WASHINGTON is rapidly turning into a war capital. Not, perhaps, in the sense that troops are being called up for deployment to some foreign battlefield but rather in the sense that top policy-makers Denneve ikelihood of a war is increasing daily, and that, therefore, preparation for war must be accelerated even if other national goals suffer in the process.
In the past few months, the Carter administration has committed United States in the thermonuclear arms race, and has ordered a massive increase in spending on conventional And while Inese moves necessarily signal the outbreak of conflict, they will surely aggravate US-Soviet relations thus, increase the risk that future crises will result in war.
As one State Department officer told me in January, *we are now closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis As in Washington of the early 1960s, when the Kennedy obsession with 'counter-insurgency' led inexorably towards Pentagon strategists are searching for opportunities to test out their new weapons and tactics - except now the emphasis is on desert warfare and on "high intensity' operations in hypothetical European and Middle battlefields.
US combat forces completely re-equipped tanks, PGMs (precision-guided munitions, also called smart Domos The White House has ordered the Army to deaw up plans for construction of a factory to produce "binary weapons. According to The ton Post, the new plant will be located Pine Bluff [Binary weapons would separately encased chemicals would mix together to form the deadly nerve gas only after the shell or bomb was on its way to a target. At the same four-year hiatus, used nerve During the exercises, held at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, small quantities of nerve gas are released decontaminated by chemical weapons specialists.
Socialist Challenge 8 March 1979 page 8 'smart missiles), and launching systems.
emphasises the 'usability"
the US interests in the renewed abroad.
do not for instance, and, probably were (in more interdependent; resource-dependent Administration's Vietnam, talking In mastern for highly are being NATO.
LICH provocative grammes the WashingUS withdrawal from Arkansas. use two disputes would be settled gas in and then Finally helicopters, and fighter planes, and the strategic nuclear arsenal is being 'modernised' with a new generation of missiles, warheads, All this is being accompanied by a change in US strategic doctrine which of nuclear weapons in limited' conflict situations.
With the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran — and with it the policy of relying on client powers to defend third favour is heading towards interventionist posture Commenting on the Iranian crisis, lobby!)
Secretary COT Derence Harold Brown observed: "I think that's a worse problem than it was in the 1950s and 1960s. You say how could it be worse than Vietnam? What I'm saying abroad. is that our vital interests are more likely to be involved than, in retrospect, they Vietnam). more on the outside Given this fact, he added, 'We might have a very difficult time avoiding the choice between active participation in conflict...or severe damage to our national interest and resources.' To demonstrate that he was not abstract terms, Brown revealed that "planning is going ahead' mobile, hard-hitting specialised force for conflicts outside of On Capitol Hill, it is hard to find law-makers who will speak out against CIeW weapons, probelligerent statements by the administration.
Equally chilling is the atmosphere in press, the universities, think-tanks. People who applauded the Vietnam and spoke of a 'new world order' where peacefully NATO and plathing for a future US advocate the revitalisation 'oil intervention' in the Persian Gulf.
(Klare goes on to detail the massive increase in military spending and the projects it is going on: neutron bombs, cruise missiles and a number of lesser known projects. He also reveals that there is talk of creating a standby draft system for all young men and women.
and most absurdly Carter's choice for director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is in
By Our Foreign Staff JIMMY Carter's recent the Bazargan which was in the circumstances, reverse. top general said that National Front leader Foreign Minister the continuing and militancy example, by last week's decision by arms contract, Chieftain tanks aircraft missiles.
US capitalists billion's worth of arms deals.
mythical bogey the West movement, WOLKCES simultaneously the threat everywhere.
It is too simplistic to that Pahlavi's Hassan, is popular analogy poor and Egypt, understand this that he had no intention of interfering in Iran's internal affairs was as ironic as his call for China to get out of Vietnam The US President's declaration came during his statement of recognition of echoed by Foreign Office. It was all they could do but the brave professions of faith in the new order in hide the fact has suffered a terrible No doubt the next move will be to try to enlist the support of the Khomeini regime for the US-backed status quo in the Middle East. Under the Shah the presence of large numbers of American 'advisers - white-collar mercenarie! — was a major way of doing this.
Khomeini has indicated all along that he is not opposed in principle to th presence of advisers, and last week many of the advisers who had fled the country were welcome, indeed invited, to return.
A foreign diplomat quoted in the New York Times explained the role of in the government: His mission is to preserve hegemony national bourgeoisie of Iran and to protect it from the revolutionary forces uncasica by a year or sure, sulkes But much of the damage has already been done. The economic impact, for has already been considerable. British companies have been hit Iranian regime to cancel the $2 billion which and Rapier have similarly: even before the insurrection the Bakhtiar government had cancelled $7 billion out of the planned $12 As we noted a couple of weeks ago, the oil companies are worried that the they conjured up during the 1973-74 crisis the 'third world' taking its revenge on - may yet come true if Khomeini is unable to control the mass and particularly the But far more serious are the 'geopolitical' implications of the overturn. The flight of US personnel and the disruption of CIA monitoring activities in Iran are bad enough for imperialism. With the fall of the monarchy, loses military ally in Central Asia and faces of similar say, example, that Sadat is Egypt's Shah (or present host, Morocco's) But signifies that the Iranian revolution marks a decisive new phase in the mass struggle in the Middle East — and autocrats, particularly in populous countries like The alliance between the new Iranian regime and the Palestinians underlines this lesson. At a time when the Arab regimes are looking towards a political accommodation with American imdeclaration Arab The the British that shares large monarchy, Sanjabi, the Bazargan of the the new Angola.
includes suffered machine.
themselves oil greatest upsurges for King this perialism, the decision to back the PLO signifies a step in the other direction bourgeois opposition to the Camp David peace between Egypt and Israel is likely to harden as a result.
alliance implications too. It spells an end to attempts to turn nonulation of southern Lebanor Khomeini's co-religionists - against the Palestinians.
But imperialism's immediate cause for concern is around the Gulf. Most immediately unstable is Iraq, which Iran population and a number of minority nationalities, principally the Kurds.
Bahrain too has many Shiites.
Arab population southern region transmission belt to carry radical ideas along the southern rim of the Gulf.
This is why the US has sent a naval task force to the Gulf and increased arms supplies to Saudi Arabia. even the Royal House of Saud, the Middle East's most powerful remaining Icelng employs many Palestinian immigrant workers, for example *If Iran goes Prince Fahd said before the Shah went, confirmed when he saw the television pictures of Yassar Arafat in Tehran.
But finally the fall of the Pahlavi regime signifies a further defeat for US global sudiegy in concept of regional 'relay posts' which keep their own corner of the globe safe has workable. Iran is the third of these to come to grief - after South Vietnam, The Pentagon policy makers must be unhappily pondering the that a mass movement can deteat ever most sophisticated FORMER SAVAK chief Nassiri Just before his execution Socialist Challenge 8 March 1979 page 9 has practical the Shi'a a large Shi'a The Iran's is another obvious But uneasy.
God help us," Crown CDCCI the 1970s The proven unSouth African venture into conclusion military
Chad war the Malsaved prime
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the west lost in Iran