ohnson and Richard Nixon. According to Valibeigi (1988), "the United States began supplying Iran with a substantial amount of sophisticated military equipment," which included $12 billion in Iranian arms purchases in 1978 (p. 212).
The American policy of relying on the Shah's regime as the principal source of stability in the region collapsed with the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979. Relatively few Americans in official capacities foresaw the Khomeini revolution: "We were much too close to the Shah . . . We were so obsessed by communism penetrating from the north that we could not imagine anything like a bitter, hostile Islamic revolution coming from within Iran" (Roskin, 1998, p. 457).
De Facto Balance of Power Policies of the 80s
According to Brzezinski, Scowcroft & Murphy (1997, May/June), "during the 1980s, the United States strove to maintain a de facto balance of power between Iraq and Iran so that neither would be able to achieve a regional hegemony that might threaten American interests" (p. 22). Even before the Iran-Iraq war broke out in
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