ABSTRACT
The problem of keeping the Shah’s military appetite within proportional dimensions entered a paradigmatically new era in 1969 in anticipation of the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf region in 1971. The Shah, perpetually wary of the USSR’s ubiquitously sinister, subversive, and separatist intentions – albeit now pursued more surreptitiously and through proxies – considered the Peacock Throne as heir apparent to Whitehall and deemed Tehran the natural candidate to fi ll in London’s stabilizing role in the region. The West’s recognition and accommodation of such stature, in the Shah’s view, would empower Iran to stem the radicalization or Communist drift of the incipient Arab states following the lacuna of leadership to be left by the British pullout.
