Iraq, Iran prepare for another campaign

Press, 27 December 1985, Page 16

Iraq, Iran prepare for another campaign

By

PATRICK SEALE

The crucial question in the IraqIran war, now in its sixth year, is what the New Year and early spring wffl bring.’There are many indications that Iran is straining every nerve to put together a fresh invasion force, despite the fact that past attempts to break through Iraq’s powerful defences have been repulsed. Iraq is sending unprecedented numbers of aircraft — 120 sorties in 24 hours last week — to pound Iranian troop concentrations. Iranian arms purchasing missions have been very active in European and Far Eastern centres this winter.- Intelligence sources report that Iran has managed to buy air defence batteries from China via North Korea as well as trainer jets, easily converted into fighter planes, from .Taiwan. Britain has sold the Islamic republic new engines for its Chieftain tanks acquired in the days of the Shah, while Portugal continues to be an important centre through which Israel’s extensive arms sales to Iran are routed. There is also strong evidence that Iran has expended great efforts improving its military workshops and repair services to put back into operation every available tank, gun and aircraft it possesses. Its navy has been greatly strengthened and is now intercepting and searching many commercial vessels passing through Hormuz with the aim of denying war supplies to Iraq. So much for Iran’s war preparations, which have been accompanied by much beating of drums at home and mobilisation exercises for the Revolutionary Guards and the Bassij, a volunteer force mainly active in civil defence. But for the moment, Iraq retains the military initiative with repeated air attacks not only against Iranian combat troops but more significantly against Iran’s principal oil terminal at Kharg

Island - . This has been bombed without respite since last August, forcing Iran to seek alternative loading points further down the Gulf. This situation — Iran’s menacing war preparations and Iraq's persistent attempts to cut Iran’s oil jugular — has aroused great fears in the Gulf region of an overspill of the war into the vulnerable sheikhdoms and into Saudi Arabia itself These fears explain the recent attempts by member States of the Gulf Co-operatico Ccracfl to strike a more neutral stance in the war and to open channels of contact with Iran. Saudi Arabia itself has received the Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, in spite of bitter attacks on Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia’s brand of Islam, by Ayatollah Montazari, the officially designated successor of Ayatollah Khomeini. There is a general air of greater pragmatism in Iran’s foreign relations. Britain is reported to be exploring the restoraticb of full diplomatic ties, while a Soviet delegation led by the bead of the foreign ministry’s Middle East department has recently been in Teheran, reportedly to discuss the purchase of Iranian gas. There is for the moment no talk of peace in the Gulf War and no mediation attempts are under, way. On the contrary, Iran continues to express confidence in its ultimate victory, reaffiriming on all occasions its claims to be the dominant power in the region. Iraq meanwhile ''can do little more than fine-tune its formidable defences and hope to block, as in the past, any renewed assault by its angry Islamic neighbour. The superpowers seem agreed on one thing: Shat no clear winner must emerge from the conflict For the rest, the world seems unbothered that the war shags on and on, so long as it remains contained.