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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iran
Index
One of the earliest focuses of Iran's interest in exporting
revolution was the Persian Gulf area. The revolutionary leaders
viewed the Arab countries of the Gulf, along with Iraq, as having
tyrannical regimes subservient to one or the other of the
superpowers. Throughout the first half of 1980, Radio Iran's
increasingly strident verbal attacks on the ruling Baath (Arab
Socialist Resurrection) Party of Iraq irritated that government,
which feared the impact of Iranian rhetoric upon its own Shias, who
constituted a majority of the population. Thus, one of the reasons
that prompted Iraqi President Saddam Husayn to launch the invasion
of Iran in the early autumn of 1980 was to silence propaganda about
Islamic revolution. Baghdad believed that the postrevolutionary
turmoil in Iran would permit a relatively quick victory and lead to
a new regime in Tehran more willing to accommodate the interests of
Iran's Arab neighbors. This hope proved to be a false one for Iraq.
From the point of view of foreign relations, Iran's war with
Iraq had evolved through four phases by 1987. During the first
phase, from the fall of 1980 until the summer of 1982, Iran was on
the defensive, both on the battlefield and internationally. The
country was preoccupied with the hostage crisis at the outbreak of
the war, and most diplomats perceived its new government as
generally ineffective. During the second phase, from 1982 to the
end of 1984, the success of Iran's offensives alarmed the Arab
states, which were concerned about containing the spread of Iran's
Revolution. The third phase, 1985 to 1987, was characterized by
Iranian efforts to win diplomatic support for its war aims. The
fourth phase began in the spring of 1987 with the involvement of
the United States in the Persian Gulf.
The Iraqi invasion and advance into Khuzestan during phase one
surprised Iran. The Iraqis captured several villages and small
towns in the provinces of Khuzestan and Ilam and, after brutal
hand-to-hand combat, captured the strategic port city of
Khorramshahr
(see The Iran-Iraq War
, ch. 5). The nearby city of
Abadan, with its huge oil-refining complex, was besieged; Iraqi
forces moved their offensive lines close to the large cities of
Ahvaz and Dezful. Although the Iranians stemmed the Iraqi advance
by the end of 1980, they failed to launch any successful
counteroffensives. Consequently, Iraq occupied approximately
one-third of Khuzestan Province, from which an estimated 1.5
million civilians had fled. Property damage to factories, homes,
and infrastructure in the war zone was estimated in the billions of
dollars.
Although the war had settled into a stalemate by the end of
1980, during the following eighteen months Iranian forces made
gradual advances and eventually forced most of the Iraqi army to
withdraw across the border. During this period, Iran's objectives
were to end the war by having both sides withdraw to the common
border as it had existed prior to the invasion. Baghdad wanted
Tehran's consent to the revision of a 1975 treaty that had defined
their common riparian border as the middle channel of the Shatt al
Arab (which Iranians call the Arvand Rud). Baghdad's proclaimed
reason for invading Iran, in fact, had been to rectify the border;
Iraq claimed that the international border should be along the low
water of the Iranian shore, as it had been prior to 1975. In
international forums, Iran generally failed to win many supporters
to its position.
The second phase of the war began in July 1982, when Iran made
the fateful decision, following two months of military victories,
to invade Iraqi territory. The change in Iran's strategic position
also brought about a modification in stated war aims. Khomeini and
other leaders began to say that a simple withdrawal of all forces
to the pre-September 1980 borders was no longer sufficient. They
now demanded, as a precondition for negotiations, that the
aggressor be punished. Iran's leaders defined the new terms
explicitly: the removal from office of Iraqi president Saddam
Husayn and the payment of reparations to Iran for war damages in
Khuzestan. The Iranian victories and intransigence on terms for
peace coincided with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; consequently,
Iran decided to dispatch a contingent of its own Pasdaran to
Lebanon to aid the Shia community there. These developments revived
fears of Iranian-induced political instability, especially among
the Arab rulers in the Persian Gulf. In 1984 Iraq acquired
French-made Exocet missiles, which were used to launch attacks on
Iranian oil facilities in the Persian Gulf. Iran retaliated by
attacking tankers loaded with Arab oil, claiming that the profits
of such oil helped to finance loans and grants to Iraq. Iraq
responded by attacking ships loaded with Iranian oil, thus
launching what became known as the tanker war.
By the beginning of 1985, the third phase of the war had begun.
During this phase, Iran consciously sought to break out of its
diplomatic isolation by making overtures to various countries in an
effort to win international support for its war objectives. The
dramatic decline of international oil prices, beginning in the
autumn of 1985, spurred the Iranian initiatives and led to
significantly improved relations with such countries as Oman and
Saudi Arabia.
Iraq responded to Iran's diplomatic initiatives by intensifying
its attacks on Iran-related shipping in the Persian Gulf. Iranian
retaliation increasingly focused on Kuwaiti shipping by early 1987.
Iran's actions prompted Kuwait to request protection for its
shipping from both the Soviet Union and the United States. By the
summer of 1987, most European and Arab governments were blaming
Iran for the tensions in the Gulf, and Iran again found itself
diplomatically isolated.
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati addressing the United Nations General Assembly in
1982
Courtesy United Nations
Data as of December 1987
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