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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, December 12, 1979
Page 10
It sounds so very good to hear your voice coming across our radio
so loud and clear still strongly crying aloud to Israel.
--Jewel St. John (Honey Grove, PA)
ON THE WORLD SCENE
IRAN: AMERICA REAPS BITTER FRUITS OF WAYWARD POLICY
It's now over a
month since "students" stormed the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. Fifty
American hostages remain in captivity--their hopes of early release as
remote as ever. What led up to this humiliating experience? It's not
hard to discover.
Shortly after President Carter assumed office in January 1977, he laid
down the principles of his "new look" foreign policy, a policy advocated
by leftist State Department planners who had been thwarted by the hard
line, realpolitik approach of previous administrations.
First of all, the East-West ideological struggle was to be down-played,
Americans having shed their "inordinate fear of Communism." In its place
was a new, 90-degree turn of the political axis. The world was hence
forth to be viewed primarily as a "North-South" struggle--that is, one
between the developed countries of the Northern Hemisphere (including
Communist states) and the "developing" countries of the basically southern
hemisphere Third World.
Central to this switch was the President's emphasis on "human rights."
The prime targets of the new approach were right-of-center governments-
such as in Iran and Nicaragua--which, while hardly Swiss or American-
style Democracies, had helped stem the tide against Communism or Communist
agitated violence.
America's humiliation in Iran can be attributed to this very policy shift.
Syndicated columnist Jack Anderson reported on December 7: "In memoirs
that may never be published, the deposed Shah of Iran blames Jimmy Carter
for pressuring him to make concessions that cost his throne and brought
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomaini to power."
The Shah, according to his memoirs, said that during the last years of
his reign, he had been under constant American pressure to relax his grasp
on political dissent in his country. The release of hundreds of political
prisoners--avowed enemies of the Shah--only led to more problems, his
enemies convinced the Shah was acting out of weakness. When he cracked
down on subsequent civil unrest, his policy only drew more ire from
Washington.
Even when he left, the Shah said he had been led by the President to
believe that his exit would be only temporary--a time during which his
generals could get the upper hand, calm things down and return the Shah
to power (as happened in 1953).
But, according to Anderson, "Carter
pulled the rug out from under him. According to the Shah's view, his
generals were notified that if they tried to seize control and bring back
the Shah, the United States would cut off all supplies and assistance."
The Shah has another bitter complaint against Mr. Carter. The president
once praised him in language that was almost obsequious. In a New Year's
Eve toast at the dawning of the Shah's final year, Carter declared: "Iran,