IRAN: Parthian Shot

The King of Kings, Shadow of the Almighty, Vice Regent of God and Center of the Universe, is a tough, foxy old man, better known as Reza Shah Pahlavi. Ever since his Government signed a trade agreement with Adolf Hitler’s in April last year Germans have poured into Iran. Last week Britain and Russia turned heat on the Shah to start them pouring out. By week’s end a token trickle of some 60 out of an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 had dribbled over the Turkish border.

Britain and Russia hoped the trickle would soon swell to a torrent and wash away their apprehensions. Prime British fear is of a back stab like the Nazi-inspired revolt in Iraq last spring of Rashid Ali El-Gailani. For at almost every compass point from Teheran, the Shah’s capital, the Russo-British positions are potentially vulnerable.

In three directions lie great deposits of oil, precious as man power to mechanized war: north, on both sides of the Caspian, but principally in and around Baku; west, in Iraq with its colossal double pipeline stretching from Kirkuk clear to the coasts of Syria and Palestine; south, at the head of the Persian Gulf (the richest single oil field in existence, controlled by the British Government for its Royal Navy).

To the east are Afghanistan, a hair-triggered zone of worry to British India, and Baluchistan, western gateway to British India itself. Whichever warring side gains a foothold in Iran can jump off into any of these vital sectors.

The Shah is in a sticky economic position as he had already paid for certain German goods and services before the war started. Not all Germans in Iran are fifth columnists; most are technicians. Many work on the Trans-Iranian Railway, which is 870 miles long, was eleven years abuilding and connects the Caspian Sea with the Persian Gulf. Others run the new iron smelter at Samnan, which hopes to become Iran’s Pittsburgh. The Shah can hardly shove these technicians out abruptly without crippling transportation and production.

Nonetheless, Teheran and Tabriz, the Shah’s second city, are reported swarming with Nazi secret operatives (“spending millions of pounds” say the Russians), who have filtered in from Iraq, Syria and Ethiopia. They are accused of gunrunning, blackmailing and bribing Iranian officials, conducting training schools for spies to work in India and the Near East.

Reza Shah Pahlavi is Iran’s equivalent of Turkey’s late, great KamÂl Atatiirk. Both men were rough soldiers who rescued their countries from the rule of nincompoop despots, strove to make them great. Almost singlehanded during the past 20 years, the Shah has mastered Iran.

Before he ascended the famed Peacock Throne, the Shah’s name was Reza Khan. The Pahlavi he added means “Parthian” in Persian. The phrase “a Parthian shot” refers to the classic Parthian archers’ tactic of shooting arrows over their shoulders as they fled. Last week, before he started shoving out Germans, the Shah first told the Allies that to do so would violate Iranian neutrality. The British will be contented to have him continue firing over his shoulder as long as he keeps the Germans moving out.