Page 478 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

Gazelles and Lions 475

marein between oil production in the Soviet Union and consumption of oil by
TJ Soviet bloc; that the cost of developing the Soviet Union’s own untapped oil

reserves - a cost per barrel well above that for Alaskan or North Sea oil - is
beyond her financial capacity, even if she had the technological skills and
eauinment required, which she does not; and that similar financial and
economic constraints limit her ability to purchase Middle-Eastern oil in excess
of what she now obtains through barter agreements and sales of arms. If this

assessment is correct, the temptation for the Russians to acquire by pohucal or
military means what they cannot afford to purchase must be a strong one. It can
only be made stronger by the consideration that the acquisition of preferential

access to the Gulf’s oil would enable the Soviet U nion to dictate the terms upon
which oil would thereafter be supplied to the West.
Soviet Russia is now in a stronger position than ever before in her history to
accomplish her ambitions in the Middle East, whether they be to dominate the

routes from Europe to the East, to command the landward and maritime
approaches to the eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Gu , or to ay
hands upon the massive oil reserves of the region. She is entrenched in Iraq and

Afghanistan by virtue of extensive arrangements for the supply of arms, the
equipment and training of their military forces and the provision o economic
and technical assistance, as well as by actual treaties of friendship wi o
countries. In the case of Afghanistan the treaty concluded in Decern er 197

was the direct outcome of the violent overthrow of the republican government
in April 1978 and the subsequent installation, after further bloodshe , o a
Marxist regime at Kabul. The opportunities which the Marxist coup etat in

Afghanistan and the civil turmoil in Persia in the latter months of 1978 opene
up to Russia to advance her strategic interests in the direction of the u an
the Indian Ocean were almost infinite. Even to begin to enumerate them wou
take us well beyond the range and purpose of this book. Leaving to one si e e
implications of a Russian paramountcy in Afghanistan for the politics an

security of the Indian sub-continent, the combination of radical governments
in Kabul and Baghdad and domestic chaos in Persia directly threatens e
political and territorial integrity of the latter country. For both Iraq an

Afghanistan harbour deep animosities of a religious, racial and cultura n
against Persia, which, if they were to find active expression - whether under
Russian inspiration or guidance is almost immaterial — at a time when ersia

was torn by internal dissension, could lead to the disintegration of the ersian
.
state as it is now constituted. .
While the Soviet Union’s favoured position in Iraq and Afghanistan
increased her strategic options, it is Persia which has been the focus o ussia

attention since Tsarist times and which offers the Russians the richest P®ten1^a
rewards. Persia is by far the most important of the three states. e a so
possesses the greatest natural advantages, whether these consist in her 01 an
mineral resources or in her long coastline on the Gulf. The Russians