News Clips: Into the Gulf (1988)

Foreign Policy News Clips: Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Foreign Policy News Clips: 1979-1990, edited by Harry Kreisler

1/29/88: Into the Gulf

V. Allies and Arms Merchants

"In an avaricious and corrupt world of the international arms business, only perhaps the sale to Iran of weapons captured from it by Iraq (through middlemen) offers a more bizarre comment on the attempts of the international community to stem the flow of weapons to Iran.

"Efforts to curb the trade by Western governments have been rendered largely futile by the use of false and forged end-user certificates, falsified shipping documents and phoney invoices. The traffic has been made possible by legal loopholes, the laxity of official controls and the willingness of a score or more of third party entrepots to facilitate the movement of lethal equipment. The profit motive of companies desperate for orders has also helped to strengthen Iran's martial sinews."

Richard Johns, Financial Times, 11/13/87, p. 6

"Sweden and its biggest weapons maker, Nobel Industrier Sverige AB, are trying to come to grips with a paradox that troubles most of Europe.

"Most European countries want to maintain a strong, independent arms industry, but to do that they must export, and that means selling to combatants such as Iran and Iraq. In Sweden and some other countries, that has meant maneuvering around legislation that bars arms sales to countries at war or those likely to become involved in conflict."

Marcus Brauchli, Wall Street Journal, 12/10/87, p. 22

"Royal Ordnance, the recently privatized British munitions company, admitted last week that it had unwittingly helped Iran to construct an armaments factory capable of making rockets, mortars, shells and ammunition in massive quantities."

Sunday Times, 10/4/87, p. C12

"Officially, Belgium exported only two hunting rifles to Iran last year.

"Unofficially, critics say, the country is a busy supplier and entrepot for arms trade with Gulf countries, despite a law banning weapons sales to belligerent countries."

Barry James, International Herald Tribune, 12/11/87, p. 2

"News of collaboration between Egypt and Argentina in the development of a long-range rocket has fueled growing Western concern at the spread of missile technology in the Third World and its implications for nuclear weapon proliferation."

David Buchan and Tony Walker, Financial Times, 12/21/87, p. 1

"An unexpected but not illogical connection between European right-wing extremism and the Iranian revolution has been revealed in the disclosure that the Iranian embassy in France has contributed funds to a right wing Paris bookstore and Publisher."

William Pfaff, Sun, 8/20/87, p. 15A

"France's policy on arms sales abroad has always been a rigorously lucid one: the more the merrier, whether the government in charge is a conservative or leftist. The first tipoff in 1981 that the newly elected French Socialist government was going to be more French than Socialist came in fact when it decided to give jobs at home in defense industries a higher priority than striving for international harmony."

Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, 11/4/87, p. 2

"France's aims were to normalize its relations with Iran and to get its citizen-hostages back at an acceptable diplomatic, political, financial and moral cost. Iran's ambition was to show that it pays to negotiate with Teheran -- that it can deliver and prove to be both rational and realistic. Iran was willing to moderate its stance to send this signal to the West and to halt the diplomatic isolation that has grown in the aftermath of last month's Arab summit meeting in Jordan. In some ways the agreement with France may also translate as both parties' acknowledging the futility of their diplomatic skirmishes, as well as mutual fatigue."

Dominique Moisi, Los Angeles Times, 12/3/87, p. 11

"So far, the great powers seem to busy with other matters to have a strategy for dealing with or preventing an Iraqi military collapse. Neither warships in the gulf nor AWACS early warning aircraft will be able to stop an Iranian breakthrough on the ground.

"Only Turkey seems to be paying urgent attention. Some particularly interesting rumbles are coming from that direction. Highly placed members of the military are reported to be saying that the Turk's will not allow Iraqi's oil fields to fall into Iranian hands."

Eric Margolis, Los Angeles Times, 8/23/87, p. 12

"China and Iran have been quietly been growing closer together, the relationship could transform the political chessboard of Asia."

Martin Sieff, Washington Times, 10/6/87, p. 8A

"West Germany, under U.S. pressure to support the western allies' naval presence in the Persian Gulf, announced today that it will send three warships to the Mediterranean Sea to take over duties of NATO members' ships that have been diverted to the Middle East."

Robert J. McCartney, Washington Post, 10/9/87, p. A30

"The change is striking.

"When Washington sent warships to the Gulf two months to protect the shipping lanes there, European allies criticized the American action as unduly provocative. But when Belgian and Dutch ships soon arrive, the number of Western European warships in or around the Gulf will reach 35 -- nearly as many as the 38 now deployed by the United States Navy."

William Echikson, Christian Science Monitor, 10/7/87, p. 1

"For Israel, two developments from the deepening American involvement in the Gulf should be of interest.

"First, the increased American naval presence -- both within the Gulf and outside it -- is likely to be long-term. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. to deliver a decisive blow to Iran, similar to the April 1986 attack on Libya, that will allow the American fleet to disengage and return to its previous routine. An extended naval involvement in the Gulf region means that the Middle East will continue to be a strategic zone high on the list of priorities of American planners.... A second development of interest to Israel could be the deepening U.S.-Gulf Arab strategic cooperation. Since the beginning of the tanker war in 1984, and especially since the start of the reflagging and convoy operations this year, the U.S. has pressed the GCC states to provide increased use of their military facilities for U.S. forces."

Dore Gold, Jerusalem Post International, 10/31/87, p. 6

"Iraq's renewal of diplomatic relations with Egypt has reawakened the perennially simmering debate in Israeli policy-making circles around the Iran-Iraq war. In brief, the question since 1980 has been: Should Israel back Iraq or Iran, or neither? A corollary to this has been: Does Israel's interest lie in the open-ended continuation of the Gulf conflict or in its abrupt termination; and if in victory, for which side?"

Benny Morris, Jerusalem Post, 11/28/87, p. 11