Britain has chosen the wise course in permitting the oil technicians to evacuate Abadan in advance of their threatened expulsion.

The only other course was to resist by armed might. That could have led to a chain of disaster, strategic, political, psychological, moral. Britain would have appeared before the world as an “imperialist aggressor.” She might even have had to fight Russia in a war which might become global and which would be started, both as respects strategy and propaganda, under the most unfavorable circumstances imaginable.

With or without war, use of force by Britain would probably have thrown that country into the arms of Russia. To be sure, evacuation under fire may be thought of as a form of “appeasement.” Yet here Britain was not appeasing the major enemy, which is Russia. Russia would doubtless have liked nothing better than for Britain to stick her neck out in Korea. Britain is appeasing only Iran, a small country not yet politically or diplomatically doing Russia’s bidding. And the Iranian “aggression,” if such it can be termed, has taken place, only within the frontiers of that country.

If Britain, in her anxiety to avoid appeasing Iran, had embarked on a rash course that could end only to the advantage of Russia, the end product would have been a truly gigantic appeasement of the Kremlin. This is somewhat the position in which our government stood last spring when pressure was brought to cease “appeasing” China at the risk of playing into the hands of Russia. Britain, apparently under restraining advice from Washington, has kept its head and kept its eye on the major, not the minor, enemy.

Clearly, this was a wise and responsible decision.