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Rouhollah K. Ramazani, The Foreign Policy of Iran: A Developing Nation in World Affairs, 1500-1941 (1966)

Iran is not a nation that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of the foreign policy of the Menzies Government. However, much like in modern times, its control of large oil deposits meant that it was of crucial strategic interest to the British Commonwealth and therefore to Australia.

During World War II Iran had declared itself a neutral party, but it was nevertheless pre-emptively invaded by both Britain and the Soviet Union in August 1941 (simultaneous with Menzies’s resignation as prime minister), lest its immense resources fall into the hands of what were then rapidly advancing Axis forces. Both nations had an agreement that they would withdraw six months after the end of the conflict. However, Stalin attempted to repudiate the deal, prompting one of the earliest crises of the Cold War, before the Soviets eventually backed down.

Subsequently, it looked like Iran might remain a flash point in the great power struggle, particularly after its government attempted to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company – prompting Menzies to give a condemnatory statement in the House of Representatives on 16 October 1951. However, circumstances changed again with the 1953 Iranian coup d’état which overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The coup was backed by both Britain and the United States and was partly motived by a desire to thwart the nationalisation plans. In the aftermath, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would head a thoroughly pro-Western and socially liberal regime, until he was finally overthrown by the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

In the interim, the Menzies Government had tried to assist the Shah in a program of social welfare and land reform – which was intended to improve living conditions and thereby help to cement the rule of the pro-Western monarch. In 1960, leading public servant Dr Ronald Mendelsohn was sent to Tehran as part of a multi-national advisory mission. Holding a PhD from the London School of Economics, Mendelsohn had been an important figure in the Department of Post-War Reconstruction. When Menzies abolished that department as part of his de-socialisation program, he brought Mendelsohn on as an assistant secretary in the Prime Minister’s Department. A role in which Mendelsohn made important contributions to key government initiatives to broaden access to tertiary education and develop Canberra as a true national capital.

The close working relationship that Menzies and Mendelsohn developed is attested to by the substantive correspondence the latter sent the former from Tehran, keeping the prime minister informed about local political developments as well as the progress of the mission’s efforts. Mendelsogn paints a picture of the magnitude of the flawed state of Iranian democracy, as well as hinting at the social unrest that would ultimately beget the revolution almost two decades later:

‘I thought you might be interested to hear a little more about the Iranian elections than the cables would disclose. The situation is interesting, to say the least; perhaps explosive, if one could see the direction from which a challenge to the regime could come. It is interesting that after a time people, although nominally expressing insecurity and a fear of the Savatt or secret police, confide their almost universal dislike of the regime, Mossadegh, who still lives in a village outside Tehran to which he is confined, is still a name to conjure with. It is generally said that the Army is the whole support of the regime, and that a challenge could come only from there; and this is probably true, though it also seems true to me that, despite American training and equipment, the army, which is a conscript body of about 100,000, would prove a poor opponent to the Russians, if more of a barrier to the Iranian’s fellow Moslems.

Iran is nominally a constitutional monarchy, with a two-chamber parliament consisting of an elected Majlis and a nominated Senate. It has, since 1906, a system of manhood suffrage at age 20. Women do not vote. The successful democratic revolution of 1906 was almost at once rendered nugatory, it seems, and power remained in the hands of the property-owning classes. The big change occurred in the 20s, when Reza Shah Khabir (the Great) usurped the throne of the Oajars, who had become effete, and commenced a programme of modernization and personal enrichment. If you can come to an equation of a man’s good and bad deeds this ruthless murderer may have done more good than evil. He forced the people into modern clothes (no great gain) and curbed the power of the mullahs (much less equivocal). He also showed a partiality to German influence which was to result in the 1941 AngloRussian invasion of his country and his own abdication. He was succeeded by his son, Mohammed Reza Shah, who rules nominally with the aid of a cabinet dependent on the votes of the Majlis. Only once, in the time of Mossadegh, has the Government shown any real power, and this did not last. After Mossadegh power returned to the landlords and the army.

Actual power is probably in the hands of a junta, but all acts of power are attributed to the Shah, and there is no doubt as to the degree of his personal rule. One hears a good deal of denigration of Mohammed Reza abroad, and it is extremely easy to point up the difference  between his pomp and wealth and the wretched condition of the villagers who make up three-quarters of the population. But there is no doubt as to his models; they are the enlightened despots of the XVIIIth century. He works long hours, sees every celebrity who comes to the country, receives reports from all Ministers regularly and makes decisions on them, lays down guidelines of policy, pushes steadily in the cause of modernization as he understands it, and subject to never forgetting his own interests does his best for his country. Anyone who wishes to pursue a new policy never forgets to obtain the ear of the Shah – working through channels, of course; there is a very powerful Minister of Court named Ala.

It is important to understand a little of the mood of the country. These are not primitives; they lie in all respects between East and West. The best are very well educated, often having spent 15 years at various schools and Universities; they look and hope they think like Europeans. Actually they are much less like Europeans than they think. They are futile in action and fatalistic or deeply cynical. Cynicism is the prevailing mood, together with a high degree of corruption in social and official life and in personal relations. Overlaying this is an enormous prestige for the West, especially America, and a pathetic desire to be modern. Sometimes, despite all the superficial politeness, the great interest in literature and the knowledge of the world, this makes for situations rather like those in Evelyn Waugh’s “Black Mischief”. Just recently the Mayor of Abadan grew tired of the bad service rendered by the town’s manual telephone exchange, and his agitation for an automatic exchange having proved fruitless, he had all the telephone poles rooted out and place in a heap outside the exchange. Now the people have neither a manual nor an automatic service. Again, banking here could pick up pointers from the old London goldsmiths. It takes half an hour, delicate negotiations and three signatures to cash a cheque. To our enjoyment they are just putting the finishing touches to a drive-in bank, I am looking forward to the day when one of the cameleers passing with his train will turn in to compete with the motorists as the unshaven tea-boys solace the fuming customers.

A nice smooth democracy, of course open to guidance and control, is one of the modern gadgets which the Shah would like. Every election since the system began has been openly rigged. This time he decided that elections should be free. The Prime Minister, Manouchehr Sabal, fervently echoed this. The elections would be on a two-party basis. There are two parties because the Shah a couple of years back decided that a two-party system was essential to a democracy, and ordered the formation of two parties, naming the leaders of the Government and Opposition and dividing the Parliament. He laid down the lines of policy, and Eqbal has been proclaiming constantly that he was carrying them out. The elections, in fact, developed as between the two parties into a contest as to who could best carry out the wishes of the Shah. At the end of the Majlis term the leader of the Mardom (or People’s) Party, the opposition, whose name is Alam, claimed that there was never a more loyal or co-operative Opposition in history. He may have been right. The election was, in the event, contested also by a group of independents led by a former Minister of Finance, Dr Amini, and Eqbal and he exchanged fire to a much greater extent than took place with the Opposition.

The election procedure is a prolonged affair formulated at a time when transport and communications were very slow. Supervisory councils have to be selected in each area, and they conduct the elections. Traditionally they also stuff the ballot boxes. Interest in an election is confined to speculation as to whom the authorities have selected to win. This time things were to be different. With two equally loyal and subservient parties the Shah probably meant what he said when he declared that he did not care who won. But right from the beginning the Opposition and especially the Independents declared that the fight was unfair and offered to prove it. Nobody was stirred. The public, being quite cynical, expected as much. They responded by not voting at all, not in a spirit of boycott but out of sheer lack of interest or feeling of responsibility. The educated do not seem to have voted. In Tehran the voters were junior government clerks (at their seniors’ behest) and lorryloads of illiterate villagers brought in for the occasion. In a city of 2 million, 100,000 votes were cast. One cannot know, but there seems a good chance that Eqbal misunderstood the Shah. Provided the Communists and Mossadegh could not campaign he did not care who won; but Eqbal did, and by time-honoured methods long before the several-weeks-duration election was finished he was home and hosed. The Shah took action. He is now holding monthly Press conferences, with Madison Avenue in the background. He expressed dissatisfaction with the elections, said he wouldn’t mind cancelling them but wasn’t sure how to go about it legally, and yesterday accepted Eqbal’s resignation. He has appointed as P.M. Sharif el Amami, Minister for Industry and Mines, perhaps as a caretaker. El Amami has so far distinguished himself principally as the negotiator for a new and not very well-starred steel-mill.

Whether this rocks the regime, or is just a surface flurry, is hard to say. The cables will tell you before I can; but I will try to provide more background later.’

After the revolution, Mendelsohn would say that the Shah ‘should have taken my advice’.