The Struggle for Persian Gulf Supremacy ••• 381in Iraq, feared revolutions like the one that convulsed Iran but did not want
to open their lands to US military bases. When some Americans voiced the
hope that Israel would defend their oil interests, the Arabs replied that they
feared Israeli expansion more than the spread of Soviet power.
This outlook was jolted a bit when the USSR, annoyed by the ineptitude
of the Marxist regime it had helped set up in Afghanistan, invaded the
country in late 1979. This sudden and massive influx of Soviet troops, into
a mountainous land poor in oil resources but strategically close to both Pa¬
kistan and Iran, budged Arab perceptions slightly but galvanized Washing¬
ton to act. Addressing Congress in January 1980, Carter warned that he
would view any attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Gulf area
as an attack on US vital national interests and could lead to war. This
Carter Doctrine, as it came to be called, was a risky declaration by the US at
a time when its embassy in Iran (the country most apt to be invaded) was
occupied by militants backed by their government. It even seems foolhardy
in retrospect, for the US lacked the means to transport, deploy, and main¬
tain a fighting force large enough to deter Soviet aggression, if any were
contemplated. No Gulf state wanted to base US naval or military person¬
nel, most of whom would probably be (like their foreign workers) unat¬
tached young men who could stir up social problems. US bases would
make them more vulnerable if a war broke out between the superpowers.
Did the Carter administration plan to use Egyptian troops, who had fought
none too well against Libya in 1977, or Israelis, capable fighters but bound
to provoke the hatred of local Arabs? Clearly, if the Gulf needed to be de¬
fended against an invader, the task should be performed by armies raised
within that region. This perception led the Gulf states to buy more arms,
train more troops, and coordinate their military planning, under their new
Gulf Cooperation Council.
No superpower confrontation occurred in the Gulf region. Neither side
would risk a war to occupy it. In 1979-1980 the US was viewed as per¬
ilously weak, but the USSR soon turned out to be vulnerable, too, for about
a fifth of its people—and a higher proportion of its youth—were Muslim.
Most Soviet Muslims could be reached by Tehran radio, and some listened
to Islamist and nationalist propaganda. The Soviets also found that their
prolonged occupation of Afghanistan was costly in lives and equipment,
insufficient to pacify the mountainous countryside, and bitterly resented in
other Muslim countries, which took in about 4 million Afghan refugees.
The US and the USSR thus kept each other from becoming the dominant
power in the Gulf, but both committed ships and troops to the region and
escorted Kuwaiti oil tankers past would-be Iranian attackers under their
own flags.