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We have witnessed the most complete collapse of a foreign policy together with the most total abandonment of a strategic national interest in two centuries of American history.

While this disaster occurs, we see the man responsible chasing votes by proclaiming that only he can safeguard the peace. Jimmy Carter's policy generated the weakness which brought on the threat to the oil resources of the Persian Gulf, which turn the wheels of industry and employment in Europe, Japan and America.

You will remember Jimmy Carter at Notre Dame rejoicing that we had rid ourselves of inordinate fear of Communism. Then after the assassination of an American ambassador to Afghanistan and a radio assault on Iran from Moscow and the seizure of the American Embassy at Teheran failed to restore any fear of Communism, the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan. This led Jimmy Carter to admit that he had lost his trust in the Soviet Union.

The next step was the declaration of what was proclaimed as the Carter doctrine. It announced that the U.S. had a strategic national interest in the Persian Gulf which would be defended by force if necessary. Within days we began hearing from Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Defense that we did not have the military strength to protect the national interest which Jimmy Carter had proclaimed. The Carter Doctrine disappeared and as suddenly but more quietly than it had been proclaimed.

Now, think of where we are today, less than a year after Jimmy Carter proclaimed with a loud voice that we would protect our interest in the Persian Gulf with force.

A Soviet satellite using Soviet arms is invading the Iranian

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oil fields and oil ports at the head of the Persian Gulf while
Jimmy Carter watches in silent impotence. In the immediate situa-
tion there is nothing that we can do. But how did we get in this
position? And how unseemly it is for the man who is responsible
for getting our country into the most dangerous situation since
World War II run up and down America proclaiming that Ronald
Reagan threatens the peace.

No President would lightly go to war. The danger of war is
not a rash President pressing a button in a particular crisis.
The danger of war is a foreign policy that permits a multiplication
of crises where the question of war and peace has constantly to
be faced. The ineptitude with which our foreign policy has been
conducted for these four years will continually force us to the
choice of either permitting events that are totally contrary to our
interests, or having to address the question of peace and war.
Incompetence is what threatens the peace. The collapse of the
pro-American government in Iran is one of the geopolitical disas-
ters of the post-war period. Iran had the largest army in the
Persian Gulf. It was in foreign policy matters unconditionally
on our side. The reason that we had sold Iran arms was to balance
the large influx of Soviet arms into Iraq.

In the last three years, there have been Cuban expeditionary
forces in Ethiopia. There has been a Communist coup in South
Yemen that put in a pro-Soviet government into that strategic
area. There have been two coups in Afghanistan, followed by the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Then came the collapse of Iran.
All of these together have created the image in the Persian Gulf
that this has happened either by Soviet troops, or by Soviet coups

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or by Soviet proxy forces, and that the United States is an
impotent bystander, and has therefore pushed even the more moderate
regimes in that area in the direction of the radicals.

Jimmy Carter's Ambassador to Iran has told us that there were
three different policies being pursued simultaneously, one of them
involving the transfer of the army from the Shah to Bakhtiar, another
transferring the army to Barsigan, a third just to overthrow the
Shah on human rights grounds. When you have three different poli-
coes pursued by the United States, and the President not choosing
between them in a revolutionary situation, the least you can say
is that our actions accelerated an extremely difficult situation
which led to the downfall of a friendly government which we had

> on for a quater of a century to maintain a stable equilib-
> rium in the Persian Gulf.

Thus it was Jimmy Carter's confusion, his lack of leadership,
his inability to decide where our true national interest was, not
a trigger happy finger, that brought a war in the Middle East.

In terms of American gepolitical interests in that area, our
normal relationship would be with Iran, because Iraq is the most
radical of the Arab countries. Despite occasional flirtations
with the West, it attempts to achieve a leadership over the rest
of the Arab countries that is more or less aimed against our
interests. On the other hand, the experience of the Iranians
with the United States is such that I think it is unlikely that
they will believe that we can protect any friend in that area,
having seen how we conducted ourselves towards their former gov-
ernment and our inability to protect the hostages, so that even
if there's a change of government and even if they should become
convinced that they should go back to their more traditional

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posture, it is not at all clear to me that they'll have enough
confidence to do so.

But I think the best we can do under the present circumstances
is to let this drama work itself out without our mixing into it.
The important problem is to build a firebreak so that it cannot
happen again.

Our principal adversary in the world, the Soviet Union, must
regard the United States with bafflement. They see us unwilling
to protect fundamental geopolitical interests. They see us oscil-
late between verbal condemnations and eagerness to resume negotia-
tions on limited topics. I think they see a strategic opportunity,
but they are slightly worried that if they push this strategic
opportunity too far, public opinion, the unpredictability of
Americans will suddenly force us to draw a line where they hadn't
expected it, and so they have a mixture of seeing great opportuni-
ties tempered by the fear that America may suddenly reverse course,
contrary to all performance.

The Carter Administration finds itself unable to strike a
balance between its negotiations and its military strategy, and
'uts each of them into watertight compartments where they cannot
support each other, so that in the week of the Iraqi invasion with
Soviet arms of Iran, you have the announcement of the resumption
of talks on theater nuclear forces in Europe at the very moment
when the upheaval in the Persian Gulf, which was at least partly
instigated by the Soviets, is threatening the very survival of Europe.