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No 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. Day-to-day operations, according to State Department sources, were left in the hands of low-level officials. Complained a knowledgeable observer last week: "There has been nobody but a desk officer in the department paying any attention at all to the bloody thing. Brzezinski operated high, wide and handsome."
At the same time, Washington experts agreed that U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan, like his predecessor Richard Helms, had been an uncritical fan of the Shah and had been operating without careful supervision from Washington. "He would have been happier," remarked a Washington official, "if he had received more guidance."
For all that, the Shah's dilemma is mostly one of his own making. The unrest in Iran has its roots in his failure to permit the growth of a responsible opposition to his one-man rule. His commendable effort to modernize Iran by educating its people and raising their standard of living was imperiled from the start by his refusal to allow a greater measure of political expression. Ironically, the forces that the Shah set loose continue to pose the greatest challenge to his regime.