IRAN: The Rhythm Recurs

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Whenever the Lion is in trouble the Bear takes a poke at Iran. Thirty-five years ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov made a formula of it: "The English, engaged in the pursuit of political aims of vital importance in Europe, may, in case of necessity, be prepared to sacrifice certain interests in Asia. . . . This is circumstance which we can, of course, exploit for ourselves, as, for instance, in Persian affair

The formula was in full application last week. Britain no longer aggressively expanding her empire could scarcely count on firm U.S. support so remote a corner of the world as Irans northwest corner, Azerbaijan. Because the Russians knew this well the men of the Red Army who occupy northern Iran were appointed by Moscow as paladins of self-determination. Benevolently, they looked the other way while the new Communist-inspired "Democratic Party" led a revolt. The crooked streets of Tabriz, Iran's second city, were clouded with dust and excitement as the National Assembly prepared to proclaim the province an autonomous state, with only the most nominal allegiance to Iran's capital Teheran. A new National Assembly for Azerbaijan was ready to meet and Jafar Pishevari, whose enemies said he came from Russian Baku, was ready to tell the Assembly what to do.

The revolt had made rapid progress since it welled up less than two months ago. Most of Azerbaijan (see map) was already in rebel hands. Rebel columns sped along the swampy Caspian littoral to seize the town of Bandar Shah; they headed east toward Iran's sacred city of Meshed.

The Iranian Government complained that the Red Army had blocked its military units sent to put down the revolt. Aloofly, Moscow announced that the Red Army was merely maintaining order while Azerbaijanis demonstrated, as they had a right to do.

Iranian protests to London and Washington evoked diplomatic notes to Moscow as strongly worded as Teheran could wish. But words had no great weight last week in the wooded hills and fertile valleys of Azerbaijan. The Teheran Government temporized by appointing a commission made up largely of former premiers to investigate the situation in the northwest. It was a weak expedient, but Teheran had probably heard that Washington's unoffi cial attitude was "What more can we do?"

Iran stood on its dignity as a full-fledged member of UNO. But its intrinsic weakness was that of many small states, sovereign in name only, which became pawns of the great powers. It happened that Iran had a ruler whose amiable, feckless personality symbolized perfectly the political vacuum his once-great country had become.

The Old Man. All his life (26 years) sallow, dewy-eyed Mohamed Reza Pahlevi, Shah of Iran, had been anxious to please, an attitude largely conditioned by his autocratic father, the late, tough Reza Shah Pahlevi. Like his ten brothers and sisters, Mohamed Reza grew up in awe and admiration of the domineering old martinet who rose from the soil to root a dynasty in nothing more substantial than the high, dry air of Teheran's political intrigue.