is well-known. prepared to admit as much.
THE Iranian army, with its 420,000 personnel, of whom two thirds are volunteers, is the principal military power in the Middle East. Its technological. logistic and intellectual dependence on the United States makes it a direct subsidiary of the USarmy.
After the 1973 rise in world oil prices, Iran became the top military client of the US. Since that date it has received 40 per cent of total US arms exports. CLIENTS It was with the arrival of Richard Nixon in the White House in 1968 that American milary aid saw an unprece dented development. corresponded to the new US policy which oriented less towards intervention than towards the consolidation of local clients.
Iran was to become one of the most privileged of clients, in a zone upset by the Six Day War of 1967, the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war. development of revolutionary movements around the Gulf. particularly in Yemen and Dhofar.
In 1968, then, approved the supply latest model of the Phantom fighter-bomber, the F4D, and in 1972 Iran was authorised to buy conventional arms made in the US.
The supply of ultra-sophisticated equipment - some or still at the prototype stage and electronic detection Tested no ne VarIOUS SUDSIU"
aries of the CIA during the Wal presence in Iran of several tens of thousands of advisers sent by the US army or taken on under contract from the great arus Corporalons.
ADVISERS Last September 43,000 US advisers were working in this way in Iran: 2,200 civilian US Defence Department employ1,000 officers and NCOs.
8,000 contractual agents hired by the Defence Department Socialist Challenge 2 November 1978 page 12 BRITISH military involvement with the Shah of Iran Indeed the Foreign Secretary Is But, as this article from the French Trotskyist paper and 32,000 private emplovees OFFICIAL The 3.300 members of the Military Assistance Group- - composed of civilians and uniformed personnel — are the 'official military advisers. The 8,000 contracted specialists are basicany veterans responsible, •InE Americans, for training Iranian soldiers servicing supplies of equipment.
But it appears that for certain highly sophisticated equipment it is the advisers themselves who operate them.
This US contract personnel can be employed in the combat zones was against the Dhofar guerillas or direct on aerial Emissions.
BASES these This system of advisers, as well officering of the Iranian army, has the advantage of gelling round treaty clauses between Moscow and forbid Ine foreign military Nixon Iranian soil.
can thus Carter's desire to lend his unfailing support to the Tehran regime day after day. There is hardly a regime in the Western which increases military expenditure by 26 per cent each year.
systems INCREASED There are not many countries where this expenditure is 25 per cent UrOSS product that is three times that of the US or USSR and six that of Since the rise in oil prices the Iranian military increased fivefold thousand million thousand million dollars. There is not another country in the SUCT proportion of its revenues go on military spending.
THE founding conference of the Fourth International was held 40 years ago in Paris. The degeneration of the Second and Third Internationals had made it necessary to build a new and revolutionary international.
In Germany in the early 1930s the leadership of the Communist Party, under the influence of the Stalin faction in Moscow, had pursued a policy which had disarmed the German workers and allowed Hitler power with relative ease.
The conclusion which Leon Trotsky and other drew tragic defeat (re-affirmed by the Spanish debacle a lew years the sector Advisory
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'Rouge' indicates, the Iranian army is primarily an offshoot of the greatest imperialist power in