347. Memorandum From Secretary of State Muskie to Secretary of Defense Brown and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1
SUBJECT
- Strategy for Southwest Asia
As tasked at the August 22 SCC meeting,2 we are providing draft talking points for possible use with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt on the increased Soviet threat to Iran and the need for accelerated cooperation.3 As indicated below, we do not believe they should be used in the form prepared.
Our view is that the new intelligence is not sufficiently persuasive to be the basis for an extraordinary effort to gain enhanced regional cooperation. Instead, we think this intelligence, properly scrubbed, should be integrated in the following way into the comprehensive diplomatic strategy we are developing:
1. We should, subject to the constraints of protecting sources and methods, pass our latest intelligence through normal intelligence channels to the British, French, Germans, Turks, Saudis, and Egyptians. (Italians?) (Japanese?).
2. General Jones should use this intelligence in his planned consultations with the Saudis, following its use in the scheduled September intelligence exchange. It should be incorporated in a statement of our long-term purposes and concerns about the growing Soviet threat, however, and not emphasized as a near-term emergency requiring immediate Saudi action. We should not press our specific cooperation needs upon the Saudis now: to do so would produce a negative response before our longer-term security dialogue has had any chance to have an effect on their outlook.
3. With other regional states, we ought to pursue the “baseline strategy” (separately distributed),4 which is aimed at creating an enduring sense of common interest and confidence that we have a credible [Page 915] strategy. We should build into the baseline strategy a somewhat sharper concern about improvements in Soviet capabilities opposite Iran.
4. We should make no special effort with Turkey at this time. Any implication of trying to draw Turkey into Southwest Asian controversy, confrontation, or conflict e.g., the notion that we would use Turkey in an Iranian contingency to threaten the Soviet “flank” with dual-capable aircraft, would produce not the desired results but a new bilateral problem and possibly more insistent and unmeetable quid demands. (We believe the role of Turkey in our military strategy for Southwest Asia needs further interagency analysis).
5. Once the intelligence has been shared with our key NATO Allies, I should discuss our growing concerns with my counterparts in the course of regular contacts, including the September 24 Quadripartite meeting at the UNGA.
6. Our upcoming talks with the British, Germans, and Portuguese concerning “enroute access” should include our concerns about the Soviet threat to Iran.
7. In the interest of reducing the chances of Soviet miscalculation, I should convey to Gromyko in New York next month a clear message that:
—We have no intention of invading Iran or intervening in its internal affairs.
—By the same token, we would expect the Soviet Union to maintain its commitment to non-intervention in Iran’s internal affairs.
—We have no offensive intentions in the region; our only purpose is to protect our vital interests.
I propose that we address this plan at Friday’s SCC meeting.5
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Office File, Box 22, SCC Meeting #337 Held 9/2/80. Top Secret; Sensitive.↩
- See Document 346.↩
- The talking points are attached to an August 26 memorandum from Newsom to Muskie. (Department of State, Official Files of [P] David D. Newsom, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Lot 82D85, Iran 1980–81)↩
- Presumably Muskie’s August 1 memorandum; see Document 332.↩
- August 29. The SCC next met on September 2; see footnote 2, Document 350.↩