Word: shahs
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Outside Iran, countries with a major stake in the outcome of the Shah's effort watched and waited uneasily. Iran is vital to the industrialized world not only because it is the second largest exporter of crude oil in the Middle East, but also because it is the "policeman" of the crucial Persian Gulf sea-lanes through which 40% of the non-Communist world's oil is shipped. The U.S. gets 8% of its imported crude from Iran: Western European countries from 20% to 40% of their supply. The impact of the dead stop in Iranian oil shipments...
...addition, many companies and countries made large oil purchases during the last three months of 1978 anticipating the 14.5% price increase announced two weeks ago by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. But if the Shah were replaced by a fundamentalist Shi'ite government eager to cut back on his modernization schemes, the subsequent reduction in Iranian exports would push prices even higher, with the result, in the view of one oil expert, that "we'd all fall...
Nowhere is the anxiety about Iran greater than in Washington. Since 1972 the U.S. has pursued a policy of unremitting support for the Shah. But that kind of thinking, a veteran policymaker observed last week, caused the U.S. to "miss a chance to act. Washington proceeded on the assumption that what the Shah needed was propping up; what he really needed was to be told the facts of life." The facts: if he wanted to retain even a semblance of power, he would have to find some way to accommodate his more moderate opponents by moving toward the establishment...
...State Department last week reiterated its support for the Shah's "efforts to promote stability," but the carefully worded statement lacked the conviction that had characterized earlier pronouncements. Meanwhile, three high-level task forces settled down to plan for contingencies. Among the top priorities: preventing the sophisticated radar systems and advanced F-14 fighters that the Shah has purchased from the U.S. from falling into Communist hands...
...matter how the Shah's latest strategy works out, the episodes in Iran last week again raised disturbing questions about the ability of the U.S. to predict developments in areas vital to its national interest and to devise effective policies for dealing with them. While the situation in Iran deteriorated, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and his top aides were preoccupied with the Middle East peace talks and SALT negotiations with the Soviet Union. Filling the policy vacuum was Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was almost unopposed in his recommendation that the U.S. must support the Shah without reservation...