NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE greatest difficulty which faces Mr. Stokes in Tehran is the deep conviction among many Persian nationalists that any agreement with Britain is automatically undesir- able. This sort of suspicion, for which Dr. Mossadaq is himself largely to blame, dies hard. When the dispute first broke many Persian nationalists were at least as anxious to inflict a diplomatic defeat on Britain as to win an economic victory for themselves, and they still find it hard to believe that the second object need not necessarily include the first. To this state of mind must be attributed the mainly hostile reception which has greeted the British offer for a new agreement. Mr. Stokes himself is not disposed to take as a final answer a statement to the Press by Mr. Fatimi, the deputy Premier, that the Persian Cabhipt would reject the offer. There is no doubt that the terms of the British offer are extremely generous ; they would give the Persians an effective share in running the drilling and refining operations of the industry, as well as a handsome slice of the profits. The plan, which transfers all the assets of the Arlo-Iranian Oil Company to the National Iranian Oil Com- pany and sets up a new producing agency under the authority of the N.I.O.C., gives the Persians a much greater degree of con- trol over every side of their oil industry, except overseas market- ing, than is enjoyed by any other Middle Eastern country today. It is difficult to see how any further concessions of principle could be made if the Persian oil industry is to be kept efficient. The new oil agreement which is reported td have been signed by the Iraq Government and the Iraq Petroleum Company shows how a producing country can benefit from a programme of expansion. In many ways the Iraq agreement has been influenced by developments in Persia. But, as the Iraqis are not tied to the dogma of nationalisation, they can reap the benefits of efficiency without feeling that they have perjured themselves.
