Three Unending Wars

Aside from the war in Lebanon, there are three others still going on in which the U.S. Administration has at least a marginal interest. Following is a refresher and an update on what has been happening on those fronts:

Iran-Iraq

For 40 months, Iran and Iraq have been waging one of the bloodiest wars of modern times—with neither side able to prevail over the other so far.

More than a quarter of a million combatants—perhaps as many as half a million—are believed to have died in fighting that in many ways has resembled the trench warfare of World War I.

Except for the first few months of the war, when Iraq first invaded and then occupied a large swath of Iranian territory, the fighting has taken place mostly on Iraqi soil along the border between the two countries. Again and again, every couple of months, Iran has launched a ground offensive aimed at breaking through the Iraqi lines and moving deeper into Iraq. But again and again, Iraqi artillery, firing from behind barbed wire and minefields, has mowed MTN the Iranian infantrymen and stopped the offensive in its tracks.

Iran has suffered by far the most casualties in these exchanges—but it is Iraq that has been weakened most by the war.

Iran, with its population of over 40 million, has managed to keep about two million barrels of oil per day flowing out of the Gulf and into the world's markets. The income from these oil sales has allowed it not only to pay for the war but to build up its reserves of foreign currency almost to the level they had reached during the days of the Shah.

Economy Goes Downhill

Iraq, on the other hand, has a population of just under 15 million—not much more than a third of Iran's. Its oil loading terminals on the Gulf were destroyed during the early days of the war, and soon afterwards its main oil pipeline to the Mediterranean was closed down by Syria. This left Iraq with one pipeline to Turkey through which it has been able to export no more than 800,000 barrels a day. The $30 billion in reserves which Iraq had when the war started have evaporated, and it is managing to pay for what it needs mainly through the financial help it is getting from the Arab states of the Gulf—help which has been diminishing as the revenues of those oil producers have declined.

What has made so much of the world watch this endless drama with apprehension as well as with horror has been the possibility that it could spill over into neighboring countries and bring on intervention by the superpowers. Each side has made threats that could logically cause this to happen. Iraq, which perceives with a growing sense of desperation that it cannot hold off forever the repeated assaults of its larger and wealthier neighbor, has threatened to attack and destroy Iran's oil export facilities if Iran does not agree to a ceasefire. Iran, turning down repeated requests for such a ceasefire, has responded that if Iraq carries out its threats it will close off the Gulf to shipping—thus cutting off one fifth of the non-Communist world's oil supplies. Iran has also hinted that it may attack the oil fields of its Arab neighbors across the Gulf, which include Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Many observers, including newspaper readers, have stopped taking these threats seriously, since they have been repeated so often without any follow-up. Last fall, for instance, people got the impression that the Gulf was on the very brink of disaster when Iraq purchased and received delivery of five French Super Etendard aircraft. These aircraft—which can be equipped with the Exocet missiles that were used by Argentina to sink British warships during the Falkland Islands war—would finally make it possible for the Iraqis to raid and blow up Iran's oil facilities at Kharg Island, it was believed. But this has not happened.

According to some military analysts, it is improbable that it ever could. One of them, who has a high-level job within the U.S. Administration, told The Washington Report: "Even before the arrival of the Super Etendards, the Iraqis had had an overwhelming military superiority over Iran for 18 months. They had Mirage F-1s, Mig-23s, Soyuz bombers. You name it. But in large part because of the relative inexperience of their pilots, they were never able to take advantage of this superiority.

Five Equals Two

"Now they have five Super Etendards capable of firing the Exocet missile. Five? That's not very many. Even the U.S. Air Force manages to have only 75 to 80 percent of its planes capable of operation at any one time. For Iraq, it's less. That means they have only three Super Etendards to use for a sortie. But I think any reasonable analysis would say you'd be lucky if you could get two planes up.

"What happens if they should try to reach Kharg Island? This is an extremely well-fortified area. It is protected by Hawk missiles and by Iran's F-14 fighter squadrons. These are U.S.-made interceptors, and they are in the air, working all the time. It would be a fluke if even one of the Super Etendards got through." Iraq could also reach Kharg with its Soviet Scud-B ground-to-ground missiles, but these are reputed to be very inaccurate.

The analyst also believes that even if an Exocet or other missile scored a "lucky hit" Iran would be unlikely to follow through on its threat to close the Straits of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Gulf. "Why should the Iranians do something that would also cut off their own oil?" he asks. "It would be much more in their interests to begin work on repairing the damage as quickly as possible. After all, it's their oil exports which not only allow their economy to survive but which also pay for the war. Look at it this way: If they closed the straits, they would be exporting nothing—while Iraq would keep exporting its 800,000 barrels a day. The Iranians would not be able to knock out Iraq's pipeline from the air—they don't have an attack airforce anymore. So this kind of a trade-off would be pretty dumb, from Iran's point of view."

The U.S. Administration is not counting on Iran's leaders to follow this logic, however, and keeps a task force of warships in the Arabian Sea just beyond the Straits of Hormuz. What if Iran did make a move to mine the straits—or announce that it was going to do it? "The first ships through would be American destroyers," says an American official without hesitation. This would be in conformity with President Reagan's remarks of last October 19, when he stated: "I don't believe the free world could stand by and allow anyone to close the Straits of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf to the oil traffic through those waterways."

U.S. policy remains officially neutral on the war—it does not sell arms to either side—but in the last few months there has been a visible, though unofficial, tilt towards Iraq. This has been manifested by such actions as the removal of Iraq from the "terrorist" list of countries to which exports are restricted; a visit to Baghdad by a senior U.S. official for the first time in 16 years; the encouragement of American companies to help restore Iraq's oil export facilities at the port of Fao; and an attempt to keep some European-made helicopters from being delivered to Iran. Perhaps the most revealing action has been to inform Arab leaders in the Gulf that the U.S. believes the defeat of Iraq would be "contrary to U.S. interests." It is no coincidence, of course, that most of these moves have come in the wake of accusations by the U.S. that Iran has been behind recent terrorist actions against U.S. people and institutions in Lebanon.

Whether U.S. support will help prop up Iraq long enough to allow a negotiated end to the war is problematical. Iran has reiterated that it will not stop fighting until President Saddam Hussein surrendershardly an attractive option for the Iraqi leader. Nor is it a feasible option for him to continue fighting a war of attrition against an enemy that has the out for-much longer-than he can. For this reason Saddam wants to shorten the war in a way that might at least drive Iran to the negotiating table. The way to do it is to go after the oil facilities. If recent diplomatic reports from Baghdad that Iraq has just taken delivery of long-range, Soviet-made SS-12 missiles turn out to be correct, he may yet be able to pull this off. But nobody can really predict what may happen after that. All Middle-East watchers should stay tuned.