THE PRESS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1987. Gulf risks accumulate

Press, 6 October 1987, Page 16

THE PRESS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1987. Gulf risks accumulate

The attack cm an Australian shrimp trawler in the Gulf adds further alarming and sad notes to the savage and sorry tale of the IranIraq war. Iraq has admitted that one of its planes attacked the trawler by mistake and has agreed to pay compensation to the family of the Australian who was killed, but this should obscure nothing. Mistakes such as attacking a ship that could not by any stretch of the imagination be taken for a warship should not happen. While it is true that Iran has been using small craft to sow mines in the Gulf, no country has the right to shoot at any small craft in case it is sowing mines. The situation suggests that the Iraqi pilot was inclined to be trigger happy. There is a danger in that at any time: when the pilot has an Exocet missile to be released, the dangers are increased many times. Inexcusable as the action of the Iraqi pilot was, the firing of the missile probably came about because of the high state of tension in the Gulf. That state of tension is one of the highest risks for the area. Minor incidents or misunderstandings contain the danger that someone will fire a shot and before anyone considers where it will all end a major conflict will develop. One of Iran’s leaders has been making suggestions about a war with the United States. The United States has already attacked one Iranian ship that was caught sowing mines and it has been clear for some time that the United States is looking for a chance to teach Iran a lesson. It is far from clear that if the United States did attack Iran, that Iran would read the lesson that the United States wants to teach, but that consideration will not be a major one if the moment arises. The dangers seemed to increase during the week-end when Iranian craft were particularly active. Afterwards Iran announced that it had been conducting exercises.'Under the present circumstances Iran would have contributed more to stability if it had announced its exercises beforehand rather than afterwards.

The jumpiness brought about by the high state of tension is one of the two main dangers in the Gulf war. The second is the spreading of the war to other countries in the region and to those with forces in the region. Italian naval forces have joined British, American, and French naval forces in the Gulf. Each country considers that its prime responsibility lies with its own shipping. Some ships are given a kind of honorary status so that they come formally under the protection of countries which have naval forces in the Gulf. In spite of the holing of the Bridgeton, a ship that used to bear a Kuwaiti flag and was given an American flat so that it could have an American escort to get it out of the Gulf, Kuwait has expressed satisfaction about the reflagging practices. The fact that Kuwait is getting its oil to its customers is important both for Kuwait and its clients, but the threat to all shipping needs to be removed quickly. Otherwise, the rest of the world will have to concede that its business can be upset and that it can do nothing about it The war between Iran and Iraq has now lasted longer than the Second World War. If anything, it is intensifying and more civilian casualties are expected. Yet only one issue stands in the way of a cease-fire: Iran’s demand that Iraq be named the aggressor. The formal position is that Iran believes that the war began on September 22, 1980, and Iraq claims that it began 18 days earlier. Who is to blame for the beginning of the war is not a negligible matter but to allow the issue to stand in the way of a cease-fire is ridiculous. In a way, Iran has conceded even that point because it is prepared to allow a tribunal to determine the aggressor in the war; but Iraq wants a cease-fire without that condition. The two sides would seem to be so close to agreeing to a cease-fire that it is bizarre for the fighting to continue. Yet that is what is happening and, as more and more countries become involved and the tension continues to rise, it is no exaggeration to say that risks are accumulating by the minute.