Word: persian
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...pollsters almost to a man believe that the Carter-Reagan race is now so even and so fluttery that one good puff of wind from the Persian Gulf or Moscow could turn the tiny tide one way or another. These "external sources of conflict," to use the language of the experts, can dramatically bring "coherence" to a confused domestic political picture by scaring people to one side or the other. Burns Roper calls this year's race closer than the eyelash contest of Kennedy-Nixon in 1960, and his research of the data from 50 years shows that every...
...Persian Gulf and the election campaign at home have added new urgency to a debate that has been going on for months over the state of U.S. defenses. The dispute pits U.S. Defense Secretary Harold Brown against his top generals and admirals, Republicans against Democratics. Ronald Reagan insists that the U.S. has become No. 2 in military power, while Jimmy Carter maintains, as he did last week to voters on Long Island: "We are the strongest nation on earth, militarily. If adversaries attacked the U.S., they would be committing suicide." The fundamental question: How well prepared...
...PERSIAN GULF. U.S. military experts fear that the U.S. lacks the power to back up Carter's pledge to protect the vulnerable Persian Gulf. Says Jeffrey Record, a senior fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis: "There is nothing we could do to block Soviet forces from an invasion of Iran's northern provinces, any more than they could block us from an invasion of Baja California...
Even when the RDF gets fully organized, there are grave doubts about how quickly it can be moved to a trouble spot like the Persian Gulf. Says Kelley: "If you get there fustest, you're there with the mostest." But would the RDF arrive first with the most? Brown estimates that the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, which the Pentagon rates as the sharpest, most combat-ready unit in the U.S., would take several weeks to reach its destination because it lacks enough cargo planes to transport its equipment. A Marine division would take even longer to arrive...
...danger of the Persian Gulf exploding was foremost in the minds of diplomats the world over, including those representing the superpowers. In capitals throughout Europe and Asia, U.S. envoys buttonholed their Soviet counterparts and delivered a stern lecture: with 85,000 Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan and East-West relations already severely strained, there was a strong predisposition in Washington to attach the most sinister interpretation to anything that could be construed as Soviet intervention in the Iraq-Iran war. Presidential National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski went on television to caution: "We feel it is very important for the Soviet...