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Gazelles and Lions 485

Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the hearings of September 1976 in
support of the sale of F-16 aircraft to Persia.
On that occasion, as we have noted already, Philip C. Habib, Sisco’s

successor as under-secretary for political affairs, spoke of ±e policies pursued
by Persia since 1945 as having been ‘generally compatible with our own’. ‘[We]
have generally seen our respective interests as parallel, at times congruent, and
we share many objectives,’ he informed the committee. To reinforce his

argument, he went on to quote statements that had been made at various times
by the secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, to the effect that the policies of the

United States and Persia ‘have been parallel and therefore mutually reinforc­
ing’, and that co-operation between the two powers ‘grew out of a leadership
that is clearly independent, that pursues its conception of its own national
interest based on a history of 2,500 years of Iranian policy’. To this Habib

added his own gloss, declaring roundly, ‘It is our belief that the imperatives of
Iran’s history, its geography, its location, its relationship with its neighbors, is

such that it is not likely to result in any substantial change in the current policy
lines.’ To make such statements required a resolute indifference on the part of
Kissinger and Habib to both the realities of Persian history and the conduct of
Muhammad Reza Shah over the preceding few years. It would be interesting to

know what interests, apart from keeping the Russians at bay, the secretary of
state and his subordinate thought the United States and Persia had in common.
The shah had already made plain to the world what some of his principal

interests were by taking the lead in forcing up the price of oil, by his seizure of
Abu Musa and the Tunbs, by his megalomaniac dreams of making Persia a
great industrial power, by his lavishing of Persia’s oil revenues upon his armed
forces so that he might strut and posture as a new Cyrus or Darius, by his

enrichment of the Pahlavi dynasty, and by his tolerance of the monumental
corruption which pervaded the upper reaches of Persian society. Were these
e interests which, according to the State Department, the United States had

in common with him?
The testimony offered the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by the
epartment of Defence to justify the sale of the aircraft in question to Persia
was no more convincing. Robert F. Ellsworth, the deputy secretary of defence,

made the same treacly references to the natural affinity of interests between the
mted States and Persia, emphasizing the necessity for the Persians to be
assured of an uninterrupted supply of arms. ‘For Iranian leaders, the

e ingness of the United States to remain a reliable supplier of military
ext t0 meet the threats which they perceive to their security is
remely important.’ Ellsworth’s vision of Perso-American military co-

lexir*?° n exten<ied well beyond the immediate future. Tn the regional con-
carrv & cornm*ttee, ‘the proposed sale would improve Iran’s ability to
which°Ut l^e laller Part the 198os and 1990s the major security missions on

We agree. The prospect filled Humphrey with foreboding. Who could