Iran: the Collapse of the American' Dream

Four months ago, on October 30, President Carter reassured the Shah's son that "our friendship and alliance with Iran is our important basis on which our entire foreign policy depends". At the same time Carter's ad visors in the CIA and the State Department were saying that the burgioning mass movement against the Shah would not amount to anything.

No, in the space of those four months the Shah has fallen, his prize troops have been defeated by street fighters, the head of the secret police has been executed, and his force abolished, Iran has withdrawn from the US sponsered CENTO alliance and replaced the Israeli Embassy with a PLO office. The Ayatollah Khomeini, who the US has conspicuously ignored and refused to negotiate with, has returned to his country in triumph and installed a provisional government dedicated to independence from either superpower.

It is a living example of not only the ineptness of those who guide the American foreign policy, but also of the paralysis of will that has struck the once dominant global power. Into this vacuum of American power has leapt the Soviet Union.