Khomeini: A Quest for Vengeance

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"Khomeini is a genuine revolutionary, and he would like to export his revolution. He is also a man who personalizes his quarrels—he 'brought down the Shah,' he 'brought down Jimmy Carter,' and he wants to bring down Saddam Hussein. If he could bring into power an Islamic regime in Iraq, so much the better."

In early June, the Soviet Union urged Iran to make peace with Iraq under some of the terms Iran had demanded but with "modifications." The Soviets even proposed that the two countries join them in establishing an "anti-imperialist front." Had the Soviets brought about a peace agreement, it would have enabled them to retain close relations with both Iran and Iraq, and would have greatly bolstered their position in the region. Khomeini said no. On June 21, he made a speech in which he not only rebuffed Moscow's peacemaking efforts but denounced the whole Soviet role in the Middle East. Said Khomeini: "The Americans fear the Soviet Union might do this or that in the region if we defeat Iraq. The Soviet Union can do nothing. It has proved to be capable of nothing." Having put the Soviets in their place, Khomeini continued to accept support from them, just as he has accepted clandestine help from the Israelis.

Iran's plan to attack Iraq, with Soviet acquiescence, was in the formative stages when the Israelis launched their invasion of Lebanon. The Israelis gambled that with a quick strike at their northern neighbor's heartland, they could impose a solution of sorts on their 34-year-old conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. They bought Defense Minister Ariel Sharon's argument that such an assault could free northern Israel from occasional P.L.O. attacks, break the organization's leadership and perhaps even create pressure on the Palestinians to make Jordan their homeland. If Syria attacked Israel's invasion force, so much the better, because Sharon was prepared to carry his anti-Palestinian offensive all the way to the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Their campaign in Lebanon has generally produced the results the Israelis were seeking, but it has spilled enough blood to worry the Reagan Administration and its allies. The spectacle has been observed by 100 million or more citizens of the Arab world on their TV sets: the siege of Beirut, the brutality of the ceasefire violations, the Beirut negotiations leading toward the Israeli goal of expelling the P.L.O. fighting force from Lebanon. Even Arabs with the highest stakes in the gulf war, the emirs of Kuwait and princes of Saudi Arabia, have been traumatized and distracted from their more immediate problems by the war in Lebanon. They have watched the first siege of an Arab capital by an Israeli army, and they have become alarmed at the emotions aroused in their own countries.

For the Soviets, according to most Western analysts, the long-term goal is control of Middle East oil. In Afghanistan, they have built a new airfield in the corner of the country closest to the mouth of the Persian Gulf. In the Horn of Africa last week, Soviet-backed Ethiopia attacked its traditional enemy next door, Somalia, probably with the help of Cuban and East German advisers. If the Ethiopians should defeat Somalia, they and their