Hossein Amirsadeghi - The Security of the Persian Gulf (RLE Iran D)

First published in 1981

This edition first published in 2011

by Routledge

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1981 Hossein Amirsadeghi
Printed and bound in Great Britain

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-57033-6 (Set)
eISBN 13: 978-0-203-83010-9 (Set)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-61050-6 (Volume 26)
eISBN 13: 978-0-203-83218-9 (Volume 26)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but
points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

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The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would
welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

1981 Hossein Amirsadeghi

Croom Helm Ltd, 2-10 St John's Road, London SW 11

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Security of the Persian Gulf.

1. Persian Gulf region - Foreign relations

I. Amirsadeghi, Hossein

953 ' .605 DS326

ISBN 0-7099-0505-X

Reproduced from copy supplied
printed and bound in Great Britain
by Billing and Sons Limited
Guildford, London, Oxford, Worcester

I would like to thank Shahram Chubin and all the other contributors for their worthy efforts in constructing this volume, bearing in mind the time-lag from start to finish, and the unforeseen changes in the political situation brought about by the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq/Iran war. A special word of thanks to my friend John St John for his initial co-operation, and to all those other worthy people upon whom one chances in connection with such projects.

Hossein Amirsadeghi

Because of my special interest in the politics of my country and the increasingly vital significance of the Persian Gulf in world affairs, and because of the general dearth of material on the Gulf, I set out three years ago to produce a volume of essays not only to help fill this vacuum with a general overview, but also to produce specialist studies that will help shed some light on the intricacies of the politics and society of this most volatile area.

The Persian Gulf, already important because of its vast energy resources, emerged into the limelight of geopolitics at the time of the British Labour governments policy of withdrawal from East of Suez in 1968. Before 1968 it had been recognised that the Gulf lay in the legitimate sphere of influence of Britain, while the United States exerted its influence in the two pivotal littoral states of Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Soviets had been gaining influence in Iraq ever since the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958, and later gained a more secure foothold in South Yemen after the British withdrawal from Aden. The Chinese were also fishing for influence by their support of the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Arabian Gulf, a Marxist guerrilla organisation responsible for the Dhofari rebellion in Oman, and dedicated to the overthrow of the conservative status quo of the Gulf countries. But except for some influence in Tehran in the last years of the Shahs regime, the only two remaining arbitrating powers in the Gulf have been the Soviets through their proxies in South Yemen, and to a lesser extent in Iraq and Syria, and the United States, with its increasingly reluctant allies in Riyadh and Muscat.

Since the revolution in Iran and the downfall of the Shah, the whole political balance of the area has been overturned. With their new-found bases on the Iran-Afghan border, the Soviets are only a days drive from Irans Gulf ports or the Khuzestan oilfields. With their estimated thirty divisions poised on the Iran-Soviet border, and the continuing turmoil and effective political disintegration of Iran, the Soviet capacity for a direct attack on the Gulf oilfields, and its potential for mischief-making, have increased dramatically. The outcome of the political tug-of-war in Tehran is crucial to the future political map of the Persian Gulf. The collapse of the Khomeini regime will eventually come about; but the question is who or what will replace it. If a moderate regime replaces the present turmoil, the prospects for future stability in the Gulf seem good. If, on the other hand, extremists gain the upper hand, with no doubt a little help from their Soviet mentors, the prospects for an East-West confrontation over the Gulfs vital energy resources become much more likely.

It is with a view to the above dangers that this volume is directed. The various contributors, each distinguished in his or her own area of knowledge, have been assigned to delve into the manifold intricacies of Persian and Arab politics, society and culture. Although the Iranian Revolution caught everybody by surprise, the chapters have been rewritten with the benefit of hindsight, increasing the scope for analysis. But the reader should bear in mind that the volatile political and socio-religious equation in the Gulf precludes any definitive study of this important subject area in just one volume. With due consideration to the in-built limitations of such a broad-based study, this volume attempts to analyse in one place subjects which have hitherto been approached piecemeal. The success will belong to the contributors, and the limitations are the fault of the editor.