bloodbath in Gulf war torical perspective whatever, finds itself obliged to maintain the image of being part of a new international rise of miliwould explain why it is prepared to take big risks. It would have
Although the Iranian offensive launched February 13 represents a major escalation of the Gulf war, the conflict still remained relatively contained after three weeks of heavy fighting
The Iraqi regime did not attempt, despite severe military pressure, to launch major air attacks on Iranian economic or population centers.
seemed to be content to use its capacity for strategic strikes to pressure and threaten rather than to try to deal deadly blows.
In the first phase of the İranian offensive, the Iraqis claimed to have launched a strike at the oil depot of Kharg Island, but this claim was quickly controverted by US intelligence. It may have been intended to test the reaction of Bagdad's cautious Western allies. In any case, the Iraqi threats were not enough to seriously worry the shipping insurance com-
Gerry FOLEY
The stepped-up Iranian military pressure on Iraq has been accompanied by more open US support for the Saddam
Hussein regime.
On December 19-20, US special envoy Donald H. Rumsfeld went to Bagdad for talks with Hussein. He was the highest ranking Washington official to visit the country in six years.
In early December a US delegation headed by deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Near Eastern and
South Asian Affairs, James Placke, and deputy assistant secretary of defense, Major General Edwin Tixier, visited Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms.
The State Department let it be known that these officials informed the local governments that the US considered an
Iranian victory contrary to its interests.
With the start of the offensive, US naval forces were sent to the area, and made some threatening gestures, warning
Iranian planes and ships to keep their dis-
British Prime Minister Thatcher has also hinted publicly that her government would support US military actions
On the other hand, the failure of the
Iraqi airforce to attempt major strikes against the Iranian oil centers suggests that Saddam's Western patrons do not want to see things go as far as that.
The shutoff of Iranian oil would cause real problems for Japan, and even US imports of Iranian oil have been growing.
In fact, the social and economic situation in Iran has been evolving in a favorable way for the imperialists for some time. And at this point, Washinton could not be sure what would happen if the
Khomeini regime were suddenly destabilized by the loss of its oil income.
There is no doubt that the Khomeini regime remains a serious annoyance and worry to the imperialist powers involved tibe Middle East.
However, in the long such a regime represents no fundaal danger to them. It has effectively halted and turned back the growth of independent mass organization in Iran and imposed a reactionary authoritarian re-
Moreover, such a regime cannot last. It offers little or nothing to the great masses of people and it blocks a "normal" life by international standards for the well-to-do. Only the traditional merchant class, the clergy and the layer living off the patronage of the Islamic regime really benefit. And these are all parasitic strata.
The combination of the atomization of the masses, the extreme backwardness of a good part of the country, and the oil income allow the Khomeini regime to maintain this setup for some time. If it breaks down slowly, as the imperialists have every right to expect, it will leave a deeper depoliticization of the masses in its wake than Nasserism did in Egypt.
However, if the oil industry is shattered, the whole thing could start to come apart in the most violent way, ushering in
Both the Soviet Union, which remains one of the main arms suppliers to Iraq, and the West have no interest in seeing the present equilibrium broken.
Unfortunately for the imperialists and the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic has been stepping up the pressure on Iraq to the brink of provoking dangerous reactions. Nonetheless, the Khomeini regime is still far from making the maximum
The realization that the Iranian government has not yet thrown everything into the fight is probably an important reason for the Iraqis also to restrain them-
Over the past year, signs of war weariness began to appear in the Iranian population and there were echoes in the press of a debate in the top circles over ending the war. But apparently those who favored a new push that could offer the Iranian people the prospect of a quick victorious conclusion to the war won out.
The fact is that since its inception, the Khomeini regime has presented itself in Iran and outside as part of an Islamic revolution extending from Nigeria and
It is true that the regime faces more and more internal discontent but hardly enough yet in itself to drive it to make desperate gambles. On the other hand, if it is the nature of its base that forces the regime to act in an adventurous way, that does not mean either that it will necessarily risk everything.
So far the equilibrium has not been broken. On the Iraqi side, the major escalation seems to be the resort to atrocious antipersonnel weapons such as poisonous gas. This seems now to have been what a Bagdad military spokesman meant early in the offensive when he warned "for every harmful insect, there is an insecticide."
The Islamic republican leaders threat to bomb all the Iraqi cities but the Shiite holy places makes it clear that their aim is to intimidate and subdue the Iraqi people and not to win them over.
It seems clear that the Iraqi troops have been fighting hard, since a lot of the fighting has been hand to hand and the Iranian dispatches themselves talk about continual counterattacks. Likewise, it seems clear that most sections of the Iraqi population are prepared to support the regime against the invaders. This includes the doubly oppressed Kurdish minority, about a sixth of the population, which has every reason to be frightened at the approach of the forces of one of the worst butchers of Kurds in history.
In these circumstances, even if the Iranian regime forced an Iraqi capitulation and installed a government to its liking, it would still pose no fundamental threat to imperialist interests.
Islamic Iran and any satellite regimes would be no less neocolonial and the populations it controlled would be atomized and prevented from fighting for their own interests.
Worrying as the last two years of the Gulf war have been for the imperialists, so far they have brought them only benefits. And there is little evidence so far that the Iranian offensive will change this.
The interest of the masses in both countries is to weaken both regimes and keep the imperialists out. To this end, they need the help of the international workers movement, socialists and humanitarians, who must expose the game the imperialists are playing in the region and their complicity in the atrocities of the two warring regimes.
If the imperialists are kept out, growing mass revulsion against this senseless slaughter in both countries will give genuine anti-imperialist forces better oppor tunities to disarm both murderous regimes.
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GULF WAR
Q. Have the youth organization amu the women's organization been diso ed?
A. No, they have not been dissole But many of their workers have been home, some with pay, some without pe In the case of the women's organization
The New Jewel Movement reorganizes many of their field people have been sem home. The administrative staff have been kept, but they have nothing to do. The same is true for the youth organization The Agency for Rural Transformation i also in limbo.
Q. What has happened to the trade
In mid-February, Kendrick Radix, former justice minister of the Grenadian revolutionary government visited France, Germany and Holland.
was invited by the West German Grenada solidarity committees to discuss perspectives for continuing support to the liberation struggle in Grenada.
He also had discussions with West German and French Socialist party leaders, officials of the French government and a number of left parties in France, including the Communist Party and Alain Krivine of the French section of the Fourth International.
During his trip to Western Europe, Radix also appealed for support for the Maurice Bishop memorial foundation and got promises of scholarships for Grenadian students from various universities.
He gave the following i