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

VII. Regional Politics

"An unusual blend of factors -- third world revolutionary zeal, the Shiite Islamic religion and Persian nationalism -- has helped Iran's defiant and often arrogant revolution maintain its momentum. And a crucial fourth variable, the seven-year war with Iraq, may have inadvertently helped secure its immediate future."

Robin Wright, Christian Science Monitor, 9/2/87, p. 1

"The potential for conflict in the Gulf between Iran and the United States may now depend on an escalating confrontation within Iran. In effect, the country's various military branches are fighting their own battle over dominance of Iran's military and political strategy.

"The clash pits the deeply politicized Revolutionary Guards against the conventional military -- the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The split is just one aspect of this theocracy's divisive power struggle."

Robin Wright, Christian Science Monitor, 8/26/87, p. 1

"On the first day of the Persian New Year, the Government usually gives its employees a small gift of gold. This year, according to a longtime resident, the bonus was granted in food rations instead of precious metal.

"It was a sign of the economic strain visible in Iran after seven years of war with Iraq. The economy is steadily deteriorating. And although daily life in the capital city is far from impossible, the economic effects of the costly war and the loss of oil revenues are imposing hardships on the people."

John H. Cushman Jr., New York Times, 8/19/87, p. 1

"The carnage at Mecca two weeks ago has been interpreted in the Western world as a clash between two branches of Islam and simultaneously, between two historic adversaries.

"In fact, it was a brief but vivid demonstration of much more complex and contemporary antagonism that is being felt throughout the Islamic world -- the struggle between the forces of conservatism and revolutionary change."

Shireen T. Hunter, Los Angeles Times, 8/19/87, p. 5

"Iran has both military and diplomatic objectives for its expected land offensive against Iraq. It not only seeks further advances into Iraqi territory, but also wants to put pressure on the United Nations Security Council to brand Iraq as the aggressor in the seven-year Gulf war."

Claude van England, Christian Science Monitor, 11/19/87, p. 12

"Iran could well be the greatest challenge to American foreign policy since the Soviet Union became a superpower.

"The problem is that the tools demanded in dealing with the Iranian revolution are in direct conflict with the post-World War II mindset of both American policy-makers and the American public."

Sandra Mackey, Atlanta Constitution, 8/21/87, p. 23

"Is Iran planning to provide itself with a nuclear capability and does it have the resources to do so? Long considered absurd, that probability with its strategic implications is no longer making specialists smile. The view of most experts was summed up by a senior French employee: 'It's rather worrying in the long term.'"

Veronique Maurus, Manchester Guardian Weekly, 10/25/87, p. 11

"Like a boxer punch-drunk after countless grueling rounds, this month Iraq is bracing itself for another big Iranian land offensive in the seven-year-old Gulf war.

"For several weeks, all the familiar signs of mass mobilization in Iran -- the calls to the faithful, the training exercises, the clearing of hospitals for the wounded -- have been heard on the air waves and seen on satellite photographs."

Andrew Gowers, Financial Times, 12/14/87, p. 18

"At first glance, a visitor to Baghdad would hardly know that Iraq had been at war with the Arabs' ancient enemy, the Persians of Iran, for 6 1/2 years."

Ed Blanche, Los Angeles Times, 11/15/87, p. 6

"At a time when Iraq is bracing for a large-scale Iranian offensive, the Iraqi government is having to devote precious military resources to tackling a heightened security threat from its Kurdish minority."

Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, 11/8/86, p. A13

"Western military experts, who have seen only satellite photographs, say they believe Iraq's defenses along its 733-mile war front with Iran are an impressive feat of military engineering. At ground level, they are equally impressive."

Charles Mohr, New York Times, 10/12/86, p. 3

"A U.S. decision to return its ambassador to Syria after an absence of 11 months marks a symbolic, yet important, turning point in the relations of the two countries, according to Western diplomats and Arab officials in the Middle East."

Charles P. Wallace, Los Angeles Times, 8/21/87, p. 12

"Despite two dramatic displays of military power in recent weeks, the U.S. Navy's deployment in the Persian Gulf has failed to convince a number of Arab leaders that the American military presence here will prevent what the Arab states fear most -- an Iranian victory in the land war against Iraq.

"According to Arab officials and advisers to the governments on this side of the waterway, the inescapable concern controlling Arab attitudes toward the United States is Iran's enduring, belligerent presence and the potential threat that it will pose when the western fleets inevitably depart or contract."

Patrick E. Tyler, Washington Post, 10/22/87, p. 1

"The thinking Kuwaiti is beginning to realize that the past is gone, that something is in the wind with major political consequences,' one Western diplomat said. Only a handful have expressed a desire to emigrate, but many others are clearly shaken by the latest turn of events in the Persian Gulf."

Charles P. Wallace, Los Angeles Times, 11/2/87, p. 1

"The widening war in the Persian Gulf is stirring new concern in Pakistan that its already disaffected Shiite Moslem minority could become increasingly inflamed and likely to clash with the country's Sunni Moslem majority."

Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 9/10/87, p. 4

"Saudi Arabia is sending home an estimated 10,000 elite Pakistani troops who have provided a little known but significant element of the desert kingdom's defense force for much of this decade."

Richard M. Weintraub, Washington Post, 11/28/87, p. 1

"Some senior Administration officials have expressed irritation over what they call Pakistan's tilt toward Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, manifested most recently in criticism of the Reagan Administration's military buildup in the Persian Gulf without condemnation of Iranian attacks on shipping."

Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, 11/1/87, p. 26