(5 of 5)
The Carter Administration hopes to persuade the Saudis and other gulf Arabs that delivering spare parts to Iran and thus enabling it to hold its own in the war with Iraq serves Western and Saudi interests in two ways. First, as long as Iran can defend itself, it is less likely to collapse into factionalism and secessionism, which the Soviet Union would almost certainly try to exploit. Second, American policymakers believe it would not necessarily be good news for the West or for Saudi Arabia if Iraq's President Saddam Hussein were to emerge a clear winner from the present war. He has made it plain that he wants to become the strongman and protector of the gulf. U.S. officials fear that as a radical and a revolutionary, Saddam Hussein would be an inspiring figure to dissident elements inside Saudi Arabia and the smaller sheikdoms of the area.
Therefore, while the White House and State Department would still prefer a quick cease-fire in the war, the Administration would not be sorry to see the Iranian military, with all its made-in-the-U.S.A. hardware, bloody Saddam Hussein and set back his ambitions.
A tilt toward Iran could also complicate U.S.-Soviet relations, as the Moscow press warned repeatedly last week. But as long as the U.S. is contemplating only limited and nonlethal resupply of Iran — and as long as Iraq relies on Soviet arms — Administration officials are reasonably confident that the U.S. can remain technically neutral and that the Kremlin will limit its response to finger-wagging editorials and propaganda.
In the end, the most troublesome aspect of the hostage crisis is the way it has obtruded on American presidential politics. When the Carter Administration's handling of Iran is stripped of all its disclaimers, the conclusion is starkly un avoidable that one of the dominant goals of American policy during an extremely dangerous war has been to get the embassy hostages out before Election Day. That conclusion stands even if President Carter is given the benefit of the doubt for having the most humane motives along with any political ones.
The U.S. has been living with a national humiliation since the day the hostages were seized. That humiliation would be compounded if, a year later, the results of a U.S. presidential election were to depend to any significant degree on vote by the fanatically anti-American Majlis 6,500 miles away. The exact impact of Iran's blackmail on the U.S. political process may be as difficult to assess after Nov. 4 as it was to predict before, but the humiliation is no less acute.
— By Strobe Talbott,
Reported by Christopher Ogden with Carter and Gregor H. Wierzynski/ Washington