Middle East Time for Sweeping Gestures

By Michael S. Serrill

The operation was not impressive in scope or execution, but it certainly took the prize for gall. With 30 invited foreign journalists looking on, the Iranian navy last week sent six ships and six U.S.-made helicopters into the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman to search for, of all things, mines. Iran itself is widely assumed to have put them there. After five days the Iranians declared they had exploded four of the devices. "Our mission is to sweep the area of mines," an Iranian commander said with a straight face. "We have no idea who planted them."

Elsewhere in the gulf the U.S. Navy was belatedly engaged in a similar operation, its first serious minesweeping attempt since the U.S. stepped up its military role in the area late last spring. After a convoy of three reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers and three U.S. warships began to make its way north through the gulf to Kuwait, it was disclosed that the vessels were protected by the amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Guadalcanal and its RH-53 Sea Stallion minesweeping helicopters. The choppers, the same type used last week by Iran, flew ahead of the convoy, dragging mine-detecting sonar devices through the water.

The Guadalcanal and its mine hunters are expected this week to provide the same service for four fully loaded U.S.-registered tankers waiting in Kuwait to make the perilous trip south. In the U.S., meanwhile, the Navy reactivated eight Korean War-era minesweepers and dispatched them to the gulf. The ships are not expected to arrive for several weeks.

Iranian officials responded to the U.S. military buildup with new warnings. Late in the week, Tehran Radio admitted that Iran was indeed sowing mines "to defend our coastline." Earlier, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the parliamentary speaker, had told an interviewer that Iran has factories "that can produce mines like seeds." Meanwhile, for the first time in the crisis the Iranian military went on the offensive. Two Iranian high-speed patrol boats fired on the Liberian-registered Osco Sierra, then boarded and searched the cargo ship.

Despite that attack, Western diplomats in the region believe Iran's militant rhetoric masks a policy of caution, at least toward the U.S. For all its bluster, Iran has shown no inclination to confront U.S. forces directly. So far, that taunt-and-run strategy has paid off nicely. The U.S. presence has stopped Iraqi air attacks on Tehran's oil tankers, allowing Iran to increase its shipments out of the gulf and thereby accumulate much-needed cash. "The Iranians would like things to stay the way they are for as long as possible," says a Western diplomat. The mines, he adds, are passive and untraceable, frustrating the U.S. escort mission while driving a wedge between Washington and the gulf Arabs by reminding them that before the U.S. intervened, the waters were relatively safe. Iranian officials are aware that strong anti- Tehran sentiment in the U.S. (see box) would support an American strike if Iran gave the Navy an excuse.

Iran has also continued its imprecations against Saudi Arabia in the wake of the rioting at Mecca last month that left nearly 300 Iranian pilgrims dead. The strain was worsened by news last week that a Saudi diplomat had died from injuries suffered when he fell, or was pushed, out of a window while Iranian mobs sacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the Mecca riot.

Mindful of such tensions, the Reagan Administration confirmed last week that it wants to sell Saudi Arabia as much as $1 billion worth of new arms, including sophisticated F-15 jet fighters. Fearing that Saudi weapons might be used to Israel's disadvantage, Congress has rejected such sales in the past. This time, the White House is hoping the gulf crisis, along with recent disclosures of large-scale economic projects between Iran and the Soviet Union, will make the latest arms package more palatable.

With reporting by David S. Jackson/Bahrain