The latest events in Iran stress the strategic importance of Sharm el-Sheikh, foreign Minister Moshe Dayan said during a private debate in his office yesterday. Another lesson learned from the Iranian revolution was the limited intervention ability of the U. S. in cases of internal changes in other countries, he said.
The implications of the events in Iran on Israel were also discussed in the Knesset yesterday. A so-called “senior security official” told a group of MKs that if the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khoumeini’s regime in Iran stabilized, Israel might face Iranian soldiers on its eastern front within two or three years. Israel claims that Khoumeini’s followers were trained in PLO camps and that the PLO supplied them with arms and ammunition.
The MKs were told that the revolution in Iran has not yet ended. The instability continued and it was hard to tell who would be the winner in the final count. The events in Iran have of ready had severe repercussions on Turkey. But it was doubtful that if similar events took place in Turkey, the West would do anything to change it, the MKs were told.
However, according to the Israeli intelligence report, there is little likelihood that similar events might take place in Saudi Arabia which did not face a “Moslem revolution.” The only possible revolution in Saudi Arabia was a military coup d’etat against the Moslem monarchy which is, in fact, aware of that possibility.
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