Why Khomeini needs the war with Iraq

Press, 15 July 1982, Page 16

Why Khomeini needs the war with Iraq

By

RALPH JOSEPH

Towards the end of June, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced in Baghdad that he had completed the withdrawal of all his troops from Iran. By so doing, he hoped he could bring the 21montb Gulf War to a graceful end..

To Iran’s ruling mullahs, the move came 21 months too late. Avatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny declared from his pulpit in Teheran that the war would continue until Iraq had paid war reparations of SUSISO billion to Iran, and President Saddam Hussein had been overthrown.

Said Chief Justice Ayatollah Abdul Karim Musavi-Ardebili: “He wants to attack, kill, plunder, and when he is defeated. he wants to make a tactical retreat.” If Iran accepted this, Saddam would "renew his forces and attack again. This cannot be." ■ The mullahs vowed they would enter Iraq and then march "through a defeated Iraq towards Jerusalem,” which they hoped to "liberate” from the Israelis. Though the latter part of the boast was little more than propaganda for home consumption, the regime in Baghdad knew that the mullahs’ threat of marching through Iraq was not an idle one.

Ayatollah Akbar HashemiRafsanjani, who is Khomeini’s representative on the Supreme Defence Council, had warned as far back as April that if Saddam Hussein did not pay war reparations, "we will lay seige to Baghdad.” Iran had

just emerged victorious in an offensive west of Dezful and Shush in oil-ricb Khuzestan province, but the threat seemed a little remote then.

By May 25, when the Iranians had inflicted another defeat on the invading Iraqi forces at Khorramshahr, expelling them almost completely from the, remaining parts of the province, the theat of laying siege to Baghdad began to be taken a little more seriouslv.

Following their expulsion from Khuzestan. the Iraqis were still occupying a chunk of territory’ near the strategic border town of Qasr-e-Shirin, on what the Iranians called their “Western .Front.” By now the Iranians had displayed the superiority of their forces, but the territory the Iraqis were holding was mountainous and promised to be tough for the Iranians to retake.

The Iraqis, however, decided not to test the strength of the Iranians any further on their own soil. Instead, by pulling back they hoped they could use what remained of their army to defend Baghdad, known to have several natural lines of defence, beginning from the low hills just southwest of Qasr-e Shirin. Here the Iraqis would be on their own territory, and even if two thirds of their army had by now been lost, as estimated by some observers, there was still hope that with the support of their own population they could withstand an Iranian assault, whenever Khomeiny decided to attack.

There seemed little doubt that Khomeiny would eventually send his army and his wild-eyed revolutionary guards into Iraq. In June, even as Saddam Hussein was announcing his intention of pulling out of , Iran. Rafsanjani promised the Iranians "a great victory for Islam” in the holy month of Ramadan, which runs this year from June 23 to July 21. While this could nave been prompted by expectations of a voluntary Iraqi withdrawal, the pull-back was not followed by a softening of the warlike tones being made by the mullahs of Teheran and Qom. Border clashes continued and across-the-border artillery duels have been going on with as much fury as they did when the Iraqis were still inside Iran. The death toll on the Iranian side, ranging from two or three a day to 4fl on one occasion, has been played up in military communiques issued in Teheran. The Iranians have been claiming, moreover, that the Iraqi forces have not completely pulled out of their territory, but have simply moved back to strategic heights near Qasr-e Shirin. Teheran has harped on this as much as it has on the continued clashes and shelling of Abadan and Khorramshahr giving the impression that it is meant to prepare public opinion for an assault across the border.

The mullahs are encouraged by their belief that Saddam Hussein is on the verge of collapse, and that all that is needed is one little push to bring him down. The push, they

believe, can be provided by just such a military assault across the border. Rafsanjani has said there would be no need for the Iranians to enter Iraqi cities, but simply to lay siege to them. Two town’s repeatedly mentioned by Iranian officials are Basra, about 30 miles west of Khorramshahr. and Baghdad, about 110 miles from the border at Qasr-e Shirin.

The over-all strategy seems to be that while the Iranian army and revolutionary guards are challenging Saddam Hussein's troops outside the cities, the Iraqi Shi-ite mullahs will be stirring up the population to build up political pressure against him from within.

By this means Khomeiny hopes to set up an Islamic Republic of Iraq to replace the present regime in Baghdad and extend his own influence over yet another oil-rich Middle Eastern state. This, apparently, is the “great victory for Islam" Rafsanjani has been promising Iranian troops.

Apart from this grand scheme, there is another reason why Khomeiny must keep the Gulf War going. Internally, the situation in Iran is none too good, and the mullahs in Teheran and Qom fear that a victorious army returning from the front would be looked upon as heroes by the public, who would therefore be more receptive to a coup d’etat by nationalist army officers. One senior officer in Teheran recently told reporters that it would take a year for dissident officers to stage a successful

coup against the regime, and the mullahs are only too aware that there is sufficient dissidence within the army to make the possibility a reality. Not only are the majority of the officers in the Iranian army considered to be nationalist' rather than Islamic, but a large-number of the rank and file are also believed to be staunch supporters of the Islamic leftist Mujahedin Khalq guerrilla group, who

have posed the most serious challenge to the regime so far. Acting alone, the Mujahedin have been able to inflict severe blows on the regime over the past year, but with dissident army officers to help, they could probably sweep the mullahs from power in a matter of months.

To prevent this danger from becoming real, the mullahs must do all they can to keep the Gulf War going.