Iran loses a plane, and the war takes an ominous turn
When the two Iranian F-4 fighter planes flew over Saudi Arabian territorial waters last week, they seemed to set the stage for yet another attack on a tanker doing business with Iran's sworn enemy, Iraq. But this time the story was different: the planes were intercepted by two Saudi F-15 fighters firing air-to-air missiles. One, and possibly both, of the Iranian planes was shot down. A short time later, Iran sent eleven more F-4s into the skies over the Persian Gulf. Again, the Saudis intercepted them. After a brief standoff, the Iranian planes withdrew.
The engagement signaled an important change in the 45-month-old war between Iran and Iraq. Until now, the Saudis have made every effort to stay out of the war, even though they have given Iraq billions of dollars for weaponry. They have refused to fire back at Iranian planes that for the past month have flown into Saudi airspace in response to Iraq's efforts to choke off Iranian oil exports by firing at tankers using Iran's oil ports. As a result, Iran has been able to count on a big advantage: the determination of Saudi Arabia and the smaller gulf states to stay out of the conflict. Now, it appears, the Saudi policy of nonconfrontation with Iran no longer prevails.
Even so, the Saudis made it clear that they had fired their missiles more in sorrow than in anger. Said Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S.: "Our sovereignty was violated and we reacted, as we said we would all along, in a defensive manner. We think it is a pity we had to be dragged into this conflict."
The Saudi-Iranian encounter came during a relative lull in the fighting. At least two more ships were hit during the week. Iraqi Super Etendards swooped down on the Turkish tanker Buyuk Hun in the vicinity of the Iranian oil terminal at Kharg Island (see box). The ship was set ablaze and had to be abandoned, but its crew was rescued. At week's end Iraq" also claimed its warplanes had hit two "naval targets," otherwise unidentified, near Kharg Island, but the attacks could not be confirmed.
Unable to ship their own oil through the besieged gulf, the Iraqis are desperate to find an alternative route that will allow them to replenish their war-drained treasury. It was learned last week that a suggestion had come from an unexpected source: the Israelis. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, Prime Yitzhak Shamir revealed that offered to let Iraq pump its oil through long-unused pipeline, built in the 1930s, stretches from Baghdad to the Israeli port of Haifa. Iraq, which does not recognize Israel, rejected the invitation.
Because of the growing risk to shipping, the U.S. Navy acknowledged that it had begun to provide protection for tankers chartered to supply fuel for the American naval ships patrolling the gulf. The Reagan Administration is prepared to extend air and naval cover to other vessels if the tanker war should worsen. Under the plan, the U.S. would establish a sort of naval cordon sanitaire along the western channel of the gulf, through which ships from nonbelligerent nations destined for neutral ports would be escorted. No ships carrying arms or supplies for the warring countries would be included.