Siding with the West

Iran drew visibly closer to the West. It was about to become a business partner of the West again, and might soon become a military ally. The long and acrimonious Anglo-Iranian oil dispute was so close to settlement that Iran's top negotiator announced: "There is nothing important left which could produce a deadlock." And last week Premier Fazlollah Zahedi, Iran's soldier strongman, who arrested his nation's decline from Mossadegh to Moscow, indicated that he was prepared to steer his country away from its classic anxious neutrality.

To a group of Teheran editors summoned to his home, Zahedi said: "Recent events have made all of us realize that it is an absolute blunder in international conflicts to remain aloof from the course of world events. These days, no country can live in isolation. We have witnessed how aggressors have wantonly occupied neutral countries . . . We have to increase national resistance to all [such] aggressors."

His remarks were meant, and everywhere taken, as a clear slap at Russia and a friendly hand to the West. Predicted Teheran's influential newspaper Kayhan: "Before long the Iranian government will clarify its policy with respect to the two conflicting power blocs, and will express its preference for the bloc that holds views similar to this country's."

Although General Zahedi had mentioned no nation by name (he has to get his people, so violently anti-British until recently, used to the idea), and had made no specific pledge, there were signs that Iran may be drawn into some such U.S.-sponsored defense arrangement as the Turkey-Pakistan pact. A month ago Russian Ambassador Anatoly Lavrentiev accused Iran of discussing a mutual defense agreement with the U.S. and sharply warned the Zahedi government against doing so. Iran replied that it would join any bloc it deemed necessary to its own defense. Those were audacious words to deliver to its powerful northern neighbor, which has long claimed a special interest in Iran.

Actually, no military discussion with the U.S. has taken place. Diplomatically it would be out of the question until the three-year-old oil dispute between Britain and Iran is settled. But that is due any day now. British and Iranian negotiators have worked out a complicated formula by which the dispossessed Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. would be compensated (though some gentler phrase might be used) for the huge oil installations it left behind when Iran nationalized its oil industry in 1951. Other provisions:

P:An international consortium of eight of the world's biggest oil companies to operate the industry for 25 years, using Iranian technicians as much as possible. Biggest partner: Anglo-Iranian, with 40%. Five U.S. companies (Jersey Standard, Gulf, Texas, Socony Vacuum, Standard of California) will share another 40%, and Royal Dutch Shell and a French company the rest.

P:Division of profits between the consortium and Iran on a 50-50 basis, a similar arrangement to that in other Middle East oil-producing countries. Revenue to the bankrupt Iranian government could amount to as much as $75 million in the first year, rising to $190 million annually by the third year. (The U.S. has given Zahedi's government $60 million to sustain it until the oilfields and refineries resume production.)

If Iran's Parliament ratifies the agreement, which it is expected to do after some passionate oratory, Iran's valuable oil flow could start again by the end of the year.

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