The downfall of Premier Mossadegh in Iran in a royalist revolt is another demonstration of the adage, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” It is impossible to rejoice in the overthrow of the old scoundrel, for he is in the hands of his enemies, and, as the incidents of the Tehran uprising show, the Iranians can be a barbaric and bloodthirsty crowd.

If you’re up in that country, you’re way up; if you’re down, you are slightly worse than dead. Mossadegh rode high for more than two years. He pushed around the young shah, decreed that he should reign but not rule, ordered members of the royal family out of the country, expropriated the monarch’s estates, kicked out the speaker and other important opponents in the Iranian majlis or lower house, survived two other monarchist putsches in six months, and forced the shah and his queen to flee the country. [Soraya Esfandiari Bakhtiari]

He nationalized the great British oil industry in Iran, defied the world and juggled the currency to keep a bankrupt country running when he could not operate the refineries with native technicians or find markets, stood up to the Russians when it suited him but played along with the native Communists when it was to his advantage, and pulled off a “ja” election that would have been the envy of Hitler. In that election, less than two weeks ago, Mossadegh won a referendum to dissolve parliament. He had more than 99 per cent of the vote.

Hitler used to do almost as well and so, we suppose, did Mussolini if he ever bothered to poll the Italians under fascism. But these days Russia is the only other place that gives such overwhelming mandates, the reason being, of course, that the voter gets only one choice and runs the chance of a concentration camp or firing squad if he doesn’t mark the right way and look the opposite to glum in doing so.

But, as the experience in Iran goes to show, 99 per cent approval means nothing when the mobs and the uniformed boys with the hardware decide that it’s time for a change. The shah looks good at the moment, but so did Mossy up to the second he found himself on the spot. The moral may be read in Moscow, Peiping, and the capitals of the communist stooge states, as well as in certain presidential palaces in Latin America.

In dictatorships nothing succeeds like success, but it is foolhardy to think that there is any automatic assurance that success will be permanent. We are reminded again that the United States has expanded much diplomatic energy and many millions to influence things favorably towards us in Iran, but that all of the motion was wasted, for it had no effect on events. If the new dispensation is slightly more sympathetic to us, that is the product of chance. We might profit from the experience and quit the futile and costly process.