Page 82 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

The Retreat from the Gulf 79

unacceptable risk.’ The argument was restated in the Commons debate on the
address in reply to the Queen’s Speech on 6 July by the new foreign secretary,
Sir Alec Douglas Home. ‘The rupture of the theme of coherent foreign policy’,

Home told the House,

has been most vividly illustrated in the Persian Gulf. 1 he announcement of precipitate
withdrawal has had two results. It has let loose a spate of claims and counter-claims
between the countries and States of the area, and it has made it virtually impossible in an
orderly way to create the Union of the Arab Emirates on which the future security of
that area depends. There has been no time for those States to adjust themselves to
change. The urgent tasks now are first to create a climate favourable to the settlement of
the local disputes, some of them far-reaching and important. The second is to consult
the leaders of the Gulf as to how Britain can best contribute to the pattern of stability in
that area. We shall go into such consultations with a completely open mind.
On the surface it seemed a very definite and unambiguous statement, a
resolute avowal of the new government’s intention not to shirk Britain’s

responsibilities in the Gulf or to be constrained in its efforts to resolve existing
difficulties (especially those created by conflicting territorial claims) by the
timetable for withdrawal laid down by its predecessor. Whether the statement
reflected the government’s real sentiments, however, is, in the light of the
events of the next few months, a matter for conjecture. Four days after making

it, Home hastened to Brussels to attend upon Muhammad Reza Shah, who was
then in the course of an extended progress through Europe. Only three weeks
earlier the shah had publicly expressed his displeasure at the idea that the new
Conservative administration might reconsider the question of withdrawal. The
withdrawal, he declared, must go forward as planned. Britain must nor try to
perpetuate ‘imperialism in a new guise’ by retaining troops in the Gulf beyond
1971. ‘Britain cannot decide alone on these troops because the time of colonial­

ism is over.’ His prime minister, Amir Abbas Hoveida, faithfully echoed him
in a public statement on 22 June. Any indication by Britain of an intention to
remain in the Gulf, he said, would be ‘reminiscent of a much despised colonial
past’. He went on: ‘The security of the region must rest only in the hands of the

littoral states and emirates of the Persian Gulf and no outside interference
should be allowed.’ It was, presumably, to soothe any ruffled feelings on the
shah’s part that might have been caused by his speech in the Commons that
Home hurried to Brussels in the second week of July. The foreign secretary
refused, when questioned, to disclose the nature of his talks beyond offering
the curt comment that ‘their purpose was to help me consider the problems of
the Gulf and the political stability of the area in which we, Iran, Saudi Arabia

and the rulers are concerned’. He vouchsafed the further sibylline utterance
that it should not be assumed either that the policy of withdrawal would be
changed or that it would not be changed.
Whatever Home may have said to the shah, or whatever Muhammad Reza
Shah may have understood him to say, the Persian monarch was taking no