The Evening Star (January 21, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
Iran becomes football of power politics
By Dorothy Thompson
It is really tactless of the Iranian government to suggest raising its case before the first meeting of UNO. It might, we are told, involve an embarrassing discussion in the Assembly – a discussion which would get nowhere, since the Assembly can only “recommend” – and it undoubtedly would involve a Soviet veto, if taken before the Security Council.
Thus a state whose independence and integrity are not only generally guaranteed in the San Francisco charter, but were specifically guaranteed by a joint Anglo-American-Russian statement in Teheran, now faces dismemberment by one of the signatories to that pledge, and threatens the prestige of the world organization by suggesting that its case be heard.
The Teheran statement said, “the governments of the USA, and the USSR, and the United Kingdom recognize the assistance which Iran has given in the prosecution of the war against the common enemy. … The three governments recognize that the war has caused special economic difficulties for Iran, and have agreed to continue to make available to the Iran government such economic assistance as may be possible. … With respect to the postwar period, the governments of the USA, USSR, and United Kingdom are as one with the government of Iran in their desire for the maintenance of the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Iran. They count upon the participation of Iran … in the establishment of international peace, security, and prosperity after the war, in accordance with the principles of the Atlantic Charter…”
Now we are told the Iran government is inclined to corruption and is not progressive, properly democratic or what not, all of which is possible but irrelevant, since it is the same government to which the pledge was given.
The object of the pledge was, of course, to end the perennial status of Iran as a football of power politics between Great Britain and Russia. No country ever has been, or ever can be, well governed when it is an object of great power loot.
Now, every item of the Teheran pledge is brazenly broken. An “autonomy” movement (shades of Czechoslovakia) has been engineered under the aegis of the Red Army, aiming to cut off one of Iran’s richest provinces (so much for “economic assistance”); the “territorial integrity” is thus threatened, unless (as in the case of the Sudetenland) Azerbaijan is to be used as a center from which to overthrow the whole Iran government; “independence” and “sovereignty” are myths, when the Iran government is ordered by the Russians not to send troops to quell a rebellion on its own soil. So what has become of “solemn covenants?”
If ever words and deeds, facts and fancies, were at greater variance than now, I cannot remember the time. Our peace does not rest on UNO but on the balance of power between the Anglo-Americans and Russians. Iran is embarrassing because it is located in an area of vital strategical importance to Britain. The Teheran pledge was realistic, because it recognized that the independence of Iran was vital to the independence of Turkey, and that the independence of both was vital to lasting peace between the great powers.
Any peace of the powers must rest on balance, and balance can be maintained only by checks to the expansionism of any. Expansionism can only be checked by recognizing the rights of small nations. Thus the Atlantic Charter, far from being idealistic, was the last thoroughly realistic document of this war – besides incorporating the chief elements of international law and decency.
The peace of the powers engineered at Munich (identical in theory with the present peace) broke up by the unilateral action of one. So did the great power peace of the Russo-German pact. Hitler compensated Molotov for Russian benevolent neutrality, by the partition of Poland, and the award of part of Finland and part of the Baltic states. Russia, however, wanted all the Baltic states – and took them – and also a dominant interest in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, the Dardanelles, and an outlet to the Persian Gulf. The latter was. I believe, granted, the others not, and the Soviets were re-arming. It must have looked to the Nazis as though all their ill-gotten gains in Eastern Europe would be snapped up behind their backs while they were engaged in the war in the west. Hence the breaking of the “German-Soviet treaty of friendship,” by the German attack on Russia.
The present impasse will either be solved by the restoration in full force of the Teheran pledges, which would mean that Russia would have to back down; or by shelving the issue, which would mean that Russia would proceed, without recognition of her acts; or by the partition of Iran between Russia and Britain, which would mean further revealing the true face of the peace we have made.