Maritime Political Geography

Withdrawal of Pax-Britannica from the region in 1971 and the Americans entered the region in 1981. The interim period was the period of Iranian domination of affairs in the region and it was during this period that territorial and boundary disputes began to be solved peacefully. Yet, immediately after the British withdrew forces from the Persian Gulf by the end of 1971, Iran began the initiative of settling territorial differences among the littoral state. Negotiations for the delimitation of maritime boundaries in the Persian Gulf which started in 1968 with Saudi Arabia continued with each and every Arab states of the region and by mid-1970s all maritime boundaries of Iran with her Arab neighbours were settled. In 1975 the age-old Iran-Iraq territorial and boundary disputes were settled in Shatt al Arab, and in the same year Iran's initiative of settling territorial disputes went beyond the region of the Persian Gulf and the Shah quelled the fire separatist movements in Dhufar of Oman as well as intervening in Egyptian Israeli disputes and settle their differences over the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli author, Samuel Segev admits in his 1981 publications on Israeli secret relations in the Middle East that "The Shah was the originator of the idea to mediate between Anwar Sadat and Golda Meir"

Iran had already started supply of oil to Israel and after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war when Egypt last control of Sinai Peninsula to Israel, Iran began mediating between the belligerents to save the situation in favour of Egypt. This is confirmed by the sources from both sides and this is the reason that Sadat remained a faithful friend of the Shah until the very end of his life and risked his own carrier and life in the pursuit of that faithful friendship. In 1975 Iran sought to use her oil supplies to Israel as leverage in an attempt to induce Israel to relinquish her control over the Egyptian oilfields in the occupied Sinai Peninsula and return Sinai to Egypt in return for Egypt's official recognition of Israel as well as the Shah pledging to provide Israel with the amount of oil Israel needed after relinquishing Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

Another instance of the Iranian endeavour to safeguard Arab territorial integrity was Iran's undertaking in eradication of threats to Oman's territorial integrity in the early 1970s. Within three years Iranian soldiers defended with their lives Oman's territorial integrity in Dhufar Province in the face of a fierce communist separatist movement that British forces could not eradicate in twelve years.