Obstetrical Spank

Spanking is one way of forcing a baby to breathe and live. Last week Baby UNO got a sharp whack across its little red fundament. The slap was a demand that it investigate the "interference of the Soviet Union, through the medium of their officials and armed forces, in the internal affairs of Iran."

Next Iran's elderly Premier, Ebrahim Hakimi, pointed up the growing crisis by resigning. He had pleaded in vain with the Russians to take the Red Army out of the northern parts of his country, withdraw their support from the rebel government that had sprung up in Russian-occupied Azerbaijan.

Three Views. Earlier the Iranians had tried to sound out Big Three attitudes in London. The U.S. looked hopefully blank: it hoped most of all that nothing too controversial would come up at UNO's first meeting but knew that any attempt to discourage Iran would send a tidal wave of cynicism around the world.

From Britain the Iranians got a subtle, misty encouragement. Britain had taken the lead in channeling problems to UNO; it had historic imperial interests in keeping Russia out of the Middle East; it had large oil holdings in south-central Iran. Russia only glowered--until Iran acted. Then the Soviets pursued diversionary tactics. They demanded that UNO also investigate British-occupied Greece. The Soviet Ukraine piped up for a probe of Dutch-British troubles in Indonesia.

But Iran remained the kind of dispute UNO had been conceived to handle, though all of UNO's friends were not too happy that UNO had been asked to handle it. Anxiously some advised Iran not to expect baby to get up and walk before it was strong enough to climb out of the cradle. The less sentimental had another view: baby would grow strong only by exercise; if baby did not act now it would not be any stronger five, ten or thirty years from now.

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