The Iraq-Iran war spews sparks and ignites fuses in all directions
It is the kind of war that could drag on for months and perhaps years—or could just as easily end overnight. The conflict between Iraq and Iran might remain in quarantine, limited to battles between two angry neighbors who have a long history of ethnic and sectarian enmity. Or it could suddenly expand, touching off a full-scale confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
The danger of the Persian Gulf exploding was foremost in the minds of diplomats the world over, including those representing the superpowers. In capitals throughout Europe and Asia, U.S. envoys buttonholed their Soviet counterparts and delivered a stern lecture: with 85,000 Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan and East-West relations already severely strained, there was a strong predisposition in Washington to attach the most sinister interpretation to anything that could be construed as Soviet intervention in the Iraq-Iran war. Presidential National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski went on television to caution: "We feel it is very important for the Soviet Union, as well as for us, to respect the principle of noninterference and not to become involved in this particular conflict."
The Kremlin hurled similar warnings at the White House. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko complained to U.S. Ambassador Thomas Watson in Moscow last week that American military activity in the gulf area was a "provocation" and "a threat to peace." Watson assured Gromyko that the U.S. was acting purely defensively and would stay out of the fighting.
Meanwhile Iran and Iraq were slugging it out like determined but weary boxers, unable to land a knockout punch but also unwilling to call it quits. As it had for weeks, the struggle raged over control of the crucial Shatt al Arab waterway. After pummeling the ancient port city of Khorramshahr, the Iraqis laid siege to the Iranian refinery center of Abadan. The Iraqi advance was slowed by the fierce resistance of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, an Islamic militia passionately supportive of the ideals and fulminations of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Meanwhile, the surprisingly effective Iranian air force hit back at the Iraqis with strafing missions and bombing attacks on at least four cities, including targets on the outskirts of Baghdad. The claims of triumph on both sides seemed equally inflated; but the casualties for each were in the thousands of killed and wounded, and the property damage in the billions of dollars.
Yet the war of attrition along the Shatt al Arab was overshadowed last week by the diplomatic efforts to end the fighting—and by political maneuvers to exploit it. Like the fighting, the diplomacy and the politics could have consequences for the entire Middle East and perhaps for the world. Throughout history, war has often resulted in the reordering of international relations, and it has often been true that the longer and bloodier the war, the more divisive the political aftermath.