Khomeini: A Quest for Vengeance

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Not unlike the Shah of Iran, Saddam has been devoting enormous effort and expense toward turning his backward country into a modern state. In addition, he has tried to make the Shi'ite community feel that it is being well taken care of. Italian and Korean workmen are laying marble in the inner courtyards of the principal shrines in the sacred Shi'ite cities of Najaf and Karbala; gold leaf is being splashed over mosques throughout the country. The poorer Shi'ite communities that once spawned opposition to the Baathist regime now have new schools, hospitals, roads, sewers, electricity and water lines. Even during the months of war, while many public works activities were postponed (and while the gulf states were contributing at least $20 billion to the Iraqi war chest), the projects in the Shi'ite areas continued. Whether Saddam has succeeded in gaining the loyalty of Iraq's Shi'ite community is a question that will probably be answered all too obviously within the next few weeks.

For the U.S., the crisis had been looming since the fall of the Shah in 1979. U.S. strategists, their Iran policy paralyzed, were reduced to speculating that the Ayatullah, who is now 82 and ailing, would soon die or become incapacitated, and that his fanatical regime might then collapse. The U.S. considered seeking closer ties with Saddam, a longtime ally of the Soviet Union who suddenly was sending signals that he was trying to extricate his country from the Soviet orbit. But once the U.S. hostages were released by Iranian authorities on Jan. 20, 1981, the new Reagan Administration decided to do nothing and hope for the best in Iran. The war between Iran and Iraq, which Saddam had launched in September 1980 in an effort to make Iraq the prominent power in the gulf, sputtered along inconclusively, a problem for the Iranians but a matter of little concern to the U.S.

But late last year the gulf war suddenly heated up again, culminating in the battle of Khorramshahr two months ago. There, after a few hours of combat, the Iranians drove the discouraged Iraqis back across the western shore of the Shatt. In June, Saddam declared a unilateral ceasefire, withdrew the last of his forces from Iran and asked for peace. Absolutely not! cried the old Ayatullah. Khomeini responded with a set of demands that Saddam could not accept. Besides calling for the resignation of Saddam and the overthrow of the ruling Baath Party, Khomeini declared that the Iranian armed forces would seek to enable the people of Iraq to form "a government of their own choice—that is, an Islamic government." When Iraq's friends in the gulf suggested that he settle for $50 billion in reparations, which they promised to raise, Khomeini turned down the offer as insufficient. "Why should he accept $50 billion?" an Egyptian official commented last week after the fighting shifted to Iraqi territory. "He thinks he can have it all."