Page 4-Friday, January 11, 1980-The Michigan Daily


GIiE Sidpigan Bat1X
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom

Carter's foreign

WAISHINGiTON

WINDOW


policy dilemma.*

By Helen Thomas

Vol. XC, No. 82

News Phone: 764-0552

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan

! SQ f L 3

T/ I B A S E J O R N A L

WASHINGTON (UPI)-The Iranian hostage
crisis and the Russian march into Afghanis-
tan have pushed President Carter into a more
activist foreign policy.
The impact on his presidency and his
political future is profound. He now perceives
dangers that were not apparent to him before.
Since U.S. foreign policy has had amazing
continuity for some 20 years, he picked up
where his predecessors left off, avidly purl
suing detente, and even going much further in
disarmament proposals than the Soviets had
expected.
AGAINST STRONG opposition, he was
dedicated to the proposition that the Strategic
Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) was the
best way to put a cap on the nuclear genie bot-
tle. No other issue took as much of his time or
personal dedication.
Americans from all fields came from far
and wide to hear the president exhort them to
support the treaty. Failure to ratify the pact,
he said, would bar the United States from
going to other nations and urging them not to
join the nuclear club.
The Soviet Union, apparently deciding that
the opposition to SALT was too strong to over-
come, launched an invasion of Afghanistan
that sealed the doom of the treaty.
NTOW, CARTER has called a halt to
economic and cultural exchanges that have
eased East-West tensions and opened the door
slightly to better understanding betweeen
Americans and Russians. His moves were in-
tended to put the Soviets on notice that further
military expansion would be intolerable and
threatening to the Western lifeline.
Specifically, Pakistan, next door neighbor
to Afghanistan, and the entire oil-rich Persian
Gulf region, are vulnerable to attack if the
Russians pursue their power play.
Carter's reaction to date has come under
criticism. He has played most of his peaceful
retaliatory cards, although there are a few
moreain the deck. His decision to sharply cut
back grain sales to the Soviet Union has
angered American farmers. And Carter for-
ces are all too aware that the president may
pay a heavy political price for his action on
Jan. 21 when he is up against Sen. Edward
Kennedy in the Iowa caucuses.
MOST OF THE Republican candidates and
Kennedy have attacked his decision on grain
sales, although Carter has tried to shore up
his standing with the farmers with federal
programs to try to make up the losses to the
farmers.
Carter aides say he is counting on the
patriotism of the farmers and the deter-
mination to spread the economic burden
throughout the society to ease the political"
blow to his re-election bid.
In the broader picture, the other candidates
will sooner or later be asked what they would
do in similar circumstances. No one in the
1980 election will be sacrosanct from
providing answers-answers the voters find
plausible. All will have to take a stand.

Kaline's la
AOMI KALINE'S blue-eyed boy
N can now take rank among the likes
of Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax,
Jackie Robinson and the "Say Hey"
Kid. The Detroit Tigers' old number 6,
Al Kaline, has been elected to
baseball's hall of fame on the first
ballot..
Kaline's selection in his first year of
eligibility is a tribute to the man him-
self as one of baseball's finest. But, in a
broader sense, Kaline's victory was a
victory for Detroit, the city he knew
and loved-the cityin which he spent
an illustrious career piling up 3,007 hits
in 22 years.,
Some said that Kaline's main han-
dicap which would prevent him from
winning his rightful spot this year was
that he spent his entire career in
Detroit, not a pretty city, not a flashy
city-a city without the glamour and
media attraction of New York and Los
Angeles. Detroit was a city that took a
drubbing during those 22 years Kaline
played there-severe racial tension
culminating in the devastating riots of
1967; deterioration of housing in the
central city; rapidly spiraling crime

test victory
rates; and the flight of businesses and
white homeowners to their suburban
bastions.
The nation gave up on
Detroit-wrote it off as a dead city, the
murder capital of the world. The only
thing Detroit could produce was cars,
not sports superstars-the only recor-,
ds Detroit could break were in the
homicide logs, not the baseball annals.
But Al Kaline did ' not give up in
Detroit-it was, he said, the only city in
which he ever wanted to play the game
he loved. He stayed with the Tigers,
while they were winning the 1968 pen-.
nant and while they finished in the bot-
tom of the league. Al Kaline never
gained the national respect and
prominence that he deserved, but
Detroit loved him like he loved Detroit.
Detroit never gave up on Al Kaline.
Now Kaline, like Detroit, has finally
been accorded long-overdue national
recognition. Number 6 is, in effect,
really just a part of the entire Detroit
renaissance experience. Let Al Kaline
now take his place among baseball's
immortal heroes. He, like the city he
loved, deserves it. And we told you so.

Public scrutiny and instant com-
munication, plustsharper reporting, will put
everyone on the spot, including Carter, in the
campaign. Carter will become more
vulnerable to a restive society if the Iranian
militants continue to hold 50 American
hostages. His options, short of a military
response, have always been limited. But
there are' signs that there is growing
frustration with the policy of patience.
NEVERTHELESS, none of his opponents
have yet advocated the stronger, more ob-

vious methods of retaliation, knowing the
price will be extremely high for all concer-
ned, not to mention allies dependent on
Iranian oil.a
Carterand his top aides are champing at
the bit to get out on the campaign trail, and
still could do that if the crises become more
and more a 'way of life. But so far, the
president has found it good politics to remain
at the helm, above the battle.
And his choices at the moment are far morn
dependent on the hctidns of the Iranians and
the Russians, than his political opponents.

In te rnationallaw in Iran crisis


ol be mirbigan l9atlu

1979-80 SPORTS STAFF
SENIOR EDITORS:
GEOFF LARCOM ....M..o....................... Sports Editor
BILLY SAHN ........................ Executive Sports Editor
BILLY NEFF...................... Managing Sports Editor
DAN PERRIN,....................... Managing Sports Editor
NIGHT EDITORS:
Mark Borowski, Stan Bradbury, Bob Emory, A Fanger, Elisa
Frye, Dave Johnson, Lee Katterman, Gary Levy, Scott M.

Lewis, Mark Mihanovic, Jon Wells.
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS:
Pete Barbour, K.C. Chotiner, Greg DeGulis.t
DESK ASSISTANTS:
Dan Conlin, Martha Crall, Mark Fischer, John Fitzpatrick,
Mike Fromm, Tony Glinke, Alan Goldstein, Al Grabenstein,
Brad Grayson, Kim Hanafee, Mike Lieberman, Eric Luttinen,
Don MacMaster, Buddy Moorehouse, Dave Pomerantz, Art
Regner, Tom Shaheen, Drew Sharp, Kent Walley, Mike Werner.

Chrysler bailout

OVER THE last few weeks, the
Chrysler Corporation's financial
plight took a sharp turn for the worst
before taking a giant leap in the other
direction. The Dodge Main plant-in
Hamtramck closed, swelling the
unemployment rolls of the little island
city enormously.
Just as the number three automaker
teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, the
U.S. Congress okayed $1.5 billion "in
federal loan guarantees 'to the
beleaguered car manufacturer, under
the condition that Chrysler can
squeeze a quarter of a billion dollars
out of local governments and the
state. The much-needed aid, approved
only after lengthy haggling by a
strange coalition of left- and right-wing
senators, will save some 140,000 jobs at
Chrysler, and perhaps as many at
other, related businesses that rely on

Other concessions by Chrysler's blue
collar force include surrendering some
paid vacations which they had counted
on, and foregoing the better part of a
cost-of-living increase that workers at
the competitive companies will enjoy.
The Chrysler workers have by no
means acted altruistically in making
these sacrifices. They are counting on
the company's management to act
responsibly in digging out of its rut,
beginning as soon as the loans are
secured.
In his testimony to the House Sub-
committee that voted for the loan
guarantee, Lee lacocca, Chrysler
chairman, outlined several of the steps
that Lhe corporation plans to take in
rising to its former status. Chief
among these is a move toward heavy
emphasis on fuel-efficient cars. Still
more significant, though, is Iacocca's

By Dr. Khalid Abdullah
Tariq Al Mansour
Despite the repeated failures
of international law to resolve
world crises, the subject has
received more attention in the
two months of the U.S.-Iranian
standoff than at any time since
the formation of the League of
Nations 60 years ago.
Significantly, the invocation of
law by both sides (if not its ob-
servance) has so far kept the
crisis from degenerating into
violence and bloodshed.
BOTH THE Iranians and the
Americans have engaged in an
unprecedented exchange of legal
accusations. The Americans con-
demn the Iranians for taking em-
bassy personnel as hostages in
violation of the Vienna Conven-
tion's laws on diplomatic person-
nel. The Iranians insist that in-
ternational law permits them to
detain foreigners for the limited
purpose of judging and punishing
espionage behavior. They also
cite U.S. violation of inter-
national law involved in
America's role in the overthrow
of the Mossadegh government in
1953, and insist upon the return of
the deposed Shah as equity for
resolving the hostage situation.
These accusations have been
dramatically carried to what
each country considers its court
of last resort: In the case of Iran,
the appeal is being made direc-
tly, via the media, to people all
over the world; the United States
has carried its case to the UN's
Security Council and the Court of
International Justice.
But so far, the legal dispute is
no nearer a resolution than it was

regional or even world wars.
IN THE PRESENT case, no
forum has been acceptable to
both parties involved. Public
opinion-Iran's court-is a fickle
thing with little or no standing in
Western jirisiprudence. The In-
ternational Court of Justice, to
which the U.S. first appealed, has
no jurisdiction unless both par-
ties agree to its authority (Iran
does not), and has no powers to
enforce its judgments.
We are left with the United
Nations, where the case is now
resting in the Security Council,
the only international body that
can enforce a judgment against
an offending member. The
General Assembly, which can
also investigate and recommend
A tirifn subh uisputes- can on
act in the absence of action by the
Security Council, and with its ap-
proval.
But Iran has indicated that it
will not feel legally or morally
bound by any decision of the
Security Council, of which it is
not a member. Iran's reiectiono
the fact that the Council
represents the interests of the
superpowers, and not the
majority interests of the UN.
THE COUNCIL was chartered
with the express aim of per-
manently reserving for each of
the five superpowers (the U.S.,
U.S.S.R., Great Britain, China
and France) the absolute right to
determine the outcome of any
dispute before it. This control is
exercised through the veto power
reserved to those five members.
Under this arrangement, it is
possible for the Security Council
to find Iran in violation of inter-
national law, with none of the
f.~&. Lvrw .. v - j4r* F

Assembly, where no one has veto
power, as the true expression of
the will of the community of
nations.
However, the UN Charter
prohibits the General Assembly
from making recommendations
on any matter that is being
debated by the Security Council,
unless the Council so requests.
And it is highly unlikely that the
U.S. will agree to request such
action from the more
democratic-and Third World-
dominated--General Assembly.
So we are at an impasse, one
that will only grow more volatile
as the new political and economic
world re-aligns itself from the
colonial past.
BUT IMPASSES, history
records, are often occasions for
bold innovations that nudge
human relations forward. It is
but for us to seize the opportunity
from the looming crisis.
In this spirit, the Security
Council, with U.S. approval,
should take a major step into the
new decade by requesting the
General Assembly to establish a
new and special Human Rights
Judicial Tribunal. Such a
tribunal, which could be
established under the UN's
Uniting for Peace Resolution and
Article 21 of the Charter, would
be specifically empowered to
deal with an issue which is cen-
tral to the Iranian crisis, and a
source of increasingly frequent
hostility among other nations:
specifically, the rights of nations
to have tyrannical ex-rulers and
officials tried as international
criminals, and to investigate and
retrieve embezzled national fun-
ds.
Whether we are talking about

Third World country, such as
Kenya, and could be modeled af-
ter Article 6 of the Charter of th
International Tribunal at
Nuremberg. This section
provides for jurisdiction over
specific, inhumane crimes
"whether or not (the crime is) in
violation of the domestic law of
the country where perpetrated."
THE TRIBUNAL should also
be empowered by the General
Assembly to investigate the
embezzlement of funds by
national leaders and to impound
all funds found to be taken iy
violation of the law. This
provision could also serve to
determine the legitimacy of the
personal fortunes of deposed
leaders.
A two-thirds vote of the
General Assembly should be
required to enforce the punish-
ments decreed by the
tribunal, and to determine the
selection of judges, the rules a
evidence and tenures of office.
Such a tribunal would
represent much more than a
solution to a complex and highly
emotional problem in inter-
national law. Had such a tribunal
existed just a few months ago, it
is likely that the present crisis in
Iran would not have occurred.
And beyond the immediate crisis,
a Human Rights Judicial
Tribunal, created under tho
democratic principles of the
General Assembly, would give
every member of the growing
world body of nations a share in
the development of the law of the
future, a voice in their own
destiny.
The validity and the future