Word: persian
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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...
...that restored the ruler to his Peacock Throne after the overthrow of Premier Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. Yet U.S. intelligence failed dismally at assessing the depth and range of opposition to the Shah. Jimmy Carter ordered a U.S. carrier task force to steam from the Philippines to the Persian Gulf as a gesture of support. Three days later, on the advice of his foreign policy aides, Carter changed his mind and ordered the ships to remain on station in the South China Sea. Seldom have the limits of American power or the lack of a strong policy been so obvious...
...Richard Nixon decided to lift all restrictions on arms sales to the Shah. Soon billions of 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...
...Texas' James A. Bill, one of the ranking experts on Iran in the U.S., the Shah's tactics broke down in the early '70s with the rise of a "frightening secret police apparatus." Writes Bill in the current issue of Foreign Affairs: "A period of un-Persian rule by repression set in and a group of hard-liners in the intelligence organization took charge." Though Iran was hardly ready for Western-style democracy, the Shah introduced a period of liberalization two years ago, but Iran remained an autocratic state. Iranian dissidents took heart from the election...
...will 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...