Page 305 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

302 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

Grumman Tomcat, the F—14, with its integrated Phoenix missile system. So

advanced was this fighter, which had been developed to master the Russian
MiG-25 (Foxbat), that it was known as ‘the flying computer’; yet the shah had
purchased fifty-six of them and contracted to buy a further twenty-four. (He
had also undertaken to buy 160 of the simpler, but still advanced, F-16, with
the option of acquiring 140 more, and he was looking to purchase 250 of the
new F-i8s which were barely off the drawing-board.) While a certain amount
of progress was made with training air crews for the F-14S - mainly by
transferring the best air crews from the Phantom squadrons, which left these
inadequately manned - there was no question but that their maintenance and
logistics support would require the services of American technicians for years
to come. Much the same situation obtained with regard to the dozens of
helicopter squadrons with which the Persian army and air force were being

provided. As late as September 1978 a hundred military helicopters were
sitting uselessly on the airfield at Ispahan, where they had been mouldering for
two years for want of crews to fly and service them. Even in the matter of the
tactical use of their aircraft and helicopters the Persians were still reliant upon
the instruction and support of American military and air force advisers.
What this all implied was summed up in the conclusions of a staff report to
the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July 1976 on the
subject of American arms sales to Persia.

The Government of Iran [the report stated] is attempting to create an extremely modern
military establishment in a country that lacks the technical, educational and industrial
base to provide the necessary trained personnel and management capabilities to operate
such an establishment effectively. Iran also lacks experience in logistics and support
operations and does not have the maintenance capabilities, the infrastructure (port
facilities, roads, rail nets, etc.), and the construction capacity to implement its new
programs independent of outside support.. . . Iran will not be able to absorb and
operate within the next five to ten years a large proportion of the sophisticated military
systems purchased from the U S unless increasing numbers of American personnel go to
Iran in a support capacity. This support, alone, may not be sufficient to guarantee
success for the Iranian program.

The blame for this sorry state of affairs rested equally with the shah and with
the United States government. Carried away by dreams of glory, the shah
insisted that only the most up-to-date weapons of war were good enough for his
armed forces. Although he possessed no military qualifications or experience

worth speaking of, he regarded himself as an expert in matters of strategy an
military technology, in need of no advice or instruction from others. He
demanded, as much for reasons of amour propre as anything else, the latest an
most powerful armaments the West had to offer, and he would not s er
himself to be thwarted. What the United States had, what NATO ha , was
what Persia should have, and as soon as they had it, if not sooner, w at
chose to overlook was that the introduction of new and advanced weapons in