Page:Documents from the Den of Espionage.djvu/2

 will be less crisp, and I expect he would rather see his new government concede a measure of reform - and freedom - from strength and when it is ready to do so than appease critics it can no longer so easily kick into line.

What of the implications for US interests? Well, if Khomaini is able to contain the disenchantments, you have improved prospects for internal stability and for unimpaired territorial integrity. Also, it is clear to me that, in addition to order, Khomeini wants to get people back to work to ensure a decent -- and even rising by local measures - standard of living. (A moral and even austere Islamic Republic should not be supposed to mean either an idle or backward one, I have been told.) Thus, our interest in continued access to Iran's oil should be safeguarded by the new government's ability to maintain order in the oil fields and its need for earnings. Our interest in Iran's spending its oil earnings in the US should be advanced (if we don't blow it by not responding to expressions of interest) by their need - increasingly beginning to be realized - to translate oil dollars into jobs through either consumer imports or, much more likely, labor intensive projects that will lead to relatively labor intensive industries. (I think this bodes well for increasing oil production, too, eventually.) Finally, a confident Khomeini with a good grip on things at home and much skepticism of things Western is going to give us real problems on many multilateral issues. We need him at least as much as he needs us in the near term and so we don't have much to threaten him with. Particularly on Middle East policy, he is going to be a contrary force we will have to reckon with.

cc: CHG: V7omeeth