Strange, indeed, are the ways of US policy-makers. Iran is a case in point. Economic sanctions against it would not have made much sense even before the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. These would not have secured the release of the American hostages. If anything, they would have further inflamed passions in Teheran and strengthened the position of the hardliners there. Sanctions seldom hurt a country sufficiently to make it change its policy quickly, as Rhodesia-Zimbabwe has demonstrated all these years. In the unlikely event of the proposed measures biting hard enough, Iran would have moved closer to the Soviet Union which has been more than ready to come to its rescue. This would have made nonsense of the larger American objective of checking the growth of Soviet influence in the oil-rich and highly volatile Gulf region. But if a case of some kind could be made in favour of sanctions before the Soviet takeover in Afghanistan, it could not possibly be done after it from the USA’s own point of view.
According to President Carter’s press secretary, Mr. Jody Powell, and other US officials, two Soviet motorized divisions of 25,000 are now stationed in and around Herat in Western Afghanistan athwart “the traditional invasion route to Teheran.” Most of these troops, they say, are 100 to 150 kilometers from the Iranian border but some have moved closer. While we are in no position to vouch for the accuracy of these statements, it is reasonably certain that the Soviet Union has established an impressive military presence in and around Herat. It does not follow that the Kremlin is getting ready to move into Iran. The Soviet leadership is much too cautious to pursue a course which is bound to produce a direct confrontation with the United States and turn almost the entire world against it. Most Western commentators agree that it has been guided by defensive consideration even in the case of Afghanistan. But the Soviet military presence in western Afghanistan enables the Kremlin to assist the leftists in a takeover bid in Teheran in case the present regime there begins to crack up and they try to fill the vacuum. Thus American interests demand that they wait for a change in Ayatollah Khomeini’s attitude. Such a shift is said to be taking place. The Ayatollah, who refused to see the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Kurt Waldheim, only about a fortnight ago, is now said to be prepared to accept him as a mediator on the hostages issue. If the report is accurate, the change in the Ayatollah’s attitude can have nothing to do with the UN resolution on sanctions. It must be the result of the Soviet action in Afghanistan. Surely, the US policy makers could have been more patient and not tried to push the motion through the Security Council.