Middle East: A Holy War's Troublesome Fallout

Iran's victories over Iraq threaten the moderate Arabs

Ya Mohammad ibn Abdullah! Ya Mohammad ibn Abdullah!

As this code signal was broadcast over walkie-talkie radios early last week, some 65,000 Iranian troops and militia launched the most ambitious counterattack of the 20-month border war between Iran and Iraq. The prize: the Iranian port of Khorramshahr, which the Iraqis had captured soon after crossing to the Iranian side of the Shatt al Arab at the start of the war.

The predawn Iranian attack routed the Iraqi forces with an ease that surprised even the Iranian commanders. By noon, two Iraqi divisions and two border guard brigades had been surrounded and almost entirely taken prisoner; the rest of the Iraqi force of about 12,000 men was fleeing. Said an Iranian captain afterward: "Some were so frightened that they threw themselves into the shaft and struck out for the Iraqi shore. I saw a few drown. They could not swim, and their comrades, desperate to save themselves, let them go down."

Thus ended the decisive battle of a gruesome war that has already cost the two adversaries an estimated 100,000 lives and $150 billion. But even though Iraq's forces have retreated almost to the prewar border (see map), the guns along the Shatt al Arab are not about to fall silent. Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini, in pursuit of his vendetta against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, has threatened to invade Iraq in an effort to topple him.

A change in the Iraqi leadership would be welcomed not only by Saddam's domestic rivals but by another enemy, Syrian President Hafez Assad, and by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, both of whom enjoy Soviet backing and have helped Iran in the war. But Saddam Hussein's fall would cause great concern in the capitals of moderate Arab states, notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which have been supporting Iraq. In consequence, the U.S. is also concerned. In a speech devoted entirely to Middle East policy, Secretary of State Alexander Haig told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations last week that the course of the Iran-Iraq conflict "may lead to unforeseen and far-reaching changes in the regional balance of power, offering the Soviet Union an opportunity to enlarge its influence in the process."

The war was started by Saddam Hussein in September 1980 to seize part of Iran's oil-producing Khuzistan province. He had hoped to become the region's strongman, but he has suffered an ironic reversal. Iran has regained nearly all of Khuzistan, and Iranian guns along the Shatt al Arab are shelling Iraq. Saddam Hussein, who had wanted to weaken Khomeini's Islamic regime, is now in serious danger himself.