Potentially wealthy Iran’s slide toward economic collapse seems to be proceeding apace. With a fortune in oil underground, the government of Premier Mohammed Mossadegh has hardly anything in the till and small prospects of replenishing it under present conditions.

Premier Mossadegh had hopes of a loan from the United States to provide the $120,000,000 it takes to carry the country over a 12-month period. But the American State Department’s position is that a loan is not justified as long as Iran refuses to reach a settlement for reviving the oil industry which Premier Mossadegh reduced to a trickle when he nationalized it despite Iran’s inability to operate it.

Now the premier has dropped his request for an American loan but stubbornly refuses to modify the attitude which has kept the oil industry dormant despite efforts of the World Bank to put it back into production.

Iran obviously is the chief loser in the oil deadlock. Meanwhile such Middle Eastern neighbors as Iraq and Saudi Arabia are rolling in oil revenues.