Latest Iranian offensive The third major Iranian offensive aimed at Iraqi territory ended in mid-November, with an Iraqi counterattack. It was the last offensive the Iranians were able to launch before the onset of the winter, which in the area of the fighting means severe weather in the mountains and, in the lowlands, rains that turn this desert region into a sea of mud.
From now until the spring at least, any fighting on the front will take on a diffe-
In recent months, Iraqis have had total control of the air, as well as a superiority in tanks and artillery.
are reduced by bad weather conditions.
That sort of bloody advance through the mud and cold, however, could only be launched if the Iranian homefront is to accept the same sort of casualties in the new offensive phase of
The winter will be the test of that. But indications are that the Iranian people are not prepared for that kind of war, even if some sections of youth still have the old enthusiasm.
Since the failure of the first Iranian offensive against Iraqi territory in the summer, the nature of the Iranian operachanged fundamentally. offensive was a drive to win a decisive numbers of troops and volunteers to frontal assault. The subsequent offensives have been on a tactical scale involving regular-army forces. The reason forces suffered very heavy which apparently now represented too high a political cost for the regime.
It seems symptomatic that throughout the two-year campaign of large-scale warterritory, the government did not resort to general conscription, since it got large numbers of in the early phase of the November offensive, a decree was issued calling for conscription of all youth between 18 and 23. It is probably significant also that this decree was issued at the same time as the first victories won by the Iranian army since last summer.
The reports in the international press, and suggestions in the Iranian press well, indicate that the Iranian forces did not consolidate any gains inside Iraq. But they did penetrate a few miles across the border, unlike the previous offensive in October that was stopped cold at the frontier. This incursion threatened to cut off Iraqi troops still stationed across the Iranian border, forcing their evacuation.
Thus, the Iran government could claim both a successful invasion of Iraq and the liberation of Iranian territory. Since the every time Iranian troops cross the Iraqi border, the government-controlled press starts counting the miles still to go to Bagdad. Actually, the Iranian this time were pretty thin gruel to feed a propaganda campaign.
Since the Iraqi government has offered to withdraw its troops behind the old frontiers if the Iranian force stop their attempt to mount an invasion of Iraq, the continuation of the fighting can hardly be justified by the taking of the few areas inside Iran still in Iraqi hands. The only justification of the war that will stick with the Iranian people now is if it deals major blows to the Saddam regime and appears likely to bring it down.
The Khomeini regime's total control of the press and mass media and its con-
La number of transmission-belt mass organizations made it possible for it to make a lot of noise about the gains in the first part of the offensive.
quickly counter-productive if the claims are not confirmed, at least in the experience of the masses.
Corrupt and worldly journalists do not win wars, nor do mindless cheerleaders.
Saddam has the same sort of cheerleading setup, if its links with a mass revolutiomary process are much weaker and more remote. At the end of the present offensive, the Baghdad regime made corresponding hoopla about "annihilating" another Iranian assault, as they have done before with considerable justification in fact. On the other hand, it is harder to arouse enthusiasm about defensive victories, especially when the Iranian
The situation could change if the Khomeini regime is able to mount a mass attack during the winter, or if it can resume its tactical offensives in the spring and begin to wear down and break up the Iraqi defense and thereby demoralize the Iraqi homefront.
But for the moment, the political results of the war since the Iranian forces reached the Iraqi frontier remain clear. The population of Iraq has lined up behind the regime. The Iranian forces have shifted to a style of warfare that indicates they are not looking forward to any mass uprising against Saddam. Signs continue to appear that the Khomeini regime is running out of steam politically. example, the Kurdish resistance leaders say that the offensive the government launched against the Kurds after its victory in Khorramshahr has lost its push.
In these conditions, the political evolution in Iran in the next months will likely prove decisive for the outcome of the war, as well as for the more fundamental questions of the fate of the Iranian revolutionary process and the stability of the capitalist system in the region.
particularly important now to look at the way the Khomeini leadership gained an maintained its control. This issue of IV has an analysis of movement in Iran before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. In a coming issue, we will have articles that will go in detail into what has happened to the workers movement during the war itself.