A Bloody Stalemate

By Thomas A. Sancton

Arab unity shatters as Iraq's invasion meets stiff resistance

A the war between Iraq and Iran raged into its seventh week, there were few signs that a decisive victory or a cease-fire would soon end the fighting. After seizing control of Khorramshahr on the disputed Shatt al Arab waterway, Iraqi troops mercilessly pounded the besieged refinery city of Abadan with artillery and tank fire. But fierce resistance by Iranian army troops, Revolutionary Guards and urban guerrillas halted the invaders at a key bridge over the Karun River, north of the embattled city. As the Iraqis shelled other major towns in oil-rich Khuzistan province, Iran struck back at enemy positions with Phantom jet and helicopter attacks. Tehran radio broadcasts claimed that Iranian ground troops had pushed the Iraqis back on the northern fringes of the 500-mile invasion front. The week's grim work left hundreds dead on both sides. Houses, schools and mosques lay in ruins. Vital oil pipelines were shattered and gnarled, while plumes of thick black smoke rose over burning refineries.

For all the battlefield carnage and destruction, the most conspicuous political casualty of the war may be the cause of Arab unity. The conflict has created a tangled skein of improbable alliances and rivalries. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the conservative oil sheikdoms of the gulf are aligned with radically socialist Iraq; Libya and Syria, which have predominantly Sunni Muslim populations, have sided with Iran, a non-Arab nation of Shi'ite Muslims. Last week these tensions within the Arab world reached a critical point.

Following a series of bitter verbal attacks by Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi, Saudi Arabia abruptly severed diplomatic relations with Tripoli. Gaddafi had charged the Saudis with "desecrating" Islam's sacred shrines in Mecca by allowing U.S. AW ACS surveillance planes to fly protective reconnaissance missions over the country's oilfields. The radical Libyan leader also called for a pan-Islamic jihad, or holy war, to "liberate the house of God in Mecca" -- in effect, an incitement to overthrow the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia's normally placid King Khalid angrily denounced Gaddafi as "a Muslim outcast who deserves God's wrath" and as "a spearhead of Israel against Islam." The latter charge was both insulting and ludicrous, in light of Gaddafi's vehement hostility to Israel.

The polarization of the Arab world has cast a pall over a planned 20th anniversary celebration for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Originally scheduled to be held in Baghdad this month, the event was canceled two weeks ago because of the hostilities. The war also dimmed prospects for an Arab League summit meeting, planned for Nov. 25 in Amman. Seven Arab foreign ministers gathered in the Jordanian capital last week to draw up an agenda, but produced little more than vague declarations on the need for "pan-Arab good will."

No one was more eager to save the summit than its prospective host, Jordan's King Hussein. Returning from a two-day trip to Baghdad last week -- his second since the war's outbreak -- the Hashemite King said that he was "distressed that other Arab states have hesitated to rally behind Iraq with all their potential." Hussein repeated his pledge of "full support" for Baghdad -- including a largely rhetorical offer to send Jordanian troops. Iraqi Strongman Saddam Hussein politely declined the offer, saying that "Iraq needs no such assistance." The refusal was met with relief throughout Jordan, where there are widespread fears that the King may have A? gone too far in his advocacy of the Iraqi cause.

More cautious than Hussein, the I leaders of Saudi Arabia and the gulf I sheikdoms have nonetheless persisted I in their muted support of Baghdad. f They also remain worried lest a resumption of American military spare parts shipments could tilt the war in Tehran's favor and invite Soviet intervention. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates warned last week that any U.S. supply efforts on Iran's behalf could force them to rescind plans to boost oil production by more than 1 million bbl. per day to help make up for the loss of oil deliveries from Iran and Iraq. The Saudis have already pushed their production from 9.5 million to 10 million bbl. per day; Kuwait has followed suit by raising its daily production from 1.4 million bbl. to 1.8 million bbl., while Abu Dhabi increased its daily output by 50,000 bbl.

Despite these efforts to compensate for the world's oil shortfall, industry specialists expect prices to begin edging up on the spot market. One reason: Royal Dutch/Shell Group will have to turn to that source to make up for 250,000 bbl. in lost Iraqi deliveries. It had hoped to wangle some crude from Aramco, the Saudi-U.S. oil consortium. But Saudi Arabia's Petroleum Minister, Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, made it clear in London last week that none of the extra output would be available to Royal Dutch/Shell. The preferred customers for the increased Saudi and gulf states production will be those countries hit hardest by the Iraqi shortfall, including France, Japan, India and Brazil. Yamani ordered Aramco to sell the additional crude at the originally contracted Iraqi price of $32 per bbl., which is $2 above the Saudi price.

Moscow, meanwhile, is wary of the ambitious Saddam and fears that a decisive Iraqi victory might lead to the downfall of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini and the return of a pro-American regime, perhaps as the result of a military coup.* Moscow has therefore limited its aid to Baghdad to the minimum requirements of the 1972 Soviet-Iraqi friendship treaty while trying to shore up its relations with Tehran. Explains a senior State Department official: "The Soviets want to play both sides against the middle for as long as they can, and their dilemmas are even more complicated than our own in some ways."

No dilemmas are likely to be resolved by any imminent breakthrough on the battlefield. On the contrary, the initial Iraqi drive into Iran's Khuzistan province has long since bogged down, and Western military analysts now see the prospect of a protracted stalemate.

In preparation for the long rainy season that begins this month, the Iraqis continued construction of an all-weather military road linking Khuzistan's provincial capital of Ahwaz with the outskirts of Basra on the Shatt al Arab estuary. The Iraqis were also proceeding toward one of their key tactical goals: cutting off most of the supply of oil from Khuzistan to Iran's heartland by severing pipelines and inflicting heavy damage on the huge refinery at Abadan, which will take years to rebuild. As part of this strategy, the Iraqis have repeatedly shelled Dezful, nexus for most of the oil pipelines running northward from Khuzistan. The Tehran government has already been forced to ration gasoline and heating oil, and reserves of jet fuel are dwindling.

But why had the Iraqi surprise attack bogged down? Military analysts had several answers. One was that the Iraqis were following a plodding. Soviet-inspired strategy requiring large quantities of cumbersome materiel that hampered rapid troop movements. Another was that the overconfident Iraqis had misjudged Iran's capacity to resist and had prepared themselves only for a brief blitzkrieg. A further Iraqi miscalculation was to assume that the Khomeini regime would crumble at the first military attack because of internal dissensions.

Iran's military inertia is the result of an army desperately short on manpower, spare parts and ammunition. A whole layer of professional commanders, eliminated by Khomeini's revolution, is sorely missed. Moreover, say military analysts, the Iranians consistently squander what supplies they have. Notes Philippe Rondot, a French Middle East expert: "They shoot at everything, firing as many missiles and bullets as they have. It's like a military orgy."

Tehran has not yet managed to launch a major counteroffensive, but Iranian ground troops have reportedly driven the Iraqis back at some points. Said a senior Iranian military officer: "As you go north from Abadan, our position steadily improves. From Ham all the way to Baveysi we have the initiative and the Iraqis have been regularly falling back." Iranian sources said last week that most of the 1 million residents of the Khuzistan cities under Iraqi attack had reportedly fled either to central Iran or to nearby mountain refuges. One farfetched rumor had it that if the Iraqis captured Ahwaz, the Iranians would then open the gates of the 666-ft.-high dam on the Dez River near Dezful, thereby flooding much of the low-lying plains of Khuzistan.

Neither oil shortages nor military set backs appear to have dampened Khomeini's stubborn resolve to continue the fight. Addressing members of the Irani an parliament at a mosque near Tehran last week, the 80-year-old revolutionary leader angrily declared that "peace is not acceptable" with Iraq. Saddam's "crimes were "incomparable in history," thundered Khomeini, and there could be no compromise until the Iraqi leader "repents and says 'I have become a Muslim.' " Iraqi Foreign Minister Saadoun Hammadi, meanwhile, spelled out his country's tough position in a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. The war had begun, he asserted, when Iran had shelled Iraqi border posts on Sept. 4.

The subsequent Iraqi invasion was merely an act of "preventive self-defense." The territory now occupied by Iraq constituted "the necessary positions for defense," Hammadi said, adding ominously that "there may be better positions forward." He insisted that there could be no withdrawal until Iran recognized all of Iraq's territorial claims, including sovereignty over the Shatt al Arab estuary. The only possible solution to the conflict, said the Iraqi diplomat, would be a U.N.-sponsored cease-fire immediately followed by negotiations to adjust the boundaries "in a final manner."

The Iranians, who have refused all negotiations while Baghdad's soldiers remain on their soil, were indignant over the Iraqi letter. Railed one senior Iranian civil servant: "We shall see how much insolence Saddam retains when we put him on trial as a war criminal."

With both sides clinging to apparently irreconcilable positions, there seemed little hope that any peace initiatives could break the deadlock. The U.N. Security Council met last week to discuss the war for the seventh time, but failed to devise a cease-fire resolution. Meanwhile, a "goodwill mission" sponsored by the nonaligned nations visited the warring capitals to seek possible ways out of the impasse. At week's end there were no signs that the delegation was succeeding where all previous mediation efforts had failed .

-- By Thomas A. Sancton,

Reported by William Drozdiak/ Baghdad and William Stewart/ Beirut

* From his home in exile in Egypt, Reza Pahlavi, the elder son of the late Shah, last week marked his 20th birthday by proclaiming himself Shah of Iran and calling on his countrymen to join forces in ending the "nightmare" wrought by the Iraqi invasion and the revolution that ousted his father from the Peacock Throne.

With reporting by William Drozdiak, William Stewart

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