New phase of Iran-Iraq war

Scan page 17

The recent events in the Iran-Iraq war [See page 1] have highlighted an unusual situation. The United States is determined to use the escalation of the war to step up its military presence in the region, while its allies—notably the Gulf sheikdoms-are reluctant to take the United States up on this offer.

This reluctance stems from the fear of being too closely associated with a government which has given unconditional support to Israel and to the most reactionary regimes in the area. The Arab masses have drawn the conclusion that any openly pro-U.S. regime is a corrupt and brutal puppet of the United States. Despite the dismal record of the "nationalist regimes," they associate an anti-United States posture with a fight for national sovereignty and opposition to the Israeli regime.

U.S. policy has the aim of developing a closer cooperation with the conservative Arab regimes that have wanted to maintain their distance from the United States in order to safeguard their "nationalist" credentials.

The United States also intends to protect its more immediate interests in the Gulf War by stopping Iranian air attacks on Gulf trade-perhaps slapping Iraq's Sadaam Hussein on the wrist if he gets carried away-and sending the Iranians a message to reconsider their plans to advance on Iraq.

Background to the war The war began in the context of a period of chaos in Iran. Prof. Richard Cottam, a leading American observer of the Iranian political scene, had this appraisal: "By September 1980, when the Iraqi attack occurred, the regime was probably down to its core support. It had lost support of ethnic communities that adhere to Sunni Islam and was badly weakened in the large and important Turkish-speaking Azeri community. It had purged and hencealienated the large, secular-minded middle class. And it generated little strong support in Persian-speaking rural areas" (Current History, January 1984).

(continued from page 16 Executive Committee (IEC) of the Fourth International, the leadership of the world Trotskyist movement, took a much more balanced approach to the Paris negotiations. In a resolution passed in late 1972, it pointed out the following:

...we must clearly explain that there is no possibility, in Vietnam or elsewhere, of "national concord" between the exploiting and exploited classes. The Fourth International remains opposed to coalition governments with the bourgeoisie, whatever the specific composition of these governments.

"But this principled opposition to any coalition government does not entitle us automatically to define all cases of such governments as popular front regimes stabilizing and defending the economic rule and the state of the possessing classes... it was not the case in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and China, where the presence of bourgeois ministers did not prevent the socialist transformation from occurring. The decisive thing is the nature of the state, that is the class character of those who control the armed forces.

66 ...All indications are that the cadres of the NLF and the Vietnamese CP are systematically preparing the South Vietnamese population for this Indeed, the political faction put in power by Khomeini and led by AbolHassan Bani Sadr, was coming under sharper attack by the Islamic populists for being conciliatory toward the United States. The United States, for its part, had unconsciously harmed Bani Sadr's fortunes by supporting him against the clerical populists.

Meanwhile, the "hostage rescue mission" of April 1980 ended in a debacle which revealed widespread cooperation between a portion of the military and the United States. Six coup attempts followed in rapid succession. Trade relations were hampered by Iran's image as an unstable, pariah regime.

The Iraqi regime under Sadaam Hussein had been seeking to break out of its isolation from the mainstream of the Arab world. It played up its role in organizing a united front of Arab nations against the Camp David accords, as well as its role in opposing the regional danger to the reactionary regimes that the Iranian revolution represented.

Fighting breaks out

In spite of increasing tension between the two countries, Iraq's invasion of Iran caught the Islamic Republic by surprise. President Bani Sadr was unable to convince his rival, Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Rajai, that the attack was about to take place.

The bulk of the fighting was carried out by the local Revolutionary Guards and the inhabitants of the area affected by the fighting. The Iranians fought with Molotov cocktails and rifles against tanks and artillery. Nevertheless, the major port city of Khorramshar was successfully defended for several months.

This first phase of the war-from the time of the invasion to the lifting of the Iraqi siege of Abadan in September 1981—was characterized by the blunting of the initially successful Iraqi offensive. After two months, the Iraqis adopted a more defensive posture.

This phase was also characterized by the paralysis of the Iranian armed CENTRAL AMERICAN SUB HONDURAS EL SALVADOR mass political struggle. The U.S. withdrawal, like the perspective of reunification with the North and the acceptance of the principle of free elections with the participation of all political parties today consigned to clandestinity, will inevitably stimulate mass struggles and will further tilt the balance of forces in favor of the revolution"

In the case of the Vietnam accords, they led not to the defeat of the revolution but to the strategic retreat of U.S. imperialism which withdrew thousands of its troops. While this did not guarantee the victory of the Vietnamese revolution, it did alter the relationship of forces in favor of the revolution.

There is no guarantee of the victory of the Salvadoran revolution. It faces formidable obstacles from the United Oil, forces. This paralysis reflected the political struggle in Teheran between the fundamentalists and the liberals.

Prime Minister Bani Sadr was assiduously wooing the army, spending most of his time at the front. The suspicion of his fundamentalist opponents was naturally increased by this behavior. The fundamentalists preferred the Revolutionary Guards who shared their religious and political outlook.

The dismissal of Bani Sadr in June 1981 led to a wave of street fighting and of assassinations directed at IRP leaders. For its part, the IRP government lashed out at anyone it suspected of being sympathetic to the opposition, leading to a bloodbath unprecedented in modern Iranian history.

It was during this time that the Iranian forces began to score some victories over the Iraqis, driving them back toward the border. Within the army, officers loyal to Khomeini began to be promoted to provide a counterweight to figures like General Fallahi, who was closely associated with Bani Sadr.

States and its Salvadoran puppets. The revolutionaries still have to find a way to reactivate the insurgent mass movement that impelled the development of the FMLN and the FDR in the first place.

At this stage, victory or defeat will be determined by factors of international solidarity and aid, by the development of the Central American revolution as a whole, and by the pace of the class struggle and its military expression in El Salvador. It must be absolutely clear that speculation about the possible effects of the Proposal for a Government of Broad Participation under hypothetical conditions only blurs what we must say clearly.

Socialist Action supports the FMLN/ FDR and we support its right to negotiate and its right to conduct its own diplomacy.

Socialist Action believes that today, more than ever, there is a crying need for a massive opposition to U.S. policies in Central America. This opposition must express itself publicly, in the streets, and convince the millions of others in the United States who oppose intervention to join in. In those millions, there is the potential to stop the criminal U.S. military and economic intervention which is the main prop of the Salvadoran dictatorship.

This recomposition of the government and the army began to bear fruit. "Operation Jerusalem, launched in November 1981, began the practice of "human wave assaults" carried out by Revolutionary Guards and hastily trained members of the Mobilization Corps. This was followed by "Operation Clear Victory" and "Operation Holy City," which finally drove the Iraqis out of Khorramshahr.

This period was characterized by the success of the military operations, the breaking of the Mojahedin opposition, and the restarting of the Iranian economy through increased oil sales. It was during this period that the United States broke its silence on the Gulf conflict. Caspar Weinberger revealed the proIraq tilt of U.S. foreign policy when he stated: "An Iranian victory would not be in our interests?"

The third phase was the invasion of Iraq by Iran. Faced with a firm but weakening defense against an inexhaustible enemy, Iraq chose to begin bombing civilian concentrations in Iran. In February 1984, Iran adopted the same policy, declaring that all Iraqi cities were fair game for İranian missiles.

Iran's new policy indicated its belief that the offensive would spark an insurrection by the Iraqi population against Sadaam Hussein. But this belief proved to be wrong. Even the Shi'a majority failed to show any signs of ferment.

The most dangerous aspect of this new phase of the war—at least in terms of its internationalization-was the escalation of attacks on shipping in the Gult itself. More than a dozen vessels have been hit since January in the Persian Gulf. Iraq's hitting of two Saudi freighters well south of the war zone marked a further escalation of the conflict.

The Baathist regime in Iraq became determined to break the stalemate over the war by: (1) making it impossible for Iran to export oil; and (2) forcing the intervention of outside powers, especially the United States.

The U.S. State Department has declared the United States would only condemn Iraqi attacks on shipping in the Gulf-not Iran's. This stance is totally hypocritical, among other reasons, because Iraq has been responsible for over 60 attacks on Gulf shipping in recent years.

The U.S. government, however, has to tread carefully. As the New York Times pointed out recently: "Some of the Gulf nations say they are concerned that a public request for U.S. military aid would appear to bear out charges by Iran that Saudi Arabia and its Guli allies are puppets of Washington?' on June 1984 17

----- pull-quotes -----

...Peace plan: Another view