Book Review: The Iranian Case, 1946
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205400900116 |
| Author | Frank Milligan |
| Date | 01 March 1954 |
| Published date | 01 March 1954 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
64
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
citizens
but
duties
as
leading citizens.
In
this
period, before
the
gas chamber
and
the
slave
labour
camps gained
their
destined
notoriety,
the
most
charitable
thing
that
can
be
said
for
the
generals
is
that
their
esprit
de
corps,
their
moral
outlook,
and
their
unity
had
atrophied
since
the
days
of
Moltke
and
Schlieffen.
As
Brigadier-General
Taylor
frankly
admits,
his
book
is
based
on
observation
and
experience
at
Nuremburg,
not
on
re-
search.
He
is,
therefore,
as
one
might
expect,
completely
at
home in
the
Nuremburg
documents,
and less
happy
in
dealing
with
the
historical
background. His
narrative
and
his
con-
clusions
add
little
that
is
new.
He
leans
heavily,
for
example,
on
the
writings
of
Sir
Lewis
Namier.
But his
book
is
a
clear
and
interesting
presentation
of
a
sad
chapter
in
German
history
which
contains
some
salutary
lessons
for
anyone
concerned
with
the
German
question.
University
of
Toronto, September
16,
1953
R.
A.
SPENCER
THE
IRANIAN
CASE,
1946.
By
Richard
W.
Wagenen.
1952.
New
York:
Columbia.
ll9pp.
50c.)
Professor
Van
Wagenen's
principal aim
is
to
determine
how
far
the
Security
Council
was
responsible
for the
Soviet
Union's
withdrawal
from
Iran.
The
greater
part
of
the
study
consists
of
a
careful
statement
of
the
facts
based
on
thorough
research
and judicious
selection.
His
conclusions,
equally
careful and
judicious,
are
in
favour
of
the
United
Nations.
"It
is
by
no
means
fanciful
to
believe,"
he
concludes,
"that
the
Soviet
Union,
though
unwilling
to
defy
the
United
Nations,
might
have
been
willing
to
defy
the
large
states
individually."
The
difficulty
is
that
to
arrive
at
conclusions
requires
a
good
deal
of
speculation, and
the
case
method,
by
its
selectivity,
tends
to
impose
a
check-rein
on
the
speculative
faculty.
Mr.
Van
Wagenen
has
treated this
affair
as
a
dispute
between
nation
states
and
has
concentrated
on
the
diplomatic record,
basing
his
conclusions
on
that
material.
But
in relation
to
Iran
the
Soviet
Union
was
something
more
than
a
foreign
power.
There existed
in
Iran,
then
as
now,
an
extension
of
the
Soviet
personality
in
the
form
of
the
Tudeh
Party.
The
most
difficult
task
of
the
U.S.S.R.
may
well
have
been
to
weigh
the
utility
of
its
military
occupation
of
northern
Iran,
not against
the
hostility
(and moral
advantage)
of
its
opponents
in
the
United
Nations,
but
against
the
under-
mining
of
its
chosen
instrument throughout
Iran.
Azerbaijan
itself
was
not
of
great
value
to
the
U.S.S.R.;
the
real
aims
were
an
enlarged sphere
of
influence
and
oil
concessions
in
the
south.
Coercion
failed
to
produce
quick
results,
and
the
reaction
in
Iran
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