The third way in Egypt

a professional institution and was well-liked and respected. At the time of the Islamic revolution in Iran, as in present Egypt, hundreds of the young commanders of the military were educated in the United States, and their loyalty was primarily to the institution of the army and not to a particular individual. In fact the major obstacle to the seizure of power by the Islamic clergy in Iran was the Iranian army.

What went wrong in Iran was the result not of what occurred in the headquarters of the Iranian army, but of what happened in the corridors of Jimmy Carter’s White House. During the Iranian crisis, and prior to the change of the regime in Iran, there was infighting, contradictory reports within the White House and, above all, a confusion and lack of resolve on part of Jimmy Carter himself. In the midst of the Iranian revolution, every major civil organization in Iran was effectively paralyzed except the military. As General Robert Huyser, the senior U.S. military advisor in Iran during the Revolution reported to the White House, the Iranian military was prepared to stop Islamic takeover of the country provided the United States was prepared to pledge full economic and political support, including supplying combat troops and equipment. As Gary Sick, at the time the principal White House aid on Iran, in his recording of the events during the period when the Islamic revolution was unfolding, indicates, Carter did not, or was unable to, come to a resolution to maintain the potency and the institutional integrity of the Iranian military.

Carter, in the hope of a rapprochement with the future Islamic revolutionary regime, instead actively pursued a policy to “neutralize” the Iranian army. Carter instructed General Huyser to stand down and not interfere with political developments in Iran. In fact, while U.S. officials in Iran including, Ambassador Sullivan and General Huyser, were giving their “unequivocal” assurance of the U.S. support of Shapur Bakhtyar, the last secular prime minister of Iran, something far more important was taking place in Paris.

Initially Secretary of State Cyrus Vance pressed the French government for a contact with Ayatollah Khomeini. The French, however, were unwilling to act as intermediaries. Finally, on 14 January 1979, Carter authorized Vance to instruct Warren Zimmerman, a senior official of the U.S. embassy in Paris, to establish contacts with Ayatolah Khomeini. Zimmerman held at list five meetings with Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi