Iran and Israel: From Intimacy to Alienation

Zonis, Marvin

ISRAEL AND IRAN FROM INTIMACY TO ALIENATION MARVIN ZONIS On November 5, 1978, after nearly a year of political turmoil, and two months of martial law, Tehran was swept by a day of lootings and...

...For this, the Shah earned widespread appreciation among minorities living in Iran as well as from their coreligionists abroad, who were fully aware of the fate they would likely suffer were the Shah to be replaced by a more "nationalist" ruler...
...Obviously, the distance between Israel and Iran will continue to grow at an accelerated pace...
...The Shah acted as an increasingly vocal national leader and an increasingly skilled and successful international negotiator...
...For it now appears virtually certain that Iran will choose a new stance with the Third World, with the Islamic world, and with the Arab states of the Middle East, all this at the expense of its very special relationship with Israel, a relationship that has persisted since the establishment of the Jewish state and especially since Iran extended de facto recognition to Israel in 1950...
...A consortium of international oil companies was formed, after the overthrow of Mossadeq, to resume production from the Iranian fields—which were to remain nationalized...
...But if Ayatollah Khomeini succeeds in establishing his "Islamic Republic"—a government in which "those in power are bound by a group of conditions and principles made clear in the Koran and by the example of the prophet Mohammed...
...Once having turned their attention to the Arabian peninsula, the Egyptians fomented unrest in the conservative sheikhdoms along the Persian Gulf, incited leftist trade union leaders in Bahrein, supported opposition to continued British occupation of Aden, and broadcast diatribes against the regime of the Shah...
...Now the Islamic clerics appear to have carried the day...
...For the fact of the matter is that the intimacy between Israel and Iran had already begun to attenuate in the last years of the Shah's rule, and also that it is too early to know just how far the new alienation will go...
...Israeli firms won contracts for large construction projects requiring considerable civil engineering capabilities...
...All the "confrontation" countries rapidly turned inward, to assess the nature of their defeat, to understand its meanings for the future, to repair the damages to their economies and their armies, and to concentrate more on the recovery of their lost territories than on any notions of Arab expansionism, socialism, or unity...
...In the last five years, he spent some 15 to 20 billion dollars in the United States, and to a lesser extent in Great Britain, France, and Germany, on the most sophisticated military equipment available, all of which made Iran the most formidable military power of the region, save Israel itself...
...Mohammad Mossadeq, an elderly aristocrat whose nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company had earned him great popular support...
...What can Israel expect from the post-Pahlevi Iran...
...Iran was a safe haven for American investments and a growing market for American exports...
...Its monarch, young and seemingly inept, nearly lost his throne to a more adroit elder politician, but regained and strengthened his rule because of American involvement and billions in American aid...
...Because of British threats to sue or even confiscate any oil sold by the Government of Iran after its nationalization of formerly British fields in 1951, Iranian production had fallen dramatically...
...In Tehran, Christian, Zionist, and Baha'i missionary centers issue their publications in order to mislead people and to alienate them from the teachings and principles of religion...
...Thus even after Israel captured the Egyptian fields in the Gulf of Suez in the 1967 war and found itself for the first time a producer of petroleum, able to generate approximately one half of its domestic requirements, Israel continued to purchase an amount of petroleum from Iran equivalent to what had been previously purchased and Israel became, however minor, a factor in the international oil business...
...What many had suspected and what subsequent evidence has confirmed is that the coup which returned the Shah to power was sponsored, engineered, and largely executed by the CIA...
...The movement even became reciprocal, with Israeli military personnel visiting Iran and training special units of the Iranian armed forces in their own country...
...While such support often took the form of the attempted cooptation of the Palestinian cause—and occasionally served to limit rather than advance the freedom of action of the Palestinians—the support itself appeared menacing to the Israelis...
...As the image of Israel's power was embellished by ever more impressive Israeli conquests of Arab armies—1948-49, 1956, 1967—an increasing number of Iranian military personnel were sent to Israel...
...While the majority Moslem population manifests a pervasive disdain for Jews and Jews do not participate with any degree of acceptance in the social life of the country, the Shah was clear in his insistence that the Jews, along with other non-Moslem minorities—the Zoroastrians, the Baha'is, the Syrian and Armenian Christians—be protected and allowed to participate in Iranian life without officially sponsored prejudice...
...operations and contributed considerably to the resumption of Iranian oil production...
...Ultimately, Iran was transformed into the most powerful of Moslem countries, whose high rate of economic growth was fueled by huge and growing oil revenues...
...Shortly thereafter, the army devastated the tribal opposition in the south...
...There is no word in the Persian language for citizen...
...Rather, it was the manner of his subsequent rule which raised what had been merely doubts to articles of faith for many in Iran as well as in neighboring states...
...In exchange for a gift of two million dollars to the Moslem clerics, they extracted a pledge that the Iranian Jewish community would not be singled out for "special" attention...
...On almost every count, Israel stands in marked contrast...
...And, of course, the military basis of the regime was not ignored...
...It is virtually certain that any new government in Iran will refuse to sell petroleum to Israel as a way of demonstrating its commitments to the Third World and particularly to its fellow Moslem states...
...The Syrians, in contrast, supplied and trained Palestinian groups and helped them conduct raids against Israel...
...The Syrians were more involved in supporting direct action by the Palestinians against Israel...
...With the death of President Nasser and his replacement by Anwar Sadat, a new chapter in Iran's relations with the Arab states was opened...
...The agreement established with the consortium specified that the National Iranian Oil Company was to have certain technical responsibilities for the production and marketing of petroleum as well as the right to retain a small share of the production for domestic use and even international sales as long as those sales were not at the expense of the operations of the consortium...
...Within two days, the Shah's army had decimated the rioters and imposed order on the sections of Tehran which had been the scene of very bloody fighting...
...Some in Tehran believe that day of rioting was organized not by the religious opposition but by the secret police or by a cabal of businessmen and politicians allied with certain criminal elements...
...Despite these and other separatist threats, the territorial integrity of Iran has not been especially problematic...
...Their motives were alleged to be to discredit the opposition while goading the regime into taking more vigorous action against it...
...That Iran was a "conservative" monarchy, with strong western ties, and was non-Arab, was no longer crucial to President Sadat, committed as he was to opening ties with the West, reestablishing the Egyptian bourgeoisie in the economic life of the country, and diminishing his ties to the Soviet Union...
...That marginality was powerfully underscored at the time of the establishment of the United Arab Republic, that ill-fated union between Egypt and Syria which President Nasser forged in 1958 as the first step on the road to Arab unity under his direction...
...Again, in the perverse logic which all too frequently characterizes the affairs of the region, it was the very success of Israel against the Arab threat which laid the basis for the weakening of its ties to Iran...
...Is it not our duty to demolish these centers...
...Iran's monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Light of the Aryans, King of Kings, as he is officially known, had been in complete charge of even the most minute details of the lives of his obeisant subjects...
...And the arrangement worked out in early November between the leaders of the Jewish community and the Ayatollahs of Qum still holds...
...It is a Jewish ministate, its pre-1967 borders delimiting an area some one-eightieth of Iran, and containing a population some one-tenth of Iran...
...The widespread perception that he was dependent on the United States, that he served as an instrument for the United States foreign policy interests, that his contribution to the perpetuation of Israel was substantial, meant that he would be a major target of Nasserite-inspired Arab hostility...
...In many cases, these were the poorer segments of Iranian Jewry, and in recent years, as Iran's prosperity and that of its Jewish community has grown, some have returned, mostly concentrated in Tehran and mostly active in commerce and manufacturing...
...Whatever the truth behind these allegations, the indigenous Jewish community of Iran, numbering some 75,000 persons, was distressed...
...Other types of links were forged, one of the most important of which hinged on Israeli military prowess...
...Israeli agricultural experts worked with Iranian officials to mitigate the effects of earthquakes and to reestablish the devastated villages, particularly on the Qazvin plain after an especially devastating quake in 1962...
...Yet these two countries have shared an important, if not particularly public, set of ties rooted in their fundamentally marginal relationship to their neighbors, on the one hand, and their pervasive and comprehensive ties to the West and the United States, on the other...
...Throughout the last two decades, economic ties between the two countries deepened as well...
...What happened, in short, over the more than 25 years since Israel received de facto recognition from Iran is that the nature of that Iran and its monarch changed drastically...
...The Arab oil producers were not slow to appreciate the possibilities inherent in this new pricing policy...
...But doubts about the legitimacy of the Shah's regime were not based solely, or even primarily, on the means of his return to power...
...In Iran, other processes also contributed to the weakening of the shared interests of the two states...
...The nearly simultaneous demonstration of overwhelming military power was the first major indication that the regime of the Shah rested on more than military organization charts or parades for the masses for which it had been renowned, that it was capable of employing effective power...
...Of the enemies of Israel, only the Palestinians emerged from the 1967 war with enhanced rather than diminished prestige...
...Certainly, even Israel's military and technical expertise did not have the same value for the Shah as it had in the past...
...For some years, domestic opposition to the Shah nowhere seemed serious and the king and his empress enjoyed a popularity which appeared to bode well for the succession of the crown prince...
...The Shah quickly became dependent on American aid and counsel...
...Iran can claim one of the oldest continuously established Jewish communities in the world...
...Some made official inspection tours, more were sent for longer periods of intense training...
...Israel and Iran—more accurately, Israel and the Shah of Iran—thus shared a common relationship both to the other states of the Middle East and to the West and the United States...
...Many of the Israeli personnel who staffed their diplomatic presence in Tehran represented yet another major link between the two countries...
...Between 1951 and 1953, the Shah was locked in an increasingly bitter struggle with "his" Prime Minister, Dr...
...As on similar occasions in the past, the Jewish community took action...
...For while it was the Shah who broke the oil embargo which the Arab states had established in protest of Western and particularly American support of Israel, he did so by offering to sell oil to any buyer at four times the previous price...
...Israeli technicians helped set up and begin N.I.O.C...
...As the conflict between the followers of the Imam and the supporters of the new government proved more intractable than had first been imagined, the depth of the Egyptian commitment mounted and conflict with Saudi Arabia spread...
...And certainly the Shah was grateful...
...They also established clandestine radio stations whose broadcasts to Iran urged the independence of several Iranian provinces, and they trained and sent bands of terrorists into Iran to foment uprisings against the rule of the Shah in those provinces...
...More fundamentally, the long-standing and important ties between Iran and Israel appear to have come to an end...
...In 1972, with considerable fanfare, Iran celebrated the 2500th anniversary of the founding of a unified empire by Cyrus the Great...
...With the completion of the pipeline from Eilat to Ash-dod, moreover, Iranian oil whose ultimate destination was eastern or western Europe was transshipped through Israel, saving the costly and far longer ocean voyage around the Southern tip of Africa...
...And perhaps in what was then unappreciated symbolism, the first major joint venture occurred in the field of petroleum...
...Thereafter, his direct denunciations of the Shah had grown as had his support for Iranian opposition movements...
...The Shah's closest confidant and advisor was the American ambassador...
...By the time these financial, technical, and military assistance programs were phased out in the Kennedy era, the U.S...
...Ayatollah Khomeini has written, for example...
...Finally, the Shah used a significant portion of the oil revenues to equip his armed forces with some of the most powerful strategic weapons in the American arsenal...
...The flavor of the society under that Shah was captured by the bread and circuses atmosphere which seemed to pervade every city, but especially the capital, Tehran, where Olympic stadiums, adjacent ski resorts, flower-lined boulevards, and massive traffic jams belied the penury in which the vast majority of the population lived—and lives...
...More generally, his connection with the Americans was disparaged outside his country...
...Oil tankers could not reach Eilat...
...With what proved to be minor exceptions, the years from 1963 to 1978 witnessed a remarkable alteration of the position of the Shah's regime, whose power and stature flourished beyond all prediction...
...Frequently, the competition between Egypt, Syria, and Iraq was characterized by an attempt to outbid one another in support for the Palestinians...
...The security links between the two countries moved beyond the military in the late 1950's, as Israel lent technical assistance to the recently established State Security and Intelligence Organization of Iran...
...Syria was less directly involved with the Shah, although it did harbor a group of Iranian communist leaders who had fled their country in anticipation of arrest...
...And, as just one indication of the Shah's response, Iran signed a $2 billion aid-loan package for supplying Egypt with Iranian manufactured products, including 1000 buses for the depleted public transportation system of Egypt...
...Known generally by its Persian initials, SAVAK had responsibility for both internal and external security, a combined FBI-CIA...
...The basic factors which contributed to strengthening Iran's ties with Israel had ceased to exist...
...It was, and frequently remains, the very existence of the Jewish state which is considered illegitimate by Israel's immediate Arab neighbors...
...Ayatollah Khomeini, the leading Shi'ite Islamic cleric, then in exile outside Paris, was clearly dominating the Iranian masses...
...In numerous books in Persian and Arabic, he had made his hostility to Jews and to the State of Israel all too clear...
...Americans were everywhere in Iran...
...While the support of the Jews and other religious minorities for the Shah was thus natural, the consequences for him were mixed...
...With his growing ascendancy and the corresponding weakening of the position of the Shah, the Jews of Iran believed that the actions of the street gangs were no chance occurrence, but a harbinger of what they might expect in the "Islamic Republic" which Ayatollah Khomeini seeks to create...
...Through these petroleum possibilities the Israeli connection was forged...
...Clearly their status is problematic...
...military and intelligence agencies operated at all levels of the Iranian armed forces...
...For the rapid and startling defeat of the Arab armies in the June 1967 war removed the pressures on both Iran and Israel which had contributed to their common status in the Middle East...
...What with the 1973-74 price rises and the increased demand for her principal natural resource, Iran has earned, since 1974, some $24 billion annually from Japan, Europe, and the United States...
...As these pressures against Iran and Israel mounted in the early 1960's, so did their perceptions of shared interests, and the ties between Iran and Israel deepened...
...With the announcement by Great Britain in 1968 of its intended withdrawal from the Persian Gulf, the Shah moved rapidly both by diplomacy and by force to solidify Iran's interests and to guarantee the free passage of Iranian oil through the 35 mile narrows of the Strait of Hormoz at the head of the Persian Gulf...
...His stand toward Jews was well known...
...The efficiency of the organization and its considerable talent, at least for perpetuating a reputation for omniscience, came in some measure to depend on the skill of its Israeli advisors...
...Further, as a non-producer of oil, Egypt quickly appreciated the possibilities for financial assistance, not just from her Arab brethren, but from the Shah as well...
...In the perverse logic which characterizes the international relations and politics of the Middle East, the break-up of the Egyptian-Syrian union in 1961 seemed to present not a lessening of the threat to the Shah and Israel, but an intensification of that threat...
...And yet the Jews of Iran remain most uneasy over their place in the new system...
...The status of President Nasser throughout the Arab world was badly shaken by his appalling defeat...
...Iran is a large non-Arab, Moslem country equal in size to England, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark combined...
...The Shah was a steady friend, a dependable source of petroleum, and the first of the OPEC members to break with his oil-producing neighbors in the interest of reaching an agreement with the oil companies...
...For President Sadat spelled out his intentions quite early—he officially changed the name of his country from the United Arab Republic to the Arab Republic of Egypt Clearly, the needs of Egypt would play a dominant role in Egyptian policy, and the centrality of Egyptian attempts for hegemony over the Arab world and concern for the unity of the Arabs would diminish...
...The overthrow and murder in 1958 of King Faisal and the elder statesman Nuri al-Said of Iraq by the seemingly radical Colonel Aref and Brigadier Kassim seemed only a foretaste of what the decade of the 1960's might present Iranian monarchy...
...Despite numerous changes of fortune, the Jewish community of Iran has survived to the present with a distinctive character and culture...
...had transferred something like $2.5 billion of underpinnings for the regime...
...The Iraqis provided refuge for a variety of anti-Shah opposition elements, including Ayatollah Khomeini after his exile from Iran in 1965...
...we may wake up one morning and find a Jewish ruler dominating our country—God forbid...
...With the establishment of the State of Israel, many Persian Jews chose to emigrate...
...But it was even more directly involved in anti-Shah activities, Egypt being more centrally concerned with Israel...
...Separatist threats to Iranian integrity continued...
...In August of 1953, the outcome of the struggle seemed clear as the Shah left the country for Rome...
...Perhaps a sign of a similar capability vis ? vis Israel itself was the public verbal support given the Arab cause during the October 1973 war and the permission which the regime granted the Soviet Union to overfly Iran so that it might resupply the depleted Arab stocks of weapons from arsenals in Soviet Central Asia...
...For that support made the Shah susceptible to the charge that he was not a truly "Iranian" ruler, that he served foreign rather than Iranian interests...
...With the rapid development by international oil companies of alternative sources of supply, in particular Kuwait, Iranian production eventually came to a virtual standstill, with dire consequences for the Iranian economy...
...In 1962, Egypt committed its troops to the support of the Republican regime in Yemen which had recently overthrown the Imam...
...Military assistance, with more of the cherished American acronyms, was instituted— ARMISH MAAG, for example...
...And his deeds were even more menacing than were his words...
...And Iran became a major force in OPEC, the oil producing cartel, chafing at the greater publicity captured by Saudi Arabia's Sheikh Yamani...
...About as recently as Iran celebrated its rather advanced age, Israel with equivalent fanfare was celebrating its 25th birthday...
...He settled outstanding boundary disputes with the states on the opposite shore of the Persian Gulf, reaching agreements on the position of the borders between them under the waters of the Gulf—a potentially significant issue given the expected presence of huge quantities of underwater petroleum deposits...
...ISRAEL AND IRAN FROM INTIMACY TO ALIENATION MARVIN ZONIS On November 5, 1978, after nearly a year of political turmoil, and two months of martial law, Tehran was swept by a day of lootings and burnings...
...The qualities which made the Shah anathema to the late President Nasser meant something entirely different to his successor...
...All such direct participation by Israelis in Iran was conducted sotto voce...
...In 1960, President Nassar had broken diplomatic relations with Iran in protest against its support for Israel...
...Their rapid turn to increased guerilla action against Israel seemed to offer the only chance for Arab pride and military success against Israel...
...Iran was then disorganized and economically, politically, and militarily weak...
...They worked with Ministry of Agriculture personnel to set up cooperatives among those peasant cultivators who were sold land in the ambitious land reform program of the early 1960's...
...Religiously inspired, the riots rapidly became a massive, predominantly lower class protest against the rule of the Shah...
...He was able to buy whatever expertise he needed from the United States or from whichever country appeared to offer him the most promising terms...
...Most returned to their homeland in Israel and the task of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem, but many responded to the offer extended by their liberator and settled in Persia itself...
...Had Prime Minister Bakhtiar succeeded in consolidating his government, it is conceivable that Israel would have been allowed to maintain its diplomatic presence in Iran, and continue some low-level commercial ties, including the continued servicing of the two countries by El Al...
...The wealthiest members gathered funds and dispatched a delegation of Jewish leaders to call upon the prominent clerics in the Iranian religious center at Qum...
...The Syrians accused the Egyptians of attempting to coopt the Palestinians, out of fear that Palestinian terrorist activities might prematurely precipitate an all-out military engagement with the Israelis which would result in an Egyptian defeat...
...The "mixed economy" of the country consisted of massive state investment in heavy industry and infrastructure and a burgeoning private sector characterized by luxury production and luxury consumption for the expanding bourgeoisie...
...Israeli planning officials were designated to draw up development plans which were to coordinate all aspects of economic and social planning in large areas of the countryside...
...No signs announced Israeli-managed projects...
...The Shah was not unaware of the disdain in which he was held throughout the Arab world...
...All this American presence and participation was widely noted and disparaged by many within Iran who felt that somehow the Shah was serving his own interests by his ties to the United States more than he was serving those of the Iranian people...
...In the early 1970's, the Government of Pakistan raided the Iraqi Embassy in Islamabad and uncovered over thirty crates of weapons which it alleged were destined for Baluchi tribesmen seeking to create an independent state on what was Pakistani and Iranian territory...
...Above all, Iran is a system which flourishes on oil...
...In the mid-1960's, the Shah solidified his relations with the Soviet Union and signed a number of agreements with them, including an exchange of Iranian natural gas for the con-truction of a Soviet steel mill and another for the USSR to supply Iran with nonstrategic military weapons...
...A united Arab world, able to end its internal bickering and achieve a commitment to the development of what was called Arab "socialism" would be a formidable opponent not only to Israel, but to the conservative regimes throughout the Middle East...
...Certainly, it behooved President Sadat to come to terms with the Shah, something which he strove eagerly to do...
...None of the community appears to have been singled out for harm...
...Both nations shared a fundamental marginal relation both to their neighbors and to other developing countries, a fact of life that generated amazingly close ties between them...
...In addition, general American aid was quickly mobilized for Iran, and hundreds of development projects were initiated throughout the kingdom...
...Immediately after the conclusion of World War II, the Soviet Union engineered the establishment in the west and northwest of Iran of the Kurdish "People's Republic of Mahabad" and the "People's Republic of Azarbay-jan," both of which declared themselves territorially and politically independent of Iran...
...The Iraqis encouraged Shi'ite religious leaders in Najaf and Ker-bela in Iraq, whose principal followers resided almost entirely in Iran, to brand the Shah as an anti-religious, anti-Moslem supporter of the Baha'is and Jews...
...For each of the disappointed partners to the union responded to the divorce by an attempt to outbid the other for the support of the remainder of the Arab world...
...The Iranian response was to dispatch the largest contingent of its army to new bases in the border provinces of Sistan and Baluchistan and to announce a new development scheme to channel Government investment funds to those provinces, the poorest and least developed in the country...
...the word that is used translates as "subject...
...Cinemas, liquor stores, branch banks by the hundreds, and even a section of the British Embassy were ripped apart...
...Both the defeat of the Arab states and the enhanced prestige of the Palestinians served to differentiate the interests of Iran and Israel...
...Israeli technicians lived quietly without blending into Iranian society, in a way totally alien to the always visible Americans...
...Its population, growing rapidly, has now reached some 35,000,000...
...The Jews and their foreign masters," he had written, "are plotting against Islam and are preparing the way for the Jews to rule over the entire planet...
...The destruction of Arab military power which was accomplished so swiftly was followed by the withdrawal of the 35,000 Egyptian troops in Yemen and the end of direct Egyptian involvement in the affairs of the Arabian peninsula...
...Iran sought to earn additional support from its Middle Eastern Moslem neighbors and Third World friends by refusing to support Israel in the future, at least publicly, in international bodies, whether in the United Nations itself or more mundane forums such as international soccer tournaments...
...Iran was let off the Arab hook...
...Frequently, the diplomats from Israel were born in Iran...
...Israel's politics are stridently democratic, its government resting on a shaky coalition of parties in a highly fractionated parliamentary system...
...In June of 1963, in the midst of troublesome and incessant tribal warfare surrounding the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, urban riots broke out in the capital and other major cities...
...While the two countries established an early technical link, the possibilities for Iran's taking advantage of the Israeli domestic market for petroleum was negligible because of the Arab blockade of the Straits of Tiran...
...Clearly, the bloom had faded from Iran's ties with Israel even before it had disappeared from the Shah himself...
...For the Soviets, the Shah was an agent of American imperialism...
...Only the presence of large radio antennae on the roof hinted at the goings-on inside...
...In addition, shops owned by Iranian Jews, especially those which catered to foreigners, seemed disproportionately singled out for destruction...
...The flourishing ties between Iran and Israel—in trade, technical assistance, and to some extent, a "shared" Jewish community—were solidly based on the common perception which the leaders of Israel and the Shah held of their mutual marginality to their neighbors and the Third World as a whole...
...And the indigenous Jewish community can expect a future similar to that which it has experienced in Iraq and other Moslem states of the Middle East...
...The ties between Israel and Iran were indeed special, an anomaly among developing nations...
...The marginal status of Iran and the weakness of the Shah were no longer relevant...
...He lost no opportunity to encourage the overthrow of the Shah as well as to further the diplomatic isolation of both Iran and Israel in the Middle East and Third World...
...Another main plank of the competition between the Arab states was a stridently anti-imperialist line which grouped Iran and Israel in the forefront of the "agents of Western imperialism" in the Middle East...
...The competition intensified after February 1963, when members of the Ba'ath Party in Iraq executed a successful coup and joined the competition for influence among the Arab states...
...Thus Iran and Israel became linked in their involvement with oil...
...To be sure, the shared marginal status vis-a-vis the other states of the Middle East arose from different causes...
...For the time being, the focus of Arab activities in the Middle East became much more directed against Israel...
...When that blockade was lifted as a result of Israeli successes in the occupation of the Sinai peninsula in the 1956 war, Israel's dependence on Iranian oil began in earnest—and continued unabated...
...Iraq was not far behind in pursuing the same policy against the sheikhdoms of the Gulf...
...Had the military effected a coup, the ties would have been deeper, with the possibility of continuing military cooperation between the two states...
...They did more, of course...
...He is the author of The Political Elite of Iran...
...Oil was never a political commodity for the Shah, merely an economic asset which he used to best advantage to provide his regime with the revenues it needed to remain in power...
...Only a month later, members of the Ba'ath in Syria followed suit with their own coup, but the putative similarities between the Ba'ath groups failed to temper their rivalry...
...Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that stable intimacy is now suddenly to be replaced by total alienation...
...The Shah saw a strong Israel as an important counterweight to an increasingly hostile, unified, and capable Arab world...
...More disturbing for Israel was the way in which the Shah was able to alter a very long-standing pattern in the foreign relations of his country and reach agreement with Iraq in the early 1970's to end the Kurdish rebellion (which had been actively supported by Israel...
...But on the third day after his departure, the mobs of South Tehran marched into the central parts of the city and, with the armed forces, launched a coup against the Premier which brought about his arrest, the collapse of his government, and the return to power of the Shah...
...Marvin Zonis is Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Associate Professor of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Chicago...
...President Eisenhower responded to the resumption of kingly rule with an American commitment of budgetary aid—specifically, to cover the deficit of the Iranian government...
...Israeli citizens are blessed with few luxuries, burdened by the highest taxation rates in the world, and possessed of as little illiteracy as they are of petroleum...
...That, as we shall see, depends very much on how the Iranian turmoil finally comes to an end...
...With the diplomatic retrenchment of Egypt, the stage was set for the more widespread acceptance of Iran among the Arab states...
...Considerable diplomatic finesse by the Iranians and even more pressure by the United States led the Soviets to withdraw their support, and the collapse of both "Republics" followed swiftly...
...The Israeli Government was allowed to open an "embassy" in Tehran, but no plaque announced what lay behind the closed gate or shuttered windows...
...a government of divine law"—then Israel can expect to be excluded from any further political, economic, or military relations with Iran...
...The highest order of business which confronted the Shah in late 1953 was to resume the production and export of petroleum...
...Not surprising, then, that their common predicament would result in common interests and in mutual undertakings...
...The Shah has left Iran for an "extended vacation," and Ayatollah Khomeini is the hero of the Iranian masses...
...Iran is universally recognized as a legitimate state, although it has been vulnerable to dismemberment by separatist movements...
...The far more central issue has been the legitimacy of the regime...
...But it was with the October 1973 war that the relations between Iran and the Arab states took a drastic turn...
...But in the short run, at least, the specific ties which Israel can expect with Iran will depend on the government which finally comes to hold stable power in that troubled country...
...For many of the other states of the region, he was considered in, but not of, the Middle East...
...For when Cyrus the Great, the founder of both the first unified Persian state and the Achaemenid dynasty, conquered the neighboring Kingdom of Babylonia, he offered freedom to the former captives of the Babylonians...
...As the Shah's power and prestige grew in the 1970's, his relations with Israel altered...
...Iran had extended de facto recognition to Israel as early as 1950, but not until the return to power of the Shah in 1953 did Israel's ties with Iran deepen appreciably...

Vol. 4 • March 1979 • No. 4


 
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