Word: carterized
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Once the Ayatullah had come into power, the Carter Administration adopted what it felt was a moderate and cooperative course of action toward the new regime, maintaining food sales and supplying spare parts for military equipment. There are those who fault this policy not only with the traditionalist argument that we were kowtowing to rebels, but also on the ground that we were again misunderstanding Iranian society. Says Sepehr Zabith, a research associate at the Institutes of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley: "Each of the measures of accommodation that the U.S. took was viewed in Iran...
Perhaps the trickiest question about U.S. policy is whether or not the Administration should have allowed the Shah to come to New York, the act that brought about the seizure of the American embassy. This was a serious Carter mistake, believes Richard Bulliet, a member of Columbia University's Middle East Institute, who thinks the decision reinforced Iranians' fears that the U.S. planned to restore the Shah to power, as it did in 1953. Says he: "Those currently running Iran could only interpret the decision as hostile. The admission of the Shah to this country sort of confirms...
Should the Administration have anticipated Iran's violent reaction to admitting the Shah? With the clarity of hindsight, there is agreement among many experts on this point: a resounding yes. A good deal can be said in Carter's defense, however. Three times the Bazargan government assured the Administration that it could protect the embassy against attack. One of the assurances came after the Shah was admitted to the U.S. and the demonstrators started shouting in Tehran's streets. There was an encouraging precedent. Last February when anti-American protesters seized the embassy, Iran's government...
Once the Administration decided to stay in Iran, it made little sense to try moving the embassy to more defensible quarters. As Carter said last week: "An embassy is not a fortress. There are no embassies anywhere in the world that can long withstand the attack of a mob, if the mob has the support of the host government itself." The U.S. had already greatly reduced the number of personnel affiliated with the embassy, from about 1,500 during the Shah's reign to 73. Fewer staffers would not have been able to maintain normal relations in a country...
...prices now hovering at $40 or more per bbl., nearly twice the maximum official OPEC price of $23.50 for oil sold under contracts of three months or more, OPEC members are clamoring for a hefty new increase when the cartel meets in Caracas on Dec. 17. Notes a top Carter Administration official: "Spot prices are the locomotive now dragging OPEC prices along." Adds Data Resources' Eckstein: "Our present forecast has OPEC prices going to $26 per bbl. during 1980, as a result of the current situation in Iran, and perhaps $29 in 1981. But if Iran's production...