British. In this case the work of evacuation might have to be secured by the appearance of naval personnel on the spot. But beyond this there is little help that the Army or Navy can provide. And it must not be forgotten that there are considerable numbers of British subjects in other parts of Persia, most of them not connected with the Oil Company. Mob violence' is a catching disease, and these scattered British subjects might well be its targets. Unfortunately there is no way of guaranteeing their safety. There is a good road from Kermanshah, where a 6ubsidiary refinery of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company is located, into Iraq, and an airfield there which could be used in an emer- gency. But most of the other big provincial centres in Persia are isolatedfromthe outside world except by air and inadequate roads.
It is naturally bitter to contemplate the abandonment of installations which perform such a useful function and perform it, on the whole, in such an efficient and enlightened manner. But in the present circumstances there is no alternative to abandon- ment. The Persians have long made it clear that they did not wish for a settlement of the oil question in the sense in which that word is understood in the West—a settlement, that is, by negotiation. But at the same time they have hitherto given the impression that they wish to see the oil industry continue and prosper. Their recent actions, however, have made it apparent that the smooth running of the oil industry is subordinate in their minds to the humiliation of the Oil Company and its servants_ The effect of the anti-sabotage law by itself must be sufficient to deter any technicians who might otherwise have answered the appeals made by Dr. Mossadaq and others that they would stay at their posts under the new regime—appeals which have been powerfully reinforced by Mr. Morrison's hope that they would stay on as long as they could. For although it is true that many laws find their way on to the Persian statute-book without any attempt being made to enforce them, this is a law which is obviously designed for one purpose only, to make working con- ditions for foreign oil technicians impossible. It marks down in advance the scapegoats who will have to be produced when the days of disillusionment set in. It would be unfair to expect British technicians to work under such a threat.
The appeal to Oil Company employees which was made by Dr. Mossadaq on Tuesday showed that the Persians are begin- ning to realise the dangerous consequences which must follow from their actions. They have been too easily persuaded that the present dispute was essentially a game of bluff, in which they
held the winning cards, and until Mr. Noel-Baker's speech last. week-end the British Government had done too little to call their bluff. Mr. Noel-Baker pointed out that, though the loss of Persian oil would be serious for our economy, it would not be disastrous. This statement seems to have surprised the Persians so Much that they at first assumed it must also be bluff. • Now, too late, they are beginning to see that it was not. It is worth recalling that when, in 1933, the Persian Government once before made a unilateral cancellation of its agreement with the Oil Company, the game of bluff was similarly carried on to the eleventh hour. But on that occasion there was an autocratic Shah in power, who could (and did) intervene to ensure that a new concession was signed and that any odium attaching to it fell on to his Ministers. So well did he organise matters that the legend still persists that the 1933 agreement was signed "under duress"—which is completely false, but which is one of the many falsehoods which pass for revealed truth in the Persian Press today. In 1951 there is no autocratic Shah, and no machinery, as far as can be seen, for reprieving the Persian Government from the calamities of its own devising.
The one opportunity for a face-saving reprieve was offered by the British appeal to the Court of International Justice at The Hague. The Persians claim that here, as in the United Nations and as in 1933 in the League of Nations, the scales of justice would be weighted against them. This is absurd, since all the evidence, both before and after the war, has gone to prove that in international bodies of this sort the scales of justice, if weighted at all (and there is no reason to suppose that they are weighted in the slightest at The Hague) arc tipped against the big Powers. Moreover, the British Government's case depends on an intricate legal argument which might conceivably be upset : the hearing would, in any case, give the Persians a wide audience for their case. But to deny in advance the competence of the Court, as the Persians have done, is tantamount to boycotting modern inter- national organisations of all descriptions. All members of the United Nations are ipso facto members of the Court of Inter- national Justice : it is for the Court, and not individual Govern- ments, to decide what their membership of the Court involves them in.
If the worst comes to worst, and all British technicians are withdrawn from Abadan and the flow of oil to the outside world comes to an end, there is nothing that the British Government can do except try to make good its losses in other parts of the world. While the spectacle of Persian intransigence may have encouraged some Middle Eastern Governments to put the screw on the West for the remedying of their own grievances, there is some chance that the consequences which are bound to follow in Persia will make them pause before pursuing the Persian policy to extremes. It may be that, by concentrating their resources on the smaller wells and refinery at Kermanshah, the Persians them- selves will be able to produce enough oil for their own domestic requirements. It is even conceivable that the Persian people are so inured to suffering that they will bear with the new hardships that the loss of oil royalties will place on their backs. It is more likely that they will revolt. And while their country lapses into chaos the ruins of Abadan will crumble, to rival in extent, if not in beauty, those of neighbouring Persepolis.
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