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...