U.N. role in the Gulf

Press, 14 June 1984, Page 20

U.N. role in the Gulf

The agreement between Iran and Iraq not to shell or bomb one another’s civilians appears to be holding, though Iran was accused of one early violation. If the agreement holds, it will be a triumph for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Perez de Cuellar. He called on both countries to spare one another’s civilians and set a deadline. Even if the observance is temporary, the achievement will still be worth having. No other truce, or near truce, has been entered into by both sides since the war began. The attacks on civilians add a horrifying dimension to the Gulf war. The world may take a little comfort from the willingness of Iran and Iraq to agree to Mr Perez de Cuellar’s request. Until this agreement was made, nothing else had worked to moderate the war. Little other comfort is to be found. Attacks on shipping in the Gulf continue. The offer by some Gulf States to make good the losses of oil suffered by any country has a commercial significance; but it does nothing to deal with the root of the problem. Possibly only the insurance rates for vessels carrying oil will be affected. The attacks on vessels will almost certainly cause loss of life and carry with them the danger that the war will spread and intensify. If the report that Saudi fighter aircraft shot down an Iranian aircraft is correct, the war has already drawn in another country. That the United States may act in the area, either on its own or with France and Britain, is still a matter for speculation. Happily, caution is being exercised about such intervention. Even if one of these countries merely escorted an oil

tanker, and the tanker were attacked, no-one could predict where the incident would lead. On land, the war appears set to take another turn for the worse. The long-awaited Iranian offensive may begin at any time. The Iranian practice of using recently-recruited volunteers — children have been used in the past — to storm Iraqi positions seems likely to be used again. Under such circumstances, the ground for pessimism about civilian targets being spared seems strong. The one glimmer of hope is that Mr Perez de Cuellar managed to get the agreement of the two countries to refrain from bombing or shelling civilians.

Mr Perez de Cuellar needs all the international backing he can get to continue his efforts. The offer by Japan and Sweden to supply observers to supervise the agreement on sparing civilian targets is a worth-while gesture to back his efforts. Many other countries in the Western bloc could not intervene without giving the appearance of a kind of Christian imperialism acting against the Ayatollah Khomeiny’s Muslim people. Although other Middle East countries are looking askance at the war, anything like a sufficient Western intervention to arrest the fighting would be likely to rally support for Iran. Behind the war between Khomeiny’s fanatical forces and the equally extreme nationalist forces of Iraq are passions of extraordinary intensity. Iraq must take the blame for starting the war; but both sides are guilty of attacking foreign ships, and of ferocious assaults on each other. This is a conflict that no-one else wants to enter, and it seems best that no-one should.