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Policy Statement on Iran Prepared in the Department of State
Iran
a. objectives
The primary objective of our policy toward Iran is to prevent the domination of that country by the USSR, and to strengthen Iran’s orientation toward the West. Because of its internal weaknesses and vulnerability to attack by its northern neighbor, Iran is the weakest link in the chain of independent states along the Soviet border in the strategically important Middle East. If Iran should come under Soviet domination, the independence of all other countries of the Middle East would be directly threatened and important security interests of the US would be jeopardized throughout the area. Specifically, if the USSR should achieve the historic Russian objective of gaining access to the Persian Gulf, it would (1) acquire advance bases for subversive activities or actual attack against a vast contiguous area including Turkey, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; (2) obtain a base hundreds of miles nearer to potential US-UK lines of defense in the Middle East than any held at present; (3) control part and threaten all of the Middle Eastern oil reservoir upon which we draw to conserve limited western hemisphere resources; (4) control continental air routes crossing Iran, threaten those traversing adjacent areas, and menace shipping in the Persian Gulf: and (5) undermine the will of all Middle Eastern countries to resist Soviet aggression.
Secondary objectives of our policy toward Iran are (1) to encourage relations between Iran and all states calculated to elicit United Nations support for its continued independence; (2) to maintain conditions of internal security, thereby increasing respect for Iranian sovereignty and avoiding a pretext for Soviet intervention, as well as making indirect Soviet aggression more difficult; (3) to foster an expanding economy with the purpose of alleviating economic discontent and strengthening allegiance to the central government; (4) to improve democratic institutions and processes in Iran so that Iranians might increasingly feel an affinity for the western world; and (5) to induce influential Iranians actively to support US interests in Iran, the Middle East, and the United Nations.
b. policy issues
Iran’s foreign policy is dictated largely by its inability to defend itself against an attack by the Soviet Union. Traditionally, Iran has [Page 475] maintained a modicum of independence as a buffer state by playing one foreign power off against another in a spheres-of-influence regime imposed by the Russians in the north and the British in the south. Recently, however, when US encouragement and support in large measure replaced British power and influence in the area, Iran has found it possible to achieve and maintain an effective degree of national independence. Having at first followed a policy of procrasti nation, evasion, and compromise when confronted by an aggressive Soviet attitude during and directly following the war, Iran has for the past two years, thanks to strong US support, stood up firmly for its independence in the face of persistent Soviet threats. As evidence of the tendency of certain Iranian leaders to align their country with the western powers, the Shah, the Iranian Chief of Staff, and the Iranian Ambassador in Washington have asked for US reaction to a contemplated Iranian request for military assistance of a type similar to that provided Greece and Turkey, in order to strengthen Iran’s defensive position.
[Here follow subsections dealing with political and economic subjects and Sections C (Relations with Other States) and D (Policy Evaluation).]