EDITORIAL
A PRESIDENTIAL DOVE? Looking back over the campaign before the results of the voting are known, it seems to us one of the more refreshing things to take place occurred very early: the booing of...
...If I could go to America and make a suggestion, I would say: Cut the billions [of dollars] and provide us with an end-of-the-war commitment from Egypt...
...Both in the Persian Gulf area and in the territory of the Israeli-Arab confrontation, the Middle East is a highly volatile and dangerous region...
...The only solution is...
...On this point we should listen to former Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan...
...A recent staff study of a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey illustrates the mindless character of many of these sales...
...military policy...
...There must be a way to coming down the hill, of de-escalating," Dayan said...
...Furthermore, according to Secretary Kissinger, Iran plans $10 billion more of such spending from the U.S...
...he urged the U.S...
...Nevertheless, the amount of U.S...
...It is idle dreaming, perhaps, but we can't help thinking what a wonderful thing it would be if both major presidential candidates were scorned by the various superpatriotic organizations because of their stance on U.S...
...In addition, Iran is one of the newly-popular oil states...
...not to give us more arms for our security but to give us more security so we can have less arms...
...Strangely enough, the entire traffic seems to have begun without approval by the State Department and contrary to a Pentagon recommendation...
...This country is the Third World's major arms supplier...
...Somehow the madness of the arms race, nuclear and conventional, must be contained, if we are to have any kind of human future...
...For example, Iran has bought 80 of the newest F-14 fighter planes which are themselves complex and which come equipped with very complicated, computer-guided Phoenix "missiles...
...Looking back over the campaign before the results of the voting are known, it seems to us one of the more refreshing things to take place occurred very early: the booing of Jimmy Carter by the American Legion conven-tioners over the amnesty issue...
...Iran, it should be emphasized, is not a technologically advanced country, and more than half its population is illiterate...
...military equipment...
...In addition, late in August it was announced in Washington that the Shah plans to buy 100 of the even more advanced F-16 fighters at an additional cost of $3.4 billion, in addition to the $10 billions already committed for other items...
...In a recent interview with the A.P...
...from 1975 to 1980...
...Whoever is elected president on Nov...
...Long friendly to the U.S., that country borders on the Soviet Union and is also bordered by Sovietbacked Iraq...
...to reduce military aid to Israel, de-escalate the Middle East arms race and work for a new Arab-Israeli agreement to end the formal state of war...
...With the Pentagon reported ready to ask the White House for $130 billion for the 1978 fiscal year- $9 billion more than the estimate of only seven months ago-and with the international armaments race defying rationality, it would be good to have a dove instead of a hawk in the White House, or as close to one as we can get in current politics...
...Ironically, then-President Nixon stopped in Iran after concluding the first nuclear arms limitation with Moscow and gave the Shah of Iran the green light to buy almost anything he wanted in the way of arms, apparently without consultation with his experts...
...The recent killing of three Americans by anti-Shah terrorists is one small example of the sort of thing that can be expected to happen...
...Today Iran is the largest single purchaser of U.S...
...it is conventional arms as well, and here the United States is a big offender...
...indeed, although the USSR is a big arms merchant, the U.S...
...Out of control" is how Senator Humphrey described our arms deals with Iran...
...One thing it does not need is for the United States to pump more arms into the area indiscriminately...
...personnel...
...2, let us hope he understands that fact...
...trade in conventional arms which ran around $1 billion annually five years ago has reached $10 billion in each of the last three years...
...has sold more weapons abroad than all other nations combined...
...Some kind of case can be made for helping Iran, of course...
...Dayan's comments have wider relevance, and his words apply to many other areas of the world as well as to the entire Middle East...
...Sharp escalation in this traffic of death has taken place in recent years...
...why should a potential war involving Iran be any different...
...To train Iranians to handle such complicated weapons systems, thousands of Americans and their dependents are already in Iran...
...help that is being provided-for cold cash, naturally, cash earned by raising the price of oil-involves potentially deadly peril for this country and a possible upset to a precarious Middle Eastern peace...
...by 1980 their number is expected to reach 50,000 or more...
...It is not only nuclear weapons that threaten to escape human control...
...Sales between 1972 and 1976 of arms and arms-related material and construction amounted to more than $10 billion...
...Purchases already include some of the most advanced weapons systems known, requiring extended instruction and training by U.S...
...We know what the presence of such "instructors" in Vietnam led to...
Vol. 103 • November 1976 • No. 23
