Page 318 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

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Whatever may have been the case in 1975, however, by 1977-8 the shah was

becoming sore pressed for sufficient funds with which to fulfil the expectations
he had aroused in his subjects, to keep up the pace of rapid industrialization
and modernization, and at the same time to equip his armed forces with ever
more splendid armaments - which brings us back to the question with which
we began this section, viz. to what use, apart from his own protection, did the
shah intend to put his expensively equipped forces? While his own revenues
were inadequate to meet his extensive needs, and while Persia’s oil reserves
were expected, at the rate at which oil was being extracted up to the latter
months of 1978, to run dry before the end of the century, across the Gulf such
inconsequential places in his eyes as Kuwait and Abu Dhabi were swimming in
oil revenues which they could not usefully employ. The temptation to bring
them under Persian control was one which would undoubtedly have grown
with the passage of time, along with the opportunities for such a move. There

are large Persian communities in all the minor Gulf states, whose protection
and welfare might well have afforded the pretext for armed intervention. The
Iraqi claim to Kuwait could well have provided the shah with an excuse to offer
his protection to Al Sabah shaikhs, even to force it upon them, although such
an action would have embroiled him not only with Iraq but also with Saudi
Arabia and the other Arab states. Again, he might have taken advantage of a
renewal of the guerrilla war in Dhufar, or of other possible insurgent activity in
Oman, to extend aid to the sultan with the object of converting the sultanate
into a Persian satrapy. Yet a further pretext for interference might have been a
coup d’etat, or threatened coup d’6tat, by Marxist or other revolutionaries in one
of the Gulf shaikhdoms.

While the shah’s departure from the scene now makes further speculation
along these lines somewhat pointless, the danger of an eventual Perso-Arab
conflict in the Gulf has by no means wholly receded. Doubtless much depends
upon the type of regime which eventually succeeds in establishing itself in
Persia after the dissolution of the Pahlavi monarchy; but it would be a mistake
to assume that a conservative or centre government would be less likely than
one of radical disposition to adopt a forward policy in the Gulf. After all, few
regimes could have been more conservative than the absolute monarchy of
Muhammad Reza Shah. It was the religious and conservative sections of
Persian society, moreover, which objected to his renunciation in 1970 of the
long-standing Persian claim to Bahrain. If a future government in Tehran were
to take the offensive in the Gulf, Bahrain might well be its first objective. The

shaikhdom’s strategic location and commercial importance would make it a
valuable acquisition, especially if a prolonged Persian command of the Arabian
shore were in contemplation. Bahrain also has a large Shii minority, and
sectarian sentiment, after the violent upsurge of religious fervour in Persia in
1978-9, may well play a larger part in the determination of Persian policy in the
Gulf m the future than in recent years. Apart from the expatriate Persian Shia