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The position may be different in regard to air operations, since aircraft could easily fly to northern Persia, could assist fro... there not only in the defence of Persia but also in the bombing of the oil-fields at Baku and could be flown south again if the Soviet land troops threatened their aerodromes.
The extent to which such operations are a feasible proposition is, however, uncertain. In particular it might not be easy to carry out any project of this kind without considerable improvements to the existing aerodromes (and it must be remembered that if the aerodromes were improved and subsequently captured by Soviet land forces they would facilitate the bombing of the version and Iraqi oil-fields by the Soviet air force), In addition, a considerable ground organisation would have to be transferred to North Persia and removed again when danger approached.
In recent memorandum I suggested that if Persia were the subject of deliberate aggression and stood up for herself to the best of her ability, we should, for the sake of our prestige, have to tell the world that although we might not while at war with Germany be able to ensure the defence of northern Fersia we regarded what the soviet Government had done as a casus belli and held ourselves free to take whatever measures we might at some future date think necessary in regard to Persia as a whole; and I also suggested that if the Persians asked us beforehand in all good faith what we should do in such a case we should tell them more or less frankly how we should react.
I understand that it is now our policy to damage Soviet interests wherever we can and that it would be a good thing if this opportunity of doing so could be exploited. The trouble is that unless the Chiefs of Staff now decide that we could react to Soviet aggression much more definitely and promptly than has hitherto seemed possible i.e.,
(1) could accept a commitment to send substantial
forces to north Persia directly the Soviet forces attacked, and
(B) could meanwhile send arins and aircraft to Persia
on a really substantial scale,
the Shah is unlikely to think our reaction very encouraging.
But if our probable reaction would be discouraging to the Tersian Goverment even if they were only thinking about the possibility of our going to ersia's help if attacked, it would be infinitely more so, and quite inadequate, if there were any idea of hoping that the Shah might on the strength of it let us use his territory in certain circumstances for air attacks on Baku, even before Persia itself was attacked. In my opinion there is no hope of this, unless the Service Departments could fulfil the Shah's desires under both (A) and (B) above in the most complete and categorical manner. Frobably we should have to pay in other ways as well.
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