Khomeini: A Quest for Vengeance

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For the past year the Khomeini government has been gaining increasing support from the Soviet Union and its allies, including North Korea, Cuba and East Germany. Most helpful, perhaps, has been Syria, an Arab neighbor with a long history of hostility toward Iraq. Through Syria, Iran received large shipments of Soviet weaponry, including 130-mm artillery pieces, antiaircraft guns and tank engines. In the meantime, Washington remained silent while Israel sold Iran an estimated $120 million worth of military hardware, including spare parts and ammunition for Iran's American-made equipment, which had been acquired during the rule of the Shah. Nor did the U.S. openly complain that the Israelis were sending experts to Tehran to help the Iranians use their American-made weapons.

With apparent shortsightedness, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was supporting Iran in order to cause trouble for Saddam, whom it has long regarded as its primary enemy in the Arab world. Thus the ancient adage "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," which guides the convoluted politics of so many nations in the Middle East, had reached its ultimate absurdity in revolutionary Iran: both the Soviet Union and a U.S. ally were contributing to the Ayatullah's war machine.

From the beginning, the Soviets have moved with extreme caution in Iran. They ordered the local Tudeh (Communist) Party to infiltrate organizations of clerical power but to avoid any actions that could arouse official suspicion. Meanwhile, Moscow provided Iran with increasing amounts of military and economic aid, though always by proxy. Indeed, to hedge their bets, the Soviets continued giving token support to Iraq, with which they have had a friendship treaty since 1960 and whose army they have largely supplied.

As an indication of how secure the Iranians have become about their relations with the Soviets, Iran decided several weeks ago to move eight divisions away from its border with the Soviet Union in order to relocate those forces along Iran's border with Iraq. It was the first time since the end of World War II, when the Soviets occupied Iran's northern province of Azerbaijan, that the Iranians had left their 1,090-mile border with the Soviet Union virtually unguarded. When King Hussein of Jordan visited Moscow late last month, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told him that when the Iranian invasion of Iraq began, Moscow would be supporting Iran. It was the Soviet official's unsubtle way of hinting to Hussein that even though Jordan was Iraq's most faithful ally, the King would do well to remain on the sidelines of the forthcoming battle.

Within the U.S. foreign policy establishment, there is disagreement about the degree of Soviet involvement in Iran. Soviet Expert Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, believes the Soviets cooled on Saddam because he wanted unconditional support from Moscow for whatever he proposed to do against Israel or Iran, and was angry when he failed to obtain it. Moreover, Sonnenfeldt says, the Soviets were tilting increasingly toward Iran after the fall of the Shah, because they regarded Iran as a greater strategic prize. William Quandt, a former National Security Council official now at Brookings, doubts that the Soviets played a significant role in Iran's decision to invade Iraq. Says he: