• U.S.

Calls For Revenge – and Caution

5 minute read
Michael S. Serrill

A throng of angry mourners surged through the streets of Tehran, balancing the flag-draped coffins of Iran’s latest martyrs above their heads. “Death to America!” “Death to Reagan!” “Revenge, revenge!” they shouted, as the cameras of foreign journalists invited for the occasion focused on close- packed faces distorted by fury and grief.

While U.S. officials struggled to explain how the U.S.S. Vincennes had mistakenly shot down Iran Air Flight 655 with 290 civilians aboard, the mullahs who run Iran sought to make the most of their morbid propaganda windfall. Public memorial services took place in at least four cities. At Bandar Abbas, the coastal town from which the doomed jet took off, reporters were given a look at some of the bloated and mutilated bodies of the victims, about 170 of whom had been dragged from the Persian Gulf by week’s end.

Iranian leaders took turns denouncing the misdeeds of the “arch-Satan” America. President Seyed Ali Khamene’i called the downing of the aircraft “one of the biggest crimes of the war,” while Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, designated successor to Spiritual Leader Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, advocated sabotage “on American financial, political and military targets everywhere.” Khomeini urged his people to “go to the war fronts and fight against America and its lackeys.” Both Khamene’i and Khomeini, however, seemed just as intent on redoubling efforts against Iraq as denouncing America.

Militant rhetoric aside, many analysts concluded that immediate retaliation against the U.S. was unlikely. For one thing, the Iranians appear to lack the military capability to strike an effective blow at U.S. forces in the region. Though the Revolutionary Guards’ Boghammar speedboats continue to threaten neutral shipping in the crowded gulf, any attempt to confront U.S. warships patrolling in the area would be suicidal. And sponsorship of new terrorist bombings or kidnapings would only turn international public opinion against Iran, taking much of the onus off the U.S.

There were uncharacteristic calls for restraint from some Iranian leaders and their allies. Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual leader of the pro-Iranian Hizballah in Lebanon, urged that no harm come to the nine American hostages held by Muslim extremists. “I find no justification for making the hostages account for a matter to which they are not connected,” Fadlallah said. Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s powerful and pragmatic Assembly speaker, last week warned against “some amateurish action” that might “remove the wave of propaganda that is now heaped on America’s head.” By showing moderation, the Iranians apparently hope to press their propaganda advantage when the United Nations Security Council considers Iran’s call for condemnation of the U.S. and withdrawal of the American fleet from the Persian Gulf.

Tehran’s relatively subdued response to the shootdown is further evidence that at least some Iranian officials are determined to end their country’s diplomatic isolation. In recent months the government has sought to repair ruptured relations with Britain, France, Canada and even, it was disclosed last week, the U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz revealed that beginning last April, the Iranians initiated a series of secret contacts with the U.S. in an effort to open a diplomatic dialogue. Washington responded positively, State Department officials said, but insisted that any discussions be with an “authoritative” Iranian representative. Shultz was still waiting for a reply to that demand when Flight 655 went down.

Around the world, governmental reaction to the episode was muted. There was resolute support for the U.S. from the Arab gulf states, whose leadership blamed the eight-year-old Iran-Iraq war for the shootdown. Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s government predictably labeled the destruction of the airliner a “disgraceful and terrorist act,” while Iran’s hard-line ally Syria expressed “pain, dismay and disgust.” As always, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was President Reagan’s staunchest defender. “You cannot put navies into the gulf to defend shipping from attack without giving them the right to defend themselves,” said she. Nor was the U.S. gulf policy seriously questioned by Washington’s other Western allies or Japan.

Most interesting of all, perhaps, was the Soviet Union’s failure to exploit the situation. Soon after the shootdown, Radio Moscow labeled it “deliberate mass murder in cold blood.” But subsequent statements were less shrill. Soviet Spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov branded the Vincennes’ personnel “trigger happy” and let it go at that. Asked why he was not more critical, Gerasimov said he did not want to follow the “bad example of the totally wild anti- Soviet reaction” in the U.S. to the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983.

On Capitol Hill the disaster raised new calls for congressional oversight of the Administration’s gulf policy, which a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report called “dangerously nebulous” and “confused.” Because the 1973 War Powers Resolution has not been invoked, the President has not been forced either to justify his policy to Congress or bring U.S. forces home within a specified time. And despite last week’s tragic events, he is under little real pressure to change a policy that Administration officials insist has been strikingly successful at achieving its aims: to contain Iranian aggression, restrict Soviet involvement in the gulf, keep international sea-lanes open and restore American credibility among the Arab gulf states in the wake of the Iran-contra scandal. Barring a settlement of the Iran-Iraq conflict, U.S. warships may be found in gulf waters long after Reagan’s departure from the White House.

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