Word: oils
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...desperately poor, overpopulated and undeveloped, like most of the Third World. What the entire region has in common is an innate fragility, a vulnerability borne of being located at the center of so strategic a territory. The Persian Gulf provides fully 71% of the oil presently consumed by Western Europe; yet geographically, and perhaps also socially and politically, it is a perfect target of opportunity for Soviet expansionism. There is no convincing evidence that the Russians have been subversively operating to get rid of the Shah in Iran or that they are presently working to overthrow other regimes along...
...dollars' worth of the most sophisticated weaponry and aircraft in the U.S. arsenal began pouring into Iran. America's decision to depend on the Shah as its surrogate policeman in the Persian Gulf was perceived as even more crucial in the aftermath of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, when Iran disregarded the boycott and continued to sell vital petroleum to the West. In retrospect, one top U.S. policymaker of that period reflects: "We let the arms sales get out of control, and we failed to press the Shah to establish the roots of democratic institutions...
...beyond dispute.* What is less certain is how boldly it is pursuing this goal. Moscow's view of Iran under the Shah appears to have been highly ambiguous. Some experts believe Iran's Tudeh Communists played a direct role in the well-organized strikes of the oil workers and in the mass demonstrations against the Shah. Russian radio stations broadcast anti-American and anti-Shah propaganda. Yet the Soviets also became the Shah's third largest arms supplier and entered into several commercial ventures with him, including the purchase of natural gas. A widely held view among...
...control of the warm-weather ports and lucrative trade routes between Suez and the Bay of Bengal is still being played, except that the chief contestants today are not imperial Britain and czarist Russia but the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and the big prize is not trade but oil. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (see interview) long has argued that in a situation of what he called "rough parity" between Moscow and Washington, the global balance could be profoundly affected by events at the regional level-and, in recent years, the tide throughout the crescent of crisis could...
...readily take advantage of a situation that presents strategic gain with the minimum of risk," says a senior British official. But he adds that the conservative Soviet leadership should be credited with properly understanding the serious risks involved in actively seeking to overthrow the Shah and deny Persian Gulf oil to the Western world. He concludes: "There is no concrete evidence suggesting that the Russians have been masterminding or in any way been directly involved in the drastic changes taking place in Iran...