Iraq preparing for grab at Iran’s oil?

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 20

Iraq preparing for grab at Iran’s oil?

By

PATRICK SEALE

in Abu Dhabi

There is mounting evidence here that Iraq, with the support of such Arab friends as Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and with the discreet encouragement of the United States, is preparing for military operations inside Iran. Jordan’s Chief of Staff, Major-General Majali, was in Baghdad early this month for top-level talks. Many influential Arabs in the Gulf region report that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq sees the present situation as an historic opportunity to strike a decisive blow against an ancient adversary. They ' also believe that Washington, hamstrung in its attempts to secure the release of its hostages, is increasingly looking for an “Iraqi solution” to the crisis. Baghdad and Washington are known to have been in touch with a view to restoring diplomatic relations which were broken off in 1967.

A clear indication of the new climate is the announcement that the United States Government has approved the controversial sale of eight General Electric turbines to be installed in four; warships being built for Iraq in Italy. Iraq’s standing in the region — and in American

eyes — has risen strikingly over the past year. With its oil wealth, educated population, strong leadership, and nationalist ideology, it is seen as the most formidable Arab barrier against Communist penetration and Ayatollah Khomeiny’s brand of Islamic fundamentalism.

It is also reliably reported that Iraq has stopped financing Baathist .revolutionary cells in Arabia and the Gulf. This evidence that Baghdad is no longer seeking to export revolution has paved the way for the growing tendency of the relatively fragile Gulf rulers to find comfort in a strong Iraq, and for the Iraqi-American rapprochement.

Many points of discord and mistrust remain between Washington and Baghdad — notably America’s handling of the Palestine problem. Nevertheless, the United States sees in Iraq an important local instrument with which to fight its enemies, the Soviet Union and Iran. Saddam Hussein’s longterm objectives in Iran are easier' to discern than his immediate tactics. They may be summed up as follows: First, to regain exclusive control over the Shatt-el-Arab, the vital waterway at

the head of the Gulf leading to Iraq's major seaport of Basra. Second, to destroy Iran’s ability to stir up the northern Kurds and the southern Shias against his Government. Third, and most ambitiously, to wrest from Persian control the Arab province of Khuzistan, with its oilfields and its giant refinery at Abadan. , The dispute over the Snatt is decades old. In Ottoman times, the whole of the waterway was Iraqi with the frontier lying on the Iranian side. But in the 1930 s Iran insisted that the frontier should be in the middle of the river. In 1975 Saddam Hussein conceded this Iranian claim in exchange for the Shah’s ending his support for the Kurds. At a stroke the Kurdish rebellion collapsed. Now Saddam wants to scrap the 1975 treaty and reassert Iraq’s claim to the whole of the waterway. This stretch of water is therefore likely to be the immediate battlefield, with the navies of both powers now on maximum alert. Beyond the Shaft lies Khuzistan — which Arabs

called Arabistan. This region, inhabited by Arab Shias, was ceded to Persia by the Ottoman Empire in 1847 in exchange for Sunni Kurdistan — a poor exchange in retrospect, seeing that Iraq, the successor State, lost an oilproducing region and gained a rebel community. Until 1925 Khuzistan was an autonomous Persian province ruled by its own Arab sheikhs. Today its population would like to throw off Persian rule and recover their lost autonomy. They see themselves potentially as another Kuwait.

Saddam Hussein intends to give them what help he can. An assault by Iraqi troops across the waterway, in response. perhaps, to a call for help from a “provisional government,” cannot be ruled out. The prime target would be the Iranian naval base of Khorramshahr. Such is Iraq’s strategic dream: to strike a great blow for Arabism which would alter the regional balance of power for the foreseeable future. The loss of Khuzistan and its oil would reduce Iran to a fourth-rate power.

Perhaps, to distract Iranian

attention from these objectives. Iraq has now demanded that Iran evacuate three Gulf islands which the Shah’s forces seized in 1971, close to the mouth of the key Hormuz Straits.

Iraq has no claim to these small islands and is presumably demanding their return on behalf of the United Arab Emirates. Although the Emirates have not recognised their annexation by Iran, they have not pressed for their return.

Once again Iraq is posing as a champion of Arab rights. Among the Machiavellian possibilities being canvassed in the Gulf is one in which tlie United States Navy might seize the islands and announce their return to their rightful owners, the Arabs. Such a move would provide valuable “political covet” should the United States be contemplating a more general assault on Iranian targets, and might help to protect American interests in the Arab world from a furious Muslim backlash. Whatever the result over the coming dangerous weeks, the feeling here is that Iraq and the United States, severally or together, will be trying to make life difficult for the authorities in Teheran. — Copyright, London Observer Service.