Khomeini: A Quest for Vengeance

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East scenarios was unfolding. The Arab world was already in disarray over Israel's invasion of Lebanon seven weeks ago in an attempt to dislodge the Palestine Liberation Organization. With no end to the siege of West Beirut in sight (see following story), another non-Arab country, Iran, had invaded Arab territory and seemed, moreover, to have a better-than-even chance of unseating the ruling government. At immediate risk were the moderate, hereditary regimes of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the gulf. But the Ayatullah Khomeini's vow was even more explosive: to press on to Jerusalem, to liberate the Holy City and overwhelm all enemies of Islam.

More serious still, the pressures induced by the wars in the Middle East have drawn the U.S. and the Soviet Union into dangerously confrontational positions, for the struggles involve not only the warring armies of Islam but future control over the Persian Gulf and the largest known petroleum reserves on earth.

The worst worries of the U.S. and of the moderate Arab leaders presuppose an Iraqi defeat by the Iranian invaders. But the outcome of the war is not clear by any means. The Iraqis appeared by week's end to have blunted the initial Iranian attack on Basra and driven the Iranians back almost to the border. The Iraqis were fighting harder in defense of their country than they had fought during their long, misguided adventure in Iran. U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that Iraqi MiG-21s had staged an air attack on the Iranian petroleum facilities at Kharg Island. Damage was said to be light, but the incident was bound to have a discouraging effect on tankers bound for the island.

"Iraq wanted peace," declared Iraq's Saddam, triumphant for the moment and ignoring the fact that he had sent his army into Iran in the first place. On Friday, two days after the initial Iranian attack had subsided. TIME Photographer Peter Jordan visited the battlefield and found it bare except for hundreds of bloating bodies, burned-out tanks and artillery pieces, and a handful of Iraqi soldiers. Reported Jordan, the only Western newsman on the scene: "The stench from the bodies was so intolerable that the Iraqis stuffed tissues or cotton into their nostrils. Among the Iranian prisoners were children, boys of twelve and 13, who wore the colors of the Revolutionary Guards. When the Iranians, who had fought their way to within eight miles of Basra, realized that they were surrounded on three sides by Iraqi forces, they reportedly broke ranks in panic. Some surrendered, later acknowledging to interrogators that they had been assured by their superiors that their victories inside Iran last spring would lead to further triumphs once they had entered Iraq." That may yet prove to be true, but it did not work out that way last week.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials angrily denied that they had become the aggressors in the war. Declared Iran's United Nations Ambassador Said Rajaie-Khorasani to TIME Correspondent Raji Samghabadi: "The Saddam Hussein regime has inflicted stupendous losses of life and property on us. It has done everything within its power to humiliate the Islamic Republic. Now we are expected to give the war criminals a chance to rebuild their forces and spring at our throat again. Sorry, no deal."