MIDDLE EAST
Gulf war
world war. SALAH JABER
W HAT IS the reason for this
widespread sabre rattling? What is the motivation for massing these floating engines of war, with the US naval force alone costing a million dollars a day? Is it to help threatened populations? Is it to end a war that over seven years has taken the lives of well over a million people? No! Imperialist armies cannot be mistaken for rescue forces. They cannot serve any other master but capital.
In the present case, the primary concer of the imperialist centers is to guarantee "freedom of navigation" in the Gulf in the face of threats of overspills of the conflict between Iran and Iraq. In other words, their main preoccupation is to prevent any interruption of oil exports from the Gulf or of imports by the countries along its shores, which could have grave repercussions for the equilibrium of the world market. Moreover, this deployment of forces has the complementary effect of reassuring the Arab oil monarchies, which are closely linked to the economy of the imperialist countries and whose stability has been threatened more than ever this year by the fallout from the war between their two neighbors.
Immediately after the unleashing of the Iran-Jraq carnage, on September 23, 1980, the nine member countries of the EEC, six of which are taking part today in the military operation underway, stressed in a joint statement "the crucial importance for the international community of freedom of navigation in the Gulf, which must not be impaired in any way." In thinly veiled terms, this was the expression of the sordid cynicism of the imperialist governments 12 about a war that to this day they have helped considerably to fuel. International Viewpoint • December 21, 1987
From the outset, a limit was set. The hostilities had to stop short of harming the maritime trade of the non-belligerent states on the shores of the Gulf. Implicitly there was a still stronger prohibition of any attacks on these countries. Below this threshold, the Iraqis and Iranians could kill each other to their heart's content. It was not said aloud but was certainly on the imperialists' minds that the longer the conflict lasted, the better it would be for their interests. Indeed, in more than one way, the dragging on of the war has benefited both their economic and their political interests. War and the economics of the oil market
Let us start with the imperialists' wallets, since that is where the hearts of the states concerned lie. The representatives of world finance capital have had three main economic reasons to celebrate seven years of carnage between the two Gulf belligerents. The first concerns the world oil market, and thus the overall health of the imperialist economic system. The second has to do with the arms market. And the third is related to post-war perspectives.
By disrupting Iran's oil production — which fell from 6 million barrels a day in 1978 to about 3.5 million after the Shah's overthrow - and by threatening the stability of the neighboring countries, which together are by far the main source of oil for capitalist Europe and Japan, the "Islamic Revolution" had provoked a panic on the world oil market. The tremor was made still worse by the fact that it came at a time when the imperialist countries' reserves were at a low point. The result was what was called the "second oil shock," the first being the one that occurred in the wake of the October 1973 Israeli-Arab war.
Between January 1979 and February 1980, petroleum prices doubled and continued to rise that year, helped along by speculation. The predictable effect of the shock was that reserves were built up again to saturation point, and important energy-saving measures were carried out in the consumer countries.? At the same time, world oil production shot up. Sharply increased profit rates opened the way for exploitation of previously neglected deposits. By the same token, the price increases favored a turn to alternative sources of energy. It did not take any great guru to foresee that the elements combining to produce this flare-up were going to backfire.
In fact, already in 1980, the financial and oil experts were worried about the momentum that might be developed by tumbling oil prices, which they knew were inevitable. The projected fall was all the more threatening because the price rise had been so rapid and because the forecasts for the coming decade had accurately predicted a constant excess of supply over demand. The interests of the imperialist system demanded stopping this yo-yo movement and stabilizing prices over the long term at a level permitting continued profitability of North Sea and US oil production.
It was, therefore, imperative to keep prices from falling below the optimum level. From this standpoint, the war between Iraq and Iran could not have broken out at a more opportune time. Unleashed in September 1980, for a brief initial period it inevitably boosted prices by creating panic. Thus, at the peak in 1981, the price of basic crude oil was around 160% of its early 1979 level. But in the autumn of 1981 the 1. This is the first time since Hitler that the West German navy's warships have gone outside the BalticNorth Sea area 2. For example, France's net oil imports went from 118 million tons in 1979 to 69 million in 1982!
decline in oil prices, for which the preconditions had appeared in 1980, began its inexorable course.
Oil, arms and political manoeuvring
In 1981 the effects of the war cut Iranian oil production to 1 million barrels a day and
Iraqi production to still less (as compared with 3.5 million barrels in 1979) - that is, an overall reduction of 5 million barrels a day, more than a quarter of OPEC's production in the same period! Were it not for the war the price fall would have taken on the proportions of a collapse. That is, there would have been a slide comparable to the one provoked by Saudi Arabia in 1986 in the context of a war for price controls and production quotas. But, in the former case, the process would have been uncontrolled and therefore infinitely more dangerous and more difficult to stop.?
From 1981 to the end of 1986, a cessation of the hostilities between Iran and Iraq would have had a disastrous effect on the oil market. It would have brought on an abrupt increase in both countries' exports in the context of a worldwide glut. (It will be explained further on that this risk is much less today. The fear of this was described by
Véronique Maurus,
Monde's oil specialist, in an article on the September 23-
24, 1984. The headline could not have been more eloquent:
"The discreet If only it
Arabia, which came in second place with $15,000 million worth of imported arms. Coming on top of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the military buying frenzy touched off by the Gulf war greatly increased the Middle East's already considerable share of the world's arms imports. The agency's report stated that over the five years considered the region took an extraordinary 49% of the world's arms imports!
Nearly 40 countries are implicated in varying degrees in selling military equipment to one or the other of the Gulf belligerents, or both at the same time, which is the case for most of them. These countries include both bureaucratic workers' states and imperialist or dependent capitalist states — the USSR and the East European countries the United States and the Western European countries, China, North Korea, Israel, South Africa, South Korea, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Brazil and so on.
Since the start of the conflict, all the imperialist powers have imposed embargos on deliveries of military material to both belligerents. The nature of these bans dif-
Tabriz Tehran Kermanshah IRAN Bandar Kuwait
MIDDLE EAST al, one of the USSR's few internationally competitive products, thus made it possible partially to recoup some of what the Soviet bureaucracy has spent in its arms race with the Western powers. All this is linked to a certain Stalinist conception of defending the USSR, which involves enormous spending and a search for bourgeois clients and allies in the third world.
Oil monarchies funnel funds to Iraq
The only paradox is that in recent years the petro-dollars of the traditional clients of
US and British imperialism have partially supported Soviet military industry. The oil monarchies, especially the Saudi one, have in fact funnelled several tens of thousands of millions of dollars to the Iraqi regime, which otherwise would have been forced to surrender for lack of financial resources to pursue the war.?
Moscow's supply to Iraq, however, has not been totally devoid of political "ethics."
For example, from the start of the hostilities until the Iraqi retreat in 1982, that is, as long as Bagdad's troop occupied a large sector of Iranian territory, Soviet arms shipwere halted. The breach was filled by French imperialism, which was already Iraq's second most important arms supplier before the outbreak of the Gulf war.
nard, Le Monde's military specialist (July 29, 1987), arms deals between France oil-business
"Some people will talk about cynicism," the journal-
Saudi Arabia "but it has to be recognized that the greatest fear of the oil operators - and of many producer countries -four years after the start of the Iran-Iraq war is an end to a conflict that everyone has become using to living with, and which to a certain extent solves problems by maintaining a long-term freeze of production capacities.
There is hardly any need to demonstrate the interest that the world's main merchants of death have in the war between Iran and Iraq. Two recent estimates have put the purchase of military equipment by the two countries since the start of the war at $30,000 to $38,000 million for Iran and $40,000 to $45,000 million for Iraq. A more detailed report, published this year by the Disarmament and Arms Control Agency based in Washington gives the following figures for 1981-1985.
Bagdad reportedly imported $23,900 million in military equipment, as against $6,400 million for Tehran. For the period concerned, Iraq was therefore the world's leading arms importer, far surpassing Saudi
Strait of Hormuz
Ras Tannurah
Bahrein UAE Oman fers. In the case of Britain, it is Jesuitical, banning only "offensive" or "strategically" important weapons. In the case of France, it has been partial, banning shipment of arms only to Iran. But recently, in the wake of the US arms shipments to Iran — the notorious "Trangate" - a tip of the iceberg of the immense international arms traffic with Irag and especially with Iran has emerged in the form of "scandals": Luchaire in France, Borletti in Italy, the Iranian Purchases Bureau in London, Messerschmitt in West Germany, Noricum in Austria, Bofors in Sweden, the Zeebrugge connection
The arms supplied by the USSR constitute by far the largest part of Iraq's weapons, including 75% of the airplanes and almost all the 5,000 tanks that Bagdad has. This puts Moscow out in front of the arms merchants who have fattened on the Gulf war. Sales of conventional military materiand Iraq amounted to about 50,000 million francs [about $8,330 million] between 1980 and 1982. "This went so far that some factories, especially in the tactical missiles industry, devoted 40% to 50% of their annual production entirely to meeting the needs of the Iragi infantry alone"!6 3. The relatively well controlled slide in 1986, nonetheless, cost former Saudi oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani his job. Moreover, the fact that this slide could take place at a time when the "tanker war" in the Gulf was in full swing shows clearly the extent to which the world surplus of supply over demand is now the dominant factor. 4. In this connection the attacks on ships in the northem part of the Gulf have paradoxically aided the shipbuilders! In a situation of endemic surplus capacity of the oil tanker fleet for several years, the possibility of getting rid of a few ships, while being paid damages by the insurance companies, has been much appreciated. This is all the more so because the increase of insurance premiums has been compensated for by rebates to importers from the exporting country. 5. Estimates vary considerably, but the real figure must certainly be more than $50,000 million in grants and loans. 6. This has not kept the French government from "shutting its eyes" to French arms sales to Iran, including a half million 155mm shells supplied by the luchine 13 company to Tehran's army between 1982 and 1985. December 21, 1987 • International Viewpoint
MIDDLE EAST
As for Iran's arms, most of them are US made. US arms merchants were by far the most important beneficiaries of the fabulous arms contracts that resulted from the Shah's delusions of grandeur before he was overthrown in 1979. Since then, especially in the period from the unleashing of the war with Iraq in 1980 until 1986, when the Irangate scandal broke out and when the terrorist actions organized by Tehran in Lebanon and France reached their peak, Iran continued to get 40% of its arms from Western Europe, according to Les Aspin, chair of the Armed Services Committee of the US House of Representatives (cited by Newsweek, September 21, 1987).
"Greed abhors a vacuum"
If you add to this the US arms and spare parts supplied by Israel, as well as the direct and semi-direct (through Israel) US shipments in 1985-86 that were revealed by the Iran-Contra affair— whose military importance was crucial - it becomes clear that the "imperialist camp" was the main supplier of the Iranian war effort until 1986. Since the end of that year, its share has declined substantially. The manifold embargos have been sharply reinforced as one "scandal" after another has broken out.
According to Aspin, China and North Korea are now supplying 65% of Iranian arms imports. The rest is provided by third world arms merchants, as well as international traffickers, whose role is precisely to get around embargos. As the same issue of Newsweek already cited aptly put it, "greed
There is also the lavish market that the two belligerent countries will offer the civilian industries of the imperialist countries once the war is over. Against the background of a world crisis of overproduction, of which today's stock market crash is the most recent and the most spectacular expression, such an operation is a traditional resort of imperialism.? As Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto 140 years ago, "The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of the mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones."
The tens of thousands of millions of petro-dollars poured into the hungry maw of the imperialist economies to buy arms during the seven years of the war offer only a foretaste of the gravy that will flow when Iran and Iraq settle down to reconstruction. When the import capacities of the richest and generally less populous of the oil producing countries have reached a saturation point in recent years, the fact that two of the most populous of the rich oil producers, 14 and therefore those with the greatest capacity for absorbing imports, have been deInternational Viewpoint • December 21, 1987 stroying a considerable part of the investments they made during the first oil boom (1974-78) is without any doubt an excellent thing for the main imperialist
In May 1987, before the onset of the destructive fury displayed by the two belligerents over recent months, an expert estimated that "the cost of repairing the economic infrastructure of the two countries could amount to $50,000 million for Iran and $35,000 million for Iraq." 10 If to these costs for "repair" you add the development plans of the two countries, interrupted by the war in the case of Iraq and by the "Islamic Revolution" in the case of Iran, you get an overall market amounting $200,000 million from now until the end of the century, assuming that the war ends
Imperialists looking to post-war markets
The attitude of the imperialist powers toward this conflict is, moreover, in large measure determined by economic calculations concerning the post-war period. Of the two countries, Iran is the most promising potential client. It has 45 million people and 1,648,00 square kilometers of territory, as against Iraq's 15 million inhabitants and 435,000 square kilometers. As against Bagdad's astronomic foreign debt, Tehran's is negligible. After Saudi Arabia, Iran's oil reserves are the Gulf's largest, amounting to almost double those of Iraq, which themselves are considerable.
Finally, the country has enormous natural gas reserves. This could explain the benevolent attitude taken toward Tehran by Japan and West Germany — which were already well established suppliers of the Shah as well as of Iraq - and which, along with Italy, have remained the leading sup pliers of civilian imports to Khomeini's Iran. The same went for Britain until this year, when Tehran started to threaten its most favored clients, the Gulf oil monarchies. In addition to strategic and political considerations, the size of the Iranian market was a major factor prompting Washing ton to court Tehran up until Irangate. Before 1979, the US was Iran's main
While Iran is certainly the most promising potential client, Iraq is nonetheless a very important future market, even if the heavy debt the country has accumulated to its Arab bankrollers casts a shadow over its promise. In fact, it is virtually certain that the Arab loans to Bagdad, and not only the grants, will never be paid back. Rather, they will be considered as a financial contribution by the oil monarchies to the war effort of an Iraq that constantly reminds them, with good reason, that it is their main bulwark against the spread of Khomeinism.
After all, these monarchies have also bestowed thousands of millions of dollars on Syria for a war effort against Israel in which they have no real interests at stake. On several occasions since 1982, they have even gone so far as to offer to pay damages to Iran in return for an end to the fighting.!! 7. An air bridge was established between Israel and Iran via Turkey in 1981. Moreover, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, cited by Amnon Kapeliuk in Le Monde Diplomatique of October 1987, there was major traffic between the Israeli port of Eilat and the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
"Democratic Senator Wright said that 2,008 TOW anti-tank missiles and 253 Hawk anti-aircraft batteries were delivered, among other arms and spare parts. Iran's air and anti-aircraft potential (Donnell Douglas F4's put back in working order) was thereby considerably increased. " (Politique Etrangère, Summer 1987). Military experts generally agree that the TOW and Hawk missiles provided to Iran by the United States contributed greatly to the successes achieved by Tehran's army in 1986 (seizure of the Iraqi port of Fao) and in early 1987. "Iraq lost 10% of its airforce in the past two months, and the outskirts of the city of Basra are littered with hundreds of destroyed Iragi tanks. Mr. Robert Torricelli, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, has said moreover that the American arms supplied to Iran in 1986 had a 'spectacular' impact on the course of the Iran-Iraq conflict. The Iraqis 'lost their only advantage in the fight,' Mr. Torricelli said regarding Iraqi airforce losses." (Le Monde, February 9. See the explanation of this offered by Emest Mandel 10. G. Salamé, in Politique Etrangère, ibid.
Moreover, if the war ended without a dismantling of the Iraqi armed forces, they would be the strongest of the Arab armies. Such a position would not only be sufficient reason for cancelling Iraq's debts to the Arab countries, but also very probably for giving it new grants and loans for reconstruction.
This is the outcome that French imperialism has put its money on. Profiting from the war, it has become Iraq's main Western partner. In this respect, it has used the cover of a certain Gaullist policy of flattering the Arab countries, which gained it a position in their markets out of all proportion to its role in the Iranian one, even in
French imperialism has gone so far as to grant credits to Iraq amounting to $6,000 million, half of which are non-military credits. Paris's calculations and the resulting entanglement led it in 1983, the most critical year for Bagdad, to lend the Iraqi army five Super-Etendard fighters taken from the French navy! The Iranian"inspired" hostage-taking and terrorist attacks against Paris are simply reprisals for French involvement on the side of Iraq.
### Broader economic interests at stake
The economic interests of world finance capital, properly understood, have been a fundamental factor in the capitalists' de facto encouragement of the Iran-Iraq war for more than six years. But they could not in themselves be decisive, independently of political and strategic conditions. The latter are themselves a concentrated expression of broader economic interests. For example, a war against two wealthy partners of world imperialism (say, between the Shah's Iran and Saudi Arabia) could have the same economic advantages for capital, but be disastrous for the stability of its domination over both countries and that of the regional and global relationship of forces between imperialism and all the forces opposing it, including notably the USSR.
US imperialism is the kingpin of world imperialism's military system. It determines what strategic and political considerations are most important in such cases, especially in regions that fall within its sphere of direct intervention From this standpoint, how have the Gulf war and its continuation Washington's
First of all, let us look at this from the Iranian side. The Iragi offensive in September 1980 came in the nick of time for the Unit-
The latter's domination of Iran was in ruins after the February 1979 revolution, and on top of that after November 1979, it had been confronted with the problem of the occupation of its embassy in Tehran and the kidnapping of its diplomatic personnel. The US operation in Tabas in
April 1980 aimed at liberating the hostages from the "nest of spies" had failed
In fact, the main result that Washington could hope for from the entry of Iraqi troops onto Iranian soil, aside from a very hypothetical overthrow of the Khomeini regime, was to reactivate Iran's dependence on the United States.15 The cornerstone of this dependence was not the economy but rather the army that the Pentagon had built up for the shah and which
In 1978, when the Shah's political bankruptcy became evident, Washington centered its Iranian strategy on the imperial army (a military government headed by General Azhari was formed in November 1978). It has continued to do so. Already in February 1979, the army was the terrain on which a compromise was reached between Washington and Khomeini. Both parties shared the same concern for saving the army from the breakup that threatened it.
Until the embassy affair, Carter had supplied spare parts for the Iranian army for its war against the Kurds. The Iragi invasion was then to give this army a chance to pull itself together and refurbish its image. The Islamic regime freed and reintegrated the Shah's army officers who had been "purged" in the aftermath of the February
"In October 1980, a month after the start of hostilities, Washington informed the Iranian government that it was ready to support it, to lift its sanctions and to provide weapons and spare parts in exchange for the handing back of the hostages. fact, if the spectacular turn-around by TehTan that Carter may have dreamed about did not take place, the fact remains that the embassy affair was settled in January 1981 in conditions that seemed unimaginable before September 1980, and were a great boon to the big US banks. On February 2, 1981, the leading US business magazine Business Week wrote eloquently: "Except for the hostages, the banks appeared to be the major winners in the deal." The magazine even quoted a former administration official to the effect that it was the banks that "profited in the end from the hostage US government complicity with Iran
In reality, the main US quid pro quo in the deal, without which the whole thing would have been absurd, was kept secret in the interests of both parties. It was the green light given by Washington to Israel for deliveries of US arms and spare parts to Tehran through Turkey.19 For the US equipped and trained Iranian army, such supplies had a vital importance.
Besides its calculations about the future role of the Iranian army, the US government found a justification for its tacit complicity with Iran in the war in its convergence with the Khomeini regime over anti-communism and hostility to the
MIDDLE EAST USSR. This was a major consideration for Washington's strategists. Both parties supported the Afghan Mujahadeen against Moscow and Kabul's troops. In 1981, the pro-Soviet communist Tudeh party was forced underground in Iran. The resumption of Soviet arms shipments to Bagdad in 1982 was to confirm this trend.
### Soviet diplomats expelled
In February 1983, on the basis of intelligence transmitted by the British services, the Tudeh party's infrastructure was destroyed, its leaders were arrested, along with hundreds of other people.20 At the same time, 18 Soviet diplomats were expelled. Washington's tacit and unavowed complicity with Iran had, of course, its ups and downs from 1981 to 1986.21 The main phase of tension over this period was between October 1983 and the end of 1984.
This phase was marked by the following events: the blowing up of the Marine headquarters in Beirut and the resumption of activities and seizures of hostages organized or "inspired" by Tehran; "Operation Staunch" launched by Washington in January 1984 to halt arms sales to Iran by its allies; Iran's overstepping the limit mentioned at the beginning of this article — in response to Iraqi attacks on its commercial shipping, Tehran sent its Phantom F-4 fighters against ships serving Kuwaiti and Saudi ports; and finally a very dissua11. In 1985, the figure of $50,000 was cited in this 12. The Iraqi army has been considerably reinforced and toughened up in seven years' fighting against a numerically superior enemy. 13. In third place before the war, after Japan and West Germany. See above on the subject of French arms sales to Bagdad. 14. Corresponding to the Pentagon's six major military commands, including CENTCOM (Central Command), which is in charge of the "crisis crescent" extending from Pakistan to Somalia through Egypt. 15. Washington could not be unaware of the fact that in September 1980, no reactionary force in Tehran was able in the short term to replace the Islamic regime. Moreover, far from bringing this regime down, the Iraqi invasion was to serve to the highest degree to reinforce it by eliminating all its real or potential adversaries. 16. The oil factor, in this respect, offers a considerable margin of autonomy, permitting, for example, the survival of a Qadhafi. 17. Very many accounts and testimonies confirm that this compromise was taken up directly in negotiations. 18. Chapour Haghighat, Iran, la révolution islamique, Complexe, Brussels, 1985, p.190. 19. The crash of a cargo plane in Turkey in July 1981 exposed these secret shipments. 20. Thanks to the defection of the Soviet vice-consul in Tehran. 21. Prisoner of its own ideology and the feelings of its popular clientele, as well as of the broad Iranian masses, the Khomeini regime has constantly kept up vio lently anti-American rhetoric, to which the United States has replied in kind. For those who might still take these exchanges of invective for the expression of the real policy of both govemments, it might be noted that the anti-Zionist, or even anti-Jewish, talk of the Iranian regime is no less violent than its anti-American talk, but this did not prevent the long collaboration that has nyw cane to light between Israel and the fran of 15 the ayatollahs. December 21, 1987 • International Viewpoint
MIDDLE EAST sive intervention by the Saudi airforce — it would be more correct, to say the Saudi-
American airforce — against the Iranian airforce.
A truce between the two parties following this escalation led in the spring of 1985 to a full-blown resumption of their unavowed collaboration. This was the episode that was to lead to the Irangate scandal in the autumn of 1986. The policy followed, with Reagan's blessing, by the CIA-
National Security Council (NSC) group of
Casey, MacFarlane and Poindexter was in no way dictated by any humanitarian concern for obtaining the release of the American hostages held in Lebanon. It was the logical continuation of the line of conduct described above, which started shortly after the Iragi invasion in September 1980.
"It is in US interests to support the Iranian army"
This approach, which involves relying on the ex-imperial army, still has its defenders in the US establishment, as well as among the Iranian reactionaries. Questioned by Newsweek (March 16, 1987) about the opportuneness of continuing relations between Washington and Tehran, Ali Pahlavi, nephew of the deceased Shah, gave this lucid response. "It is in American interests to continue to supply spare parts to Iran — not to get the hostages out of Lebanon, but to support the only institution in Iran that is still on the side of the free world: the Iranian armed forces."
If Iraq's offensive against Iran in September 1980 came in the nick of time for Washington, as explained that was essentially because it made it possible to renew Tehran's military dependence on the United States. That is the reason for Washington's offers of support to the Islamic regime made immediately after the invasion. Unless that is understood, it is impossible to grasp the underlying coherence of US policy; it would seem utterly absurd. This is a major inconsistency in a certain superficial, black-and-white view that Iraq has served as a proxy for the United States, which wanted it to win. This way of looking at things is totally out of line with very stubborn facts — Washington's role in arming Iran and Moscow's in arming Iraq.
In fact, US imperialism no more wanted a victory by Iraq in 1980-82 than it wants one by Iran today. Washington's attitude has been quite well summed up by Kissinger, who said in early 1984 that the ideal outcome for the United States would be if both belligerents lost! In this, he was echoed recently by the Israeli minister of defence, Yitzhak Rabin, who said, hopes that there will be no victor in this
When you realize Iran's strategic importance in US imperialism's anti-Soviet line-up and remember that the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, on two occasions in November 1980 declared himself in favor of a International Viewpoint • December 21, 1987 breakup of Iran and self-government for its various minorities, the conclusion from the
US point of view follows quite logically. 23 "The United States never wanted a decisive victory by Iraq. The disappearance of the Islamic regime would not necessarily create a favorable situation for it. Defeat for Iran would threaten to fan rebellions by the minorities, to provoke a civil war, and - worse still - lead to the dismemberment of Iran. " 25
However, the United States had other reasons besides the underlying difference between US and Iraqi interests for wanting the war to drag on and to see Iraq get bogged down in it. (In fact, it is an elementary error of logic to deduce an identity of interests between the two countries from the fact that Iraq's unleashing of the war in September 1980 was opportune for US interests.) They had to do with the situation
From 1971 to 1975, the Ba'athist faction in power in Bagdad had tried frantically to outbid its Syrian rivals in opposition to imperialism, Zionism and Arab reaction. 2 In 1972, Iraq signed a "treaty of friendship and cooperation" with the USSR. At the same time, it made a pact and subsequently a front with the Iraqi Communist Party, two of whose leaders were included in the government until 1979. Moreover, Iraq sponsored the "Rejection Front," which was formed to oppose the schemes for an Israeli-Arab negotiated settlement.
In 1975, under military pressure from
- who were backed by the Shah, Israel and the United States — the Bagdad regime went down on one knee and moderated its Arab policy. But this did not mean that it was lining up behind Washington's allies in the region. Saddam needed a breathing space in order to consolidate his personal dictatorship and to eliminate all his rivals and enemies - Kurds, communists, Shi'ite fundamentalists and even
Iraq plays regional power game
The continuing ambition of the bourgeois nationalist bureaucracy in power in Bagdad, magnified by the tyrant Saddam's personal megalomania, was to impose itself as the dominant force in the region by taking advantage of the sharp rise in its oil incomes after 1974. It got its opportunity when Egyptian president Sadat visited Israel in 1977 and the process was set in motion that would lead to the signing of the Camp David accords in September 1978 by Israel, the United States and Egypt. In this way, the country that had long been leader in the region chose to isolate itself from the community of Arab countries.
During this period, Iraq bought several thousands of millions of dollars worth of arms from the USSR and, to a lesser extent, from France. In November 1978, it called a summit of Arab heads of state in Bagdad, which denounced the notorious accords and excluded Egypt from the fold. At the same time, Iraq concluded an accord with Syria providing for a fusion of the two countries.
The agreement was broken in July 1979, after having thrown a scare into the United
States and its allies in the region.
The faltering and then the fall of the Shah removed a major hindrance for the Bagdad regime, enabling it to resume its anti-
American and anti-Zionist bluffing. But after February 1979, it found itself confronted with the installation in Tehran of a government violently hostile to it because of its ferocious repression of the Iraqi Shi'ite fundamentalist movement. 2 Then, the combination of a whole series of developments led Saddam to decide to send his army against Iran: the revolt of the Kurdish, Arab, and Azerbaijani national minorities starting in the spring of 1979; the sharpening of political conflicts in Tehran; and, especially, the deterioration of the Iranian army and the cutting off of its major source of as a result of the embassy IF YO — to wipe out the affront dealt him by the Shah in 19752; to get rid of Khomeini and Iran as a regional power by giving impetus to the breakup of the regime and the country30; and in that way considerably to strengthen his claims to regional dominance. Not one of interests. While the US government welcomed the Iraqi military initiative, this was, as indicated, because it improved the perspectives for its protégé, the Iranian army, gaining a greater role, if not taking power.
Overall, what Washington hoped to get from the war between Iran and Iraq was the opposite of Bagdad's objectives — a strong government in Tehran better able to repel the Iraqi invasion. This why Washington wanted the war to last! The bogging down of the Iragi army and its subsequent setbacks, moreover, pushed Bagdad into the arms of the Arab monarchies of the Gulf, which it had earlier sought to dominate. By the same token, Iraq was inevitably led to court Washington, the mentor of these regimes, who held the keys to the Iranian war.
In 1984, at the height of the phase of fric. tion between Iran and the United States, Iraq re-established its diplomatic relations with Washington, which had been broken
since June 1967!32 Relations between the two countries, nonetheless, continued to be marked with mutual distrust. In fact, in 1985-86, in the context of wheeling and dealing between Washington and the dominant faction in Tehran, and with the complicity of the Saudis33, alternatives to Saddam satisfactory to all three of these parties had been envisaged as part of a settlement of the conflict.34 This confirms the concern of the Saudis and the Americans, shared and voiced openly by the Israelis, about the role Iraq might play, if its army is not dismantled at the outcome of the conflict.
Why then suddenly, in 1987, did a consensus seem to develop among the great powers for putting an end to the Gulf war? Why, in particular, was American imperi-
KED BEIRUT, YOULL LOVE THE PERSIAN
alism suddenly in such a hurry to end the conflict? Why did they wait until seven years had passed, a million people had lost their lives, millions had been wounded, handicapped, orphaned and made homeless (to say nothing of the material damage that has been mentioned). Why did the great powers wait until July 20, 1987, to get a unanimous resolution from the UN Security Council that "demands, as an initial measure towards a negotiated settlement, that Iran and Iraq immediately observe a cease-fire... and without delay withdraw all their forces to the internationally recog-
Such a demand could have been made unanimously by the great powers at any time after September 1980. Why did the
US secretary of state, George Shultz, suddenly say, also on July 20 to the UN: "The world has had enough, the war has to stop now"? The answer is to be found in the same factors that made Shultz and company think that the war should not be stopped
First of all there is the economic situation. In the Middle East, in the beginning there was oil. The year 1986 was marked by a price war, conducted with great fanfare by the Saudi oil minister, Ahmed Zaki Yamani. It cost him his job. Against the background of a continual worsening of the structural imbalance between the supply and demand of oil to the detriment of the exporters — a trend that can only continue in the recession that is looming after the stock market crash - the Saudi minister wanted to knock the bottom out from under prices by flooding the market. The objective of this was to win back a large part of the market and to force Saudi Arabia's competitors in OPE to accept greater
Oil market anarchy receded since 1986
As far as discipline is concerned, at least, it seems that the lesson has been learned, and the anarchy on the oil market has receded a bit since the price stabilization agreement in OPEC in December 1986. In other words, even if there were no longer any material hindrance to its oil exports, Iran could not afford to exceed by too much the oil production quota allotted to it If it did that, it would risk losing whatever gains it made through a drop in the price. That is because Saudi Arabia now refuses to try keep the prices stable by cutting back its own production and thereby absorbing the over-pumping of others. As for Iraq, it is already producing at maximum possible capacity.
In all, the ending of the Gulf conflict today would not have the dramatic impact on 22. Speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on July 12, 1987, quoted by A. Kapeliuk in Le 23 Press conferences on November 12 and 27. 24. In the initial months of the war, when Iraq had the upperhand and the Iranian left seemed to be the main candidate for taking power in Tehran. 25. Chapour Haghighat, op. cit., p.190
"Party of the Arab Socialist Rebirth," of populist-nationalist origins. Opposing fac27. The break with the Iraqi CP and the latter's liquidation in the country in 1978-79 did not mean that Bagdad went over to the American side, any more than the liquidation of the Tudeh party in 1983 meant that Tehran lined up with Washington. What is more, Iraq has maintained its close relations with the USSR, de28. The main part of this movement, notably the AlDawa party, has fought the "Communist and atheist" Ba'ath regime since its establishment in 1968, and in fact began its reactionary fight after the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958. Before getting Khomeini's sponsorship, this movement had been supported by the Shah himself, also a Shi'ite, although not a fundamen-
— unlike the majority of Iraqi leaders who are
29. Besides making political concessions in the Algiers accords of March 1975, Saddam Hussein, with a knife to his throat, also made a major concession to the Shah on drawing the boundary line between the two coun tries. In exchange, the Shah abandoned the Kurds, who suffered a severe defeat as a result.
30. In this framework, Saddam even cherished the
MIDDLE EAST the oil market that it might have had in 1981-85. This threat is still less because both belligerents have been acquiring means for exporting that are secure from military actions. Via pipelines linking its wells to the Mediterranean through Turkey and to the Red Sea through Saudi Arabia, Iraq now has an export capacity of about 2.5 million barrels a day, which equals its pre-war level.
Iran oil pipeline to USSR
As for Iran, it is building a pipeline linking its oil fields to the Gulf of Oman, beyond the Straits of Hormoz. Moreover, it is projecting a conversion of its natural gas pipeline to Baku in the USSR to transport oil, which would make it possible to export its entire quota safe from attacks by Iraqi planes. In addition, since it has a wider margin for increasing its production (which today is only 40 per cent of what it was under the Shah), Iran can always boost its income by exporting more oil at cut-rate prices, which is what it has been doing. It can always find buyers, since this a profitable business for all concerned (see footnote
For all these reasons, the operators on the world oil market have no reason to hope that the war will last in 1987. Along with this, interest is fading on the part of the arms merchants formerly involved in selling arms to the two belligerents. Since Irangate, the imperialist arms exporters can no longer count on their governments hypocritically looking the other way, at least as regards shipments to Iran. These traffickers have profited from the attitude of the imperialist states, but they do not decide their hope of grabbing Iran's Arab province, Khuzistan (Arabistan), the main oil-producing region of the former 31. This was the perspective adopted by the deceased Shah's son, Reza Pahlevi, who sent a telegram on September 25, 1980, of which the following is a sample: "The independence and territorial integrity of Iran take precedence over any dogmatic or political consideration. In this crucial moment for the life of our country, I would like to give my blood to safeguard the inviolability of our dear fatherland." 32. It might be added, as an additional touch to the image of Saddam Hussein as an American agent as propagated by the Khomeinites, that in decorated in Havana by Fidel Castro with the Order of 33. In May 1985, Prince Saud El Faysal, the Saudi minister of foreign affairs, paid a visit to Tehran, the first official visit by a Saudi representative since 1979. In December, his Iranian counterpart, Velayati, in tum 34. An Iraqi Communist opposition magazine published in London has printed edifying information on this subject. (Al-Ghad, No. 20, March 1987). This is an opportunity for a reminder that on the socio-economic level - the extent of the nationalizations (including of whose freedom is sacrosanct in Tehran), agrarian reform, the status of women and so on — the Iraqi regime is clearly in advance of that of the mullahs. With regard to repression, neither one has any reason to envy the other. But the Ba'ath dictatorship is monolithic, unlike the Islamic dictatorship, which is
Funer dising i hed by la capevery no whip up fanati. 17/
cism that the Ba'athists have never had. December 21, 1987 • International Viewpoint
MIDDLE EAST
As for Iraq, its prime suppliers - the
USSR and France — are worried about the big debt that it has accumulated to them, and they know that its arms import capacities are being exhausted by a saturation of heavy equipment on the one hand and a reduction of its available finance on the other.
This latter consideration is fundamental.
The Arab oil monarchies that have carried
Iraq financially over recent years cannot keep this up. The situation of the oil market (quotas and falling prices) has brought a decline of their oil revenues in monetary terms and still more in buying power, owing to the continuing fall of the dollar, in which oil transactions are carried out. This reality is beginning to weigh heavily, even on the promises of post-war deals that have so whetted the appetites of the industrial powers. This is why, from the standpoint of imperialist economic interests, it is high time to halt the mutual destruction of Iran and Iraq.
### Escalation of threats against the USA
On the level of strategic and political considerations, from Washington's standpoint, Shultz's statement that "the war must end now" is equally justified. Let us start with Iran. The main fiasco of Irangate was not the scandal that besmirched the White House but the erosion of the relations secretly built up between the Reagan administration and the very influential president of the Iranian parliament, Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani. The way in which the latter pulled back once the dirty business was discovered and started escalating threats against the American Great Satan has badly scalded the Devil's imps in Washington, even though they were well
This misadventure showed the US leaders that the relationship of forces in Tehran was more delicate than they thought. In fact, over and above the various and often contradictory interpretations of the factional struggle in the Iranian regime that can be found in the world press, it is possible to identify roughly two blocs in the conglomerate of socio-political cliques that today make up the "Islamic Republic" — blocs that are also very heterogeneous.
On the one side, there is the bloc whose leading figure is Rafsanjani. It includes the military, technocrats and other partisans of a "normal" bureaucratic capitalist state. On the other, there is the configuration of hard-nosed fundamentalists. It embraces a gamut from the reactionary far right of the regime grouped around the journal Ressalat — which responds with cries of outrage in the name of Islam against any limitation the freedom of commerce and is linked to the Central Council of Tehran Traders — to the regime's populist far left, the radical 18 line", who plead the cause of the montana: fundamentalists. "supporters of the Imam's International Viewpoint • December 21, 1987 feen (the disinherited), but whose radicalism is expressed mainly at the level of exporting the Islamic revolution. 35 The latter currents have a major base within the clergy and in the Pasdaran, the Revolutionary
Guards.
The fundamentalist configuration defends the specificity and continuity of the "revolutionary" institutions, including strict adherence to Islamic law and clerical power, in which pre-eminence is accorded to the faghih, (religious expert) and the maktabi (pious). In this regard, this config uration of currents supports the principle of velayat-e-faghih, the tutelage of the faghih, and therefore Ayatollah Khomeini's successor chosen according to this rule, Ayatollah Montazeri. On the other hand, this principle leaves no chance for Rafsanjani, who is not even an ayatollah, to assume legitimate supreme authority after Khomeini's death 3e
Need to free the Iranian army from the front
Because of its extreme heterogeneity, the fundamentalist configuration has no serious governmental perspective, other than to increase the present chaos. As a bloc op posed to Rafsanjani, however, it can cause him considerable trouble, as it has amply demonstrated. The Ressalat group and the "Imam's line" group have unanimously dethe parliamentary president's dealings with Washington. For an outcome favorable to the US to emerge from the Iranian cauldron - whether represented by Rafsanjani or by a military coup — the relationship of forces in Tehran has to be modified. The indispensable condition for this is for the Iranian army came back from
Before Rafsanjani, for similar reasons Bani Sadr counted on such an eventuality. Early in 1981, he confides, "negotiation [with Iraq] was on the point of succeeding on honorable terms. However, fearing a return of an army once again ready and the reinforcement of the prestige of the head of state [Bani Sadr], the clerics in the Islamic Revolutionary Party hostile to him torpedoed this possibility for peace." 37 This same scenario seems to be repeating itself in the context of a different relationship of forces for Rafsanjani, who with the US administration explored the conditions referred to before for settling the conflict. 38 In any case, Washington is now convinced of the need to end the war in order to enable its protégé, the former army of the Shah, to bring its weight to bear in Iranian politics.
These considerations are compounded by a crucial factor that loomed up at the end of 1986 and the beginning of 1987. Under the joint pressure of Saudi Arabia and the United States, the Bagdad regime had agreed to reduce tension in the waters of the ArabPersian Gulf after the flare-up in 1984. It rightly felt that it had been the dupe of the US machinations revealed by Irangate, and decided that it was not going to be fooled again. In autumn 1986, its airforce resumed intensive attacks against all the Iranian terminals, including those in the southern part of the Gulf. 39 This inevitably (as was in fact intended) provoked Iran to carry out its threats of reprisals, in the event against
In the absence of any maritime traffic 35. The latter current recently suffered a major setback with the execution of the chief of the "Bureau for Aiding Islamic Liberation Movements," Mehdi Hashemi, who, by the way, was responsible for spilling the beans about the wheeling and dealing between the Americans and Rafsanjani. 36. Hojatollah is a rank below that of ayatollah in the hierarchy of Shi'ite divines. 37. Paul Balta in Maghreb-Mashrek, No. 113, JulySeptember 1986. 38. The following is an excerpt from an interview given by Rafsanjani to Iranian TV in early September 1986: "Q. If Iraq were governed by a non-Ba'athist but American govemment, what would be Iran's position? A. We are fighting the Iraqi Ba'ath party and are not responsible for who governs Iraq...if the role of the Balath party is ended, many problems would be 39. Of course, the general aim of the Iraqi attacks is to obstruct its enemy's oil exports in order to cut this economic nerve of the Iranian war effort. On this subject, see my article in /V 125, September 14, 1987.
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protection of Saudi Arabia, Tehran turned its fury against the small emirate, thereby overstepping the two limits set by the imperialist powers for the Gulf war. "Freedom of navigation" in the Gulf for nonbelligerents was attacked, as well as the security of a protégé of imperialism, one moreover that had a great economic
Nonetheless, at first Washington did not respond favorably to Kuwait's request to the great powers for protection. To general surprise, it was the USSR that took the initiative of complying with it, placing three tankers flying the Soviet flag at the disposal of the emirate. In so doing, Moscow intended to show the Arab states, in the midst of the Irangate scandal, that the USSR was a more reliable ally than the Americans.
Thus, with very little enthusiasm, the United States was obliged to meet the challenge and agree to extend American registration to 11 Kuwaiti tankers. Paradoxically, it did not go into action and send an imposing military fleet to protect the American-flagged ships until after its frigate, the Stark, was attacked by the Iraqi airforce, an assault that does not seem to have been fortuitous. Involving itself hesitantly, the Reagan administration tried to get its European allies, who in turn dragged their feet, to participate in the operation. However, Iran's reaction in late July and early August greatly exceeded the two limits by laying mines in the international waters of the Gulf and organizing demonstrations of pilgrims in Mecca (Saudi Arabia), which were bloodily repressed. This finally convinced all the imperialist military powers to send battleships to escort merchant vessels.
On the basis of a wrong understanding of the Iran-Iraq conflict, some people have interpreted the deployment of the imperialist armada as representing an intention to intervene in the conflict in favor of Bagdad. In the present circumstances, there is no reason to expect such a step, or to think that the reasons the Western governments have cited for sending their fleets are only "pretexts." These reasons are quite sufficient from the imperialist point of view to justify forming the multinational naval force. In fact, what Washington and its allies want to do is force respect for "freedom of navigation" in the Gulf and to be ready to intervene in defence of the oil monarchies, if Iran were to attack their territories. 40
Even if Iraq were to falter militarily, and there was a real threat of the decisive Iranian military victory that the imperialists have every reason to fear, if only because it would destabilize the neighboring oil monarchies, it is highly unlikely that the imperialist forces would intervene within the over, discussed at the recent Arab summit in Amman (Jordan).
In fact, Washington is now making considerable exertions to force Iran, through a unanimous threat of sanctions by the great powers, to accept the UN Security Council resolution. But the American effort for the moment is running up against the shillyshallying of Moscow. On the one hand, the Kremlin is demanding the withdrawal of the imperialist fleets from the Gulf and adjacent waters. On the other, it is trying to score points with Iran, a state that Washand Moscow in turn have not stopped courting since 1979.
Any internationalist attitude toward the
Tasks for internationalists Gulf war today has to combine a response to its fundamental character with a reaction to conjunctural developments. The fundamental stance, of course, is to denounce the senseless butchery inflicted on the peoples of Iran and Iraq, to call for an uprising of the working people of both countries against their respective regimes, to call for the fraternization of the soldiers of both ar-
It is necessary to call for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire between the two warring states, and for the right of self-determination of the national minorities within each. That is the only proletarian attitude toward a war in which working people have nothing to gain, and have their
It is also necessary, of course, to denounce the role of the imperialist states that have cynically fostered this long carnage, as well as that of the bureaucratic "socialist" states that have made no small contriiNTERNATi&NAL MARXISLREVIEW vor. 1. Ma. 4 The significance of Gorbachov
MIDDLE EAST bution to the same end. It is necessary to denounce the arms sales to both belligerents, which will only increase the already staggering number of victims of the murderous folly of Saddam Hussein
In view of the intervention of the imperialist fleets, it is of course also necessary to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of foreign fleets from the Gulf and adjacent waters. This must, in particular, be the main axis of any campaign on the
Gulf war in the imperialist countries.
The governments of these countries have to be energetically denied the right to pose as "protectors of international navigation".
The hypocrisy of those who wax indignant about Iranian mining of the Gulf waters, but have never protested about American mining of Nicaraguan ports has to be
Any economic sanctions directed against the peoples of the region must be opposed
It is also necessary to oppose any embargo on arms shipments to Iran alone, and to demand a similar embargo on arms shipments to Iraq.* These must be the major themes in the response of internationalists to the situation in the Gulf. *
40. "The determination with which the Western powers are striving to protect these strategic waterways and keep the Gulf open may have less to do with their fear of an oil shortage than with their desire to keep the access routes open to a thriving export market, the only one in the third world today able to absorb $60,000 million worth of goods a year, of which half comes from the EEC and a third from the United States."
(Chapour Haghighat, op. cit., p.189.)
41. It is necessary to denounce the hypocrisy prevailing in a country such as France, where supplying shells to
Iran was the object of a "scandal," while the enormous shipments of arms of all types to Iraq are considered entirely "normal." THE WINTER 1987 issue of International Marxist Review contains reports from the 1987 International Executive Committee of the Fourth International: • The significance of Gorbachev
Ernest Mandel • Feminism in Latin America
Heather Dashner • First lessons of the Philippine revolution P Roman (with alternative positions by S. Brown, FIT, USA and Socialist Action, USA) • Revolutionary strategy in Western Europe
Antoine Artous & Daniel Bensaid
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from the populations of the region and from the USSR. For the eventuality of an Iraqi defeat, a much more realistic scenario is already being prepared - intervention in
Iraq by the Egyptian army. This was, more-
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19 December 21, 1987 • International Viewpoint
New challenges
CLAUDE GABRIEL and VINCENT KERMEL
KANAKY
ODAY, three years after the Ka-
T nak uprising of November 1984, the referendum in September and the new status worked out by the
Chirac government mark a turn in the situafor Kanak tion in the islands. The decentralization proposed by Bernard Pons [present minister for overseas territories] is a subtle comindependence fighters bination. It takes the regionalization in the Fabius plan [of the Socialist Party government ousted in the April 1986 elections] as its springboard. But the regional carve-up it calls for reflects other motives, and aims at putting Kanak elected officials in even more of a minority in the institutions.
The four new regions proposed correspond to the traditional patterns of uneven
SINCE ITS BOYCOTT of the November 1984 local elections, the Kanak independence movement has faced many tests. The final adoption of pro-independence positions by all components of the nationalist movement and the formation of the Kanak
Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) projected the struggle to the front of the political stage. At first caught by surprise by this radicalization, the French state subsequently had the time to gauge what was at stake and to adjust its policy accordingly.
From the springboard of the 1984-85 mobilizations, the FLNKS tried to stabilize the new relationship of forces by accepting the constitutional game and involving itself in the running of the "regions." Unfortunately, this tactic proved very dangerous. Today, the FLNKS leaders recognize that they are in a certain political and strategic impasse. French imperialism is now in a position to launch a counter-offensive. There is a now a real danger that the Kanak national movement will find itself isolated, as in the past. Nothing has changed in New Caledonia. The numerous constitutional reforms over the last few years have not even scratched the surface of the French-style apartheid system on the islands. Quite the contrary! The recent acquittal of "loyalists" who cold-bloodedly murdered a whole group of Kanak activists at Yengène is a reminder of this disagreeable reality [see box).
Likewise, the holding of of the Pacific Games in New Caledonia today - despite the FLNKS' call for a boycott
- shows that while some of the small states in the region may be ready to vote for motions in the UN, they are certainly not going to alienate Paris. The coming congress of the FNLKS should, in normal course, review all the tactics of the movement. Owing to confusion about the FNLKS' strategy, the solidarity movement in