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DEMONSTRA TORS IN TEHERAN
march through streets in a show of sup·
port for exiled Moslem /eader Ayatollah
Khomaini, the main influence behind
lran's mass anti·Shah movement.
gy chief mea nt Saudi Arabia, Ku–
wa it , Qa tar, a nd the oil-producing
sheikhdoms grouped in the United
Arab Emirates (UAE).
America Vacillates
So far. however, the United States
has not displayed the "firmness a nd
steadfastness" necessary to thwart
Soviet inroads into the area. Just the
opposite prevails.
lt
is precisely U. S.
indecision, vacillation and outright
weakness which is compounding the
gravity of the situation.
Washington wavered back and
forth on how long to give public sup–
port to the Shah of lran. Part of this
was due to the fact that American
intelligence had fallen flat in giving
President Carter an accurate por–
trayal of how badly the Shah's for–
tunes had been sl ipping. The Prcsi–
dent subsequently criticized the incf–
fectiveness of the Central Inte lli–
gence Agency-without mentioning
that his and previous Administra–
tions were largely responsible for
crippl ing the agency's intelligence–
gathering apparatus.
The worst example of U.S. vacilla–
tion, however, carne shortly before
the Shah was forced into exile in
mid-January.
As a last-ditch show of support for
the beleaguered monarch, Mr. Car–
ter ordered a U.S. carrier task force
to steam from the Philippines to the
Persian Gulf. Three days later, how–
ever, on the advice of his foreign poli–
cy aides and State Department offi–
cials (not the military), the President
changed his mind and ordered the
ships to remain on station in the
South China Sea.
ls Amerlca Blind?
"Seldom have the limits of American
power or the lack of a strong policy
been so obvious," reported
Time
magazine in its J anuary 15, 1979 edi–
tion. Political columnist William Sa–
fire was not so gracious about the un–
precedented start-stop action. The
whole exercise, he said, represented
The
PLAIN TRUTH March 1979
"the first example of no-gunboat
gunboat diplomacy; we showed a
naked flagpole. "
America's allies are mystified asto
U. S. indecisiveness with regard to
lra n and the entire crisis are. Saudi
Arabia 's Ambassador to the U.S.,
Ali Abdallah Alireza, says thi s: "Our
friends [the Americans) do not seem
to realize that a crisis of historie
magnitude is close at hand for the
Western world and for those who
share its values in our entire area."
H is somber warning was echoed by
Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S.:
" 1 fear that historians will look back
a t 1978 as a watershed year when the
bala nce of power shifted aga inst the
Western world ."
~~
It is precise/y the
crumbling image of the
United States in this
strategic region (as
well as in Africa) that
has emboldened the
Soviet Union to take
advantage of one crisis
after another.
' '
The Saudi envoy further laments
the fact, reported in
Newsweek
(J an–
uary 1, 1979), that "no one in the
Carter Administration seems to be
listening to his government's warn–
ings about the Russia ns ." T his
should really come as no surprise.
Over a year ago, President Carter, in
a commencement address at Notre
Dame University, said that a matur–
ing America had finally shed its
"inordinate fear of Communi sm."
Shed along with that fear appar–
ently was an awareness of Soviet
aims a nd strategies. " Pro-Western
nations," reported
Newsweek,
"see
an American Administration seem–
ingly less concerned about Soviet ex–
pansionism than any Administration
since World War 11."
l t is precise!y thecrumbling imageof
the United States in this strategic re–
gion (as well as in Africa) that has
emboldened the Soviet Union to take
advantage ofone crisis a fter another.
Hedging BetaWlth Moscow
Former U. S. Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger made this a ll- im–
portant factor on the world scene–
U.S. weakness--dear in an interview
in the J anuary 15, 1979
Newsweek.
In it he stated: " During the postwar
period, the countries bordering the
l ndian Ocean believed the United
States was strategically predominant
in that arca and tha t, therefore,
friendship with the .United States as–
sured their secu rity.. . . The Soviet
ma rch through Africa, with Cuban
troops, from Angola to Ethiopia, and
the Soviet
move~
through Afghani–
stan and South Yemen.... altered
that perception; that inevitably de–
creased the importance of friendship
with the United States."
Now reports a re circulat ing that
even staunchly anti-Communist Sau–
di Arabia is considering diploma tic
relations with the Soviet Union in or·
der to "hedge its bets" with the
u.s.
Asked what more we could expect
in the way of Soviet inroads in the
are region, Kissinger again replied it
was all up to the actions taken by
Washington: " T he more that the
United States looks out of control of
events, the more it appears as if our
friends are goi rtg down without effec–
tive America n support or even effec–
tive American understa nding of what
is occurring, the more this process
will accelerate.... A problem avoid–
ed turns into a crisis and the crisis
not mastered turns into a cataclysm
further down the road."
T he former Secretary of State
then reserved special condemnation
for America 's failure to thwart the
Soviet Union's use of Cuban proxy
forces in Africa. " 1 simply cannot be–
lieve that it can be beyond the capac–
ity of the United States to stop Cu–
ban expeditionary forces thousands
of miles from home.
It
just cannot be.
To claim that it is, is in itself a symp–
tom of such weakness that it will ac–
celerate the geopolitical decline of
which we have been speaking."
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