Countering Blow with Blow

By the basic rules of Persian Gulf warfare, every military action produces an equal reaction. Fortnight ago, Iraqi planes struck two tankers near the Iranian oil depot at Kharg Island. Last week jet fighters with Iranian markings attacked the Japanese-managed supertanker Primrose as it was carrying oil from the Saudi Arabian port of Ras Tanura. The 276,424-ton vessel suffered only minor damage, and no injuries were reported.

Iranian pilots have been careful to target only tankers that have come from ports in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, two nations that have contributed generously to the Iraqi war chest. But after at least one of their planes was shot down last month by U.S.-made F-15s of the Saudi air force, the Iranians avoided attacking any vessels in a stretch of water from Kuwait to the tip of Qatar, an area that is watched by U.S. AWACS planes leased to the Saudis. Last week's strike on the Primrose came about 120 miles east of that zone in an area that had been relatively free from air strikes. This extension of the tanker war to the waters of the lower gulf raised questions about the safety of shipping near the United Arab Emirates, a country that has tried not to get actively involved in the long and bloody Iran-Iraq dispute.