Word: gulf
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...highest form of multilateral nonsense, however, is to pretend to fob off the responsibility on the U.N., as Senator Pell proposes. And Pell is not alone. Presidential Candidate Michael Dukakis spoke for much of the Democratic Party when he expressed opposition to American use of "armed forces in the gulf unless it does so in concert with other nations, preferably under the aegis of the U.N. Security Council...
...East, the U.N. called its peace-keepers home, since this was not a peace that it approved. The U.S. had to field a makeshift substitute force. This U.N. is hardly capable of any action. It is certainly not going to do the West's dirty work in the Persian Gulf...
What about the Security Council? If Pell really wants the Security Council to protect the gulf, what he means is for the U.S., Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union to act together. But this is absurd. China, for example, is supplying Iran with the very missiles it would use to target any peacekeeping flotilla. And even if united action were possible, it would not be desirable. What the "U.N. route" really means, after all the disguises are removed, is that the U.S. should act in the gulf only with the permission not just of allies but also...
...invite the Soviets to share the responsibility, and thus the rewards, of controlling the Persian Gulf would amount to the most astonishing voluntary abdication of a Western position in the postwar world. At least when the British ran out on their responsibilities in the gulf in 1971, they turned it over to an ally. But now Pell and others would like to offer the Soviets, who have been lusting for the gulf since Romanov days, a share of it. Gratis...
...Democrats are not alone. Among the others warming to this idea is Howard Baker. "It's a unique arrangement that the Kuwaitis chose to invite both the United States and the Soviet Union to share the responsibility for assuring the passage of oil tankers to the Persian Gulf," he offered. "That's a real first . . . I think it is clearly not a bad thing." If this was an off-the-cuff remark, it shows an amazing lack of seriousness by the vaunted new Administration team. And if what Baker enunciated was a decided change in American policy, it constitutes...