Page 351 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

348 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

‘if the companies dealt with the Gulf producers as a separate group, the latter were
prepared to sign an agreement and stick to it for the length of its term, even

though producers in other areas obtained better terms from the companies’.
Another version of the meeting, based upon a verbal account rendered by
the American ambassador, MacArthur, a couple of days afterwards, has it that
the shah categorized the oil companies’ joint approach to OPEC as ‘a dirty
trick’ and warned that if they persisted in it, ‘the entire Gulf would be shut

down and no oil would flow’. MacArthur subsequently claimed, however, that
the shah had not even discussed the question of separate negotiations for the
Gulf states, let alone threatened an oil embargo in support of them. Instead, the
threat was attributed to Amuzegar. The discrepancy is immaterial: Amuzegar
was merely his master’s voice. What matters is that the threat of an embargo
was made.

The following day, 18 January, Irwin cabled the State Department recom­
mending that the oil companies should be advised to negotiate separately with
the Gulf and Mediterranean oil states. He gave as his reasons the strong
objection of the shah and his ministers to the companies’ insistence upon
negotiating en bloc, and the willingness of the Gulf oil states (of which, Irwin

said, he had not previously been aware) to enter into an agreement on prices for
five years and to abide by it, even though oil-producing states elsewhere might
later succeed in obtaining higher prices. It was an astonishing volte face on
Irwin’s part, all the more so because it occurred within twenty-four hours of his
arrival in Tehran. What had prompted it?

1974 Irwin explained^ha^hl hl^m^ Relations Committeein January
assurances which the Persian r if f hlS recornmendati°n ‘in view of the
price ratcheting . But on 8 U ' " "r Prepared '° On fuI"re
oil-producina count™ p • J Uary 1971 Irwin had visited only one Gulf
shah. The sole ‘assurance^ hT Whh °nly one Gulf ruler’
*
intimated to him hv th 3 received> therefore, was that conveyed, or
until he had com f hat and his ministers. Why did Irwin not wait

subtnitdng hisreTn ^ts mission by visiting Riyad and Kuwait before
hhnTefwLh ”ecomme"dations? Why, also, when no one at the time (as he
OPEC on nr ^7 '° y) belieVed for 3 moment that anV agreement with
that it would h W°U accePt the Persian government’s assurance
rhp basic f onour sue an agreement for five years and make this assurance
h . *d 1S recommendadon to Washington? There is no doubt that the
an muzegar could be both forceful and persuasive in argument. But

even a ip omatist as inexperienced as Irwin (he had joined the State Depart­
ment from a prominent New York law firm only the previous September)

should never have allowed himself, after only two or three hours’ conversation,
to be inveigled into precipitately abandoning the object of his mission and
to bow to the wishes of those with whom he had been sent to treat. It has to be
remembered, furthermore, that it was not the purpose of Irwin’s mission that