The Gulf Shift in a Bloody Stalemate

By Michael S. Serrill.

Until a few weeks ago, the Fao Peninsula in southeastern Iraq was a sparsely inhabited outpost of little interest to anyone. By last week it had become the locus of some of the fiercest fighting in the Iran-Iraq war, as Iraqi troops mounted a blistering counterattack against dug-in Iranian invaders. By week's end Iran still held its grip on the peninsula. And neighboring Arab sheikdoms began to wonder whether Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had lost the initiative on the battlefield to the Iranian juggernaut.

More than a week after Iran's surprise Feb. 9 invasion, the initial progress of the Iraqi counteroffensive was painfully slow. Iraqi tanks on the open salt flats were hampered by the marshy, rain-soaked terrain. Pilots, seeking to avoid loss of aircraft, flew too high for effective bombing. Only with the aid of intense cover fire from helicopter gunships and rocket launchers, whose missiles threw up sheets of flame in the Iranian lines, did the Iraqis advance at all. Confronted by this "moving wall of fire," as one eyewitness described it, the 50,000-man invasion force took huge casualties but did not flee.

The Iraqis might have moved more rapidly if they were not concerned that the Iranian bridgehead at Fao was a feint to draw off troops from Basra, Iraq's second largest city. Across the nearby border, Iran has amassed 200,000 soldiers. To have the city cut off would be a stunning and perhaps fatal blow to the Baghdad government. As the battle at Fao raged, Iraqi fighters shot down an Iranian plane on a flight from Tehran to Ahvaz. All 46 aboard, including eight members of Iran's parliament, perished.

With its luck holding at Fao, Iran appeared for a time to have maintained its advantage in the prolonged war of attrition. Iran's population of 45 million is nearly three times larger than Iraq's, and its devoutly Islamic clerical leadership seems as willing as ever to absorb massive losses to destroy Saddam. If the stalemate that Iraq has achieved so far by its superiority in firepower begins to fade, both military and civilian morale are likely to sag. Observers believe that desertions within the Iraqi ranks are already on the rise. Saddam is reported to have recently decorated a father who shot his own son for refusing to fight.

The governments of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other countries that back Iraq have ample reason for concern. The Kuwait National Assembly issued a statement last week warning that the war threatens the stability of the entire region. A Saudi diplomat went so far as to declare that his country was in "imminent danger." While U.S. officials share the Gulf states' concern, State Department analysts are confident that Iraq's superior firepower will prevail. Still, the U.S. has warned Iran that any incursion into Kuwait would, in the words of one Administration official, "be regarded as directly affecting U.S. interests."

In Tehran, the Iranian government is ballyhooing the bravery and tenacity of its troops. In the U.N. Security Council last week, Iranian diplomats remained unmoved as members of the Arab League pleaded for Tehran to withdraw to its own borders and agree to a ceasefire. Iran's leaders insist that there will be no peace until Saddam's militant regime falls. The Iraqi army can be expected to do everything necessary to prevent such a scenario.

With reporting by Kathleen Evans/Basra and Dean Fischer/Kuwait