Abroad

Baghdad Forgotten

The war between Iran and Iraq is well over two years old now, and it has been effectively stalemated for most of that time. Foreign observers estimate that Iraq has lost 25,000 men so far and Iran perhaps twice that. The Iraqis regularly bombard the island of Kharz in the Persian Gulf, and the Iraqi high command claimed this fall that its army had driven the Iranians back over their border near the port of Basra, but that assertion had to be withdrawn after Iran launched a series of successful border incursions. Nevertheless, the Iraqis’ morale is relatively high after having fought successfully on home ground. The government of President Saddam Hussein is being supported by loans from the Arab Gulf states to the tune of about $1 billion a month, and for the moment the specter of an Iranian steamroller has faded. In the long run, however, Iraq’s leadership fears that Teheran is determined to break up the coalition of Arab Sunni Moslem states and forge an axis across the Middle East—even going so far as to restore the relationship between Israel and Iran that existed under the Shah. Such a grandiose ambition, the Iraqis maintain, is founded on the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shi’ite Moslem fundamentalism, which aims at breaking up existing Arab nations into fragmented tribal groupings at the mercy of a dominant Iran. Iraq, as the biggest such state, with a population of twenty million expected by the end of the century, and with both oil and water for development, would be the first and most important victim. Meanwhile oil continues to flow in various amounts to world markets from both countries, despite the sinking of a number of foreign merchant ships in the Shattal-Arab, the waterway to the Persian Gulf, which forms the boundary between Iran and Iraq. However, if the Ayatollah is able to reinvigorate his battered forces with their original revolutionary drive, and make better use of the by-now deteriorating arsenal created by the Shah, there may eventually be a turning point in what is coming to be known as the world’s forgotten war.

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Baghdad Forgotten

The war between Iran and Iraq is well over two years old now, and it has been effectively stalemated for most of that time. Foreign observers estimate that Iraq has lost 25,000 men so far and Iran perhaps twice that. The Iraqis regularly bombard the island of Kharz in the Persian Gulf, and the Iraqi high command claimed this fall that its army had driven the Iranians back over their border near the port of Basra, but that assertion had to be withdrawn after Iran launched a series of successful border incursions. Nevertheless, the Iraqis’ morale is relatively high after having fought successfully on home ground. The government of President Saddam Hussein is being supported by loans from the Arab Gulf states to the tune of about $1 billion a month, and for the moment the specter of an Iranian steamroller has faded. In the long run, however, Iraq’s leadership fears that Teheran is determined to break up the coalition of Arab Sunni Moslem states and forge an axis across the Middle East—even going so far as to restore the relationship between Israel and Iran that existed under the Shah. Such a grandiose ambition, the Iraqis maintain, is founded on the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shi’ite Moslem fundamentalism, which aims at breaking up existing Arab nations into fragmented tribal groupings at the mercy of a dominant Iran. Iraq, as the biggest such state, with a population of twenty million expected by the end of the century, and with both oil and water for development, would be the first and most important victim. Meanwhile oil continues to flow in various amounts to world markets from both countries, despite the sinking of a number of foreign merchant ships in the Shattal-Arab, the waterway to the Persian Gulf, which forms the boundary between Iran and Iraq. However, if the Ayatollah is able to reinvigorate his battered forces with their original revolutionary drive, and make better use of the by-now deteriorating arsenal created by the Shah, there may eventually be a turning point in what is coming to be known as the world’s forgotten war.