The Gulf: Acts of Desperation

THE GULF The war on shipping heats up as Iran and Iraq widen their struggle

"The day is coming closer," Iraq's President Saddam Hussein boasted last week, when his country will have the weapons to destroy Iran's big oil terminal at Kharg Island. He was probably exaggerating Iraqi capabilities, but his words were enough to send cold chills through Reagan Administration officials, who are still pondering how to deal with this latest and most dangerous phase of the 44-month-old war between Iran and Iraq. Saddam Hussein's fighting words also marked a resumption, after a respite of five days, of the devastating tanker war in the Persian Gulf. Twenty-four hours after he spoke, Iraq announced that it had hit two "naval targets" to the southeast of Kharg Island. Iran responded almost immediately by striking and heavily damaging a Liberian-registered tanker, the Chemical Venture, off Saudi Arabia. Next day Iraq claimed to have struck and destroyed a convoy of eight coastal freighters off Iran at the northern end of the gulf.

Both Saddam Hussein and the equally desperate Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran were clearly prepared to involve not only their neighbors but the world in order to achieve their goals. Saddam Hussein, having started a war he cannot win, is resorting to tanker attacks in an effort to bring international pressure on Iran to accept a peace settlement. Khomeini wants to destroy Saddam Hussein and create in Iraq an Islamic republic modeled on Iran's own.

In reaction to the latest attacks on tankers, Lloyd's of London once again increased rates on vessels using the gulf, this time more than doubling the fee (from 3% to 7.5% of value) for ships sailing to Kharg Island. In Geneva, Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister, Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, declared: "What we are afraid of is that Lloyd's might cancel insurance for navigation in the gulf, and this would be equal to closing the Strait of Hormuz." Lloyd's denied the likelihood of such a cancellation. In any event, the world, and particularly the U.S., is nowhere near as dependent on gulf oil as it was ten or even five years ago. But a cutoff would still work a considerable hardship on Japan and several West European nations, and would undoubtedly lead to a sharp, if temporary, rise in the worldwide price of oil.

In Washington, President Reagan wrote to Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to emphasize the Administration's continuing support of Saudi Arabia and its commitment to freedom of navigation in the gulf. The President said the U.S. would back this up with military aid if requested to do so by the Saudis and their allies. The Saudis temporized, grateful for the show of support but reluctant to do anything that might further antagonize Iran's Khomeini. Apparently for the same reason, Saudi warplanes have refrained from engaging in combat with the Iranian aircraft that have attacked the gulf tankers.