TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/82/82quest

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                ₧z╦ü╡4                                                ╚««A Quest for Vengeance

July 26, 1982

Khomeini's legions invade Iraq and threaten the whole Arab world

"Your Iranian brothers, in order to defend their country and push
back the attacks on the enemy of Islam, have been forced to cross
over into Iraq to save the oppressed Iraqi people.  Rise up and
install the Islamic government that you want!"  So declared Iran's
Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini last week as he launched his army along
the Shatt al Arab waterway in a huge invasion of Iraq.  For the first
time in the 22 months since Iraq initially attacked Iran, heavy
fighting was taking place on Iraqi territory.  Khomeini's objective
was not just the overthrow of his bitter enemy, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein, but the creation of the Iraqi Islamic Republic
modeled on Iran's own.  To moderate rulers throughout the Arab world,
the threat was even more awesome:  a rising wave of Islamic
fundamentalism, reinforced by an Iranian victory in Iraq, that could
topple Arab governments from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean
Sea.

After 48 hours of rising artillery exchanges, the Iranian high
command last Tuesday night broadcast a coded message:  Ya Saheb ez-
Zaman!  Ya Saheb ez-Zaman!"  (Translation:  Thou absent Imam!)  That
was the order for as many as 100,000 soldiers and militiamen to begin
the march toward Basra, Iraq's second largest city and the nerve
center of its oil-producing region, and to engage an Iraqi army of
about the same size.  "Operation Ramadan" had begun.  The first
Iranian goal appeared to be the capture of Basra and much of southern
Iraq, from which the invaders could either press on to Baghdad, the
Iraqi capital 280 miles to the northwest, or pin down Iraqi divisions
while a second invasion force was launched directly at Baghdad, which
is only about 75 miles from the border.

Within 24 hours the two armies were locked in what was believed to be
one of the biggest land battles since World War II.  In the intense
fighting that followed, thousands were killed and scores of tanks
were destroyed as the Iraqis fought off the first wave of invaders.
Said an Iranian officer of the packed battle scene:  "Even if you
shoot with your eyes closed, you are bound to hit someone."  It was
also a time of fervor and of exaggerated claims.  In Tehran, masses
of Khomeini supporters ignored the wail of air-raid sirens and
marched through the capital in support of their leader.  The Iranians
announced they had destroyed two Iraqi divisions, but by the end of
the week their offensive appeared to have stalled, leading the Iraqis
to proclaim a "great victory."  Meanwhile there were numerous
indications that Khomeini's forces were preparing another major
attack, which would probably take place some time this week.

With the outbreak of fighting on Iraqi territory, one of the most
feared of Middle East scenarios was unfolding.  The Arab world was
already in disarray over Israel's invasion of Lebanon seven weeks ago
in an attempt to dislodge the Palestine Liberation Organization.
With no end to the siege of West Beirut in sight (see following story),
another non-Arab country, Iran, had invaded Arab territory and seemed,
moreover, to have a better-than-even change of unseating the ruling
government.  At immediate risk were the moderate, hereditary regimes of
Saudi Arabia and the rest of the gulf.  But the Ayatullah Khomeini's
vow was even more explosive:  to press on to Jerusalem, to liberate the
Holy City and overwhelm all enemies of Islam.

More serious still, the pressures induced by the wars in the Middle
East have drawn the U.S. and Soviet Union into dangerously
confrontational positions, for the struggles involve not only the
warring armies of Islam but future control over the Persian Gulf and
largest known petroleum reserves on earth.  The worst worries of the
U.S. and of the moderate Arab leaders presuppose an Iraqi defeat by
the Iranian invaders.  But the outcome of the war is not clear by any
means.  The Iraqis appeared by week's end to have blunted the initial
Iranian attack on Basra and driven the Iranians back almost to the
border.  The Iraqis were fighting harder in defense of their country
than they had fought during their long, misguided adventure in Iran.
U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that Iraqi MiG-21s had staged an
air attack on the Iranian petroleum facilities at Kharg Island.
Damage was said to be light, but the incident was bound to have a
discouraging effect on tankers bound for the island.

"Iraq wanted peace," declared Iraq's Saddam, triumphant for the
moment and ignoring the fact that he had sent his army into Iran in
the first place.  On Friday, two days after the initial Iranian
attack had subsided, TIME Photographer Peter Jordan visited the
battlefield and found it bare except for hundreds of bloating bodies,
burned-out tanks and artillery pieces, and a handful of Iraqi
soldiers.  Reported Jordan, the only Western newsman on the scent:
"The stench from the bodies was so intolerable that the Iraqis
stuffed tissues or cotton into their nostrils.  Among the Iranian
prisoners were children, boys of twelve and 13, who wore the colors
of the Revolutionary Guards.  When the Iranians, who had fought their
way to within eight miles of Basra, realized that they were
surrounded on three sides by Iraqi forces, they reportedly broke
ranks in panic.  Some surrendered, later acknowledging to
interrogators that they had been assured by their superiors that
their victories inside Iran last spring would lead to further
triumphs once they had entered Iraq."  That may yet prove to be true,
but it did not work out that way las week.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials angrily denied that they had become this
aggressors in the war.  Declared Iran's United National Ambassador
Said Rajaie-Khorasani to TIME Correspondent Raji Samghabadi:  "The
Saddam Hussein regime has inflicted stupendous losses of life and
property on us.  It has done everything within its power to humiliate
the Islamic Republic.  Now we are expected to give the war criminals
a chance to rebuild their forces and spring at our throat again.
Sorry, no deal."

For weeks the revolutionary government in Iran had debated how far
the country should go in "punishing" Saddam Hussein.  Iranian
moderates, led by Majlis Speaker Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, suggested
that the $150 billion in reparations demanded of Iraq by President
Ali Khamenei, a hard-liner, was negotiable.  But the fanatics wanted
nothing less than the destruction of Iraq's Baath Party and the
establishment of an Islamic republic in Baghdad.

Until June 21, Khomeini deliberately remained neutral in the debate,
allowing subordinates ample time to state their positions.  Then,
characteristically, he made a speech fully supporting, and indeed
surpassing, the positions of the extremists.  Khomeini even
criticized some of his own aids for paying more attention to the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon than to the Iran-Iraq war.  "We shall get
to Lebanon, and to Jerusalem, through Iraq," said Khomeini, but
"first we have to defeat this sinister [Baath] party."

Khomeini's "Iraq first" policy quickly gained the support of Iran's
two Arab allies, Syria and Libya, and soon Iran's Revolutionary
Guards command was issuing a call for volunteers.  Syria's position
is based on its longstanding hatred of Saddam and the enmity between
the Iraqi and Syrian branches of the Baath Party.  Syria had sided
with Iran while Iraqi forces were on Iranian soil, but its continued
support of Iran, now that Khomeini's forces have invaded Arab Iraq,
is a somewhat more awkward position for Syria to be taking.  Syria
has also been embarrassed by recent events in Lebanon.  It has
refused to offer temporary sanctuary to the leadership and guerrillas
of the P.L.O., possibly because it is holding out for a better deal
from the Saudis and the other oil-rich Arabs who would finance such a
solution to the problem of the trapped P.L.O. forces.  Furthermore,
in battles with the Israelis last month, Syria lost at least 86 MiG
aircraft.  One apparent reason:  Syria lacks skilled fighter pilots,
partly because it prefers that its new pilots be members of the
minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam to which
President Hafez Assad belongs.

Like Assad, Saddam Hussein is a member of a minority group within his
own nation.  He is a Sunni Muslim in a country whose population of 14
million is 55% Shi'ite.  Iran has assumed that this fact alone makes
Saddam vulnerable to being overthrown, but that reasoning may not be
correct.  Saddam has created a cult of personality around himself.
Today his fact can be seen everywhere in his capital city, in a wide
variety of sizes and demeanors.  A huge painting on Rashid Street,
for example, shows him in uniform, leading a tank assault, while in
the background swirls a visionary horse charge by the Iraqi
cavalrymen who routed a Persian invasion in the 9th century.  Though
outnumbered ten to one, the horsemen were victorious in an epic
three-day battle, and saved Iraq.

Not unlike the Shah of Iran, Saddam has been devoting enormous effort
and expense toward turning his backward country into a modern state.
In addition, he has tried to make the Shi'ite community feel that it
is being well taken care of.  Italian and Korean workmen are laying
marble in the inner courtyards of the principal shrines in the sacred
Shi'ite cities of Najaf and Karbala; gold leaf is being splashed over
mosques throughout the country.  The poorer Shi'ite communities that
once spawned opposition to the Baathist regime now have new schools,
hospitals, roads, sewers, electricity and water lines.  Even during
the months of war, while many public works activities were postponed
(and while the gulf states were contributing at least $20 billion to
the Iraqi war chest), the projects in the Shi'ite areas continued.
Whether Saddam has succeeded in gaining the loyalty of Iraq's Shi'ite
community is a question that will probably be answered all too
obviously within the next few weeks.

For the U.S., the crisis had been looming since the fall of the Shah
in 1979.  U.S. strategists, their Iran policy paralyzed, were reduced
to speculating that the Ayatullah, who is now 82 and ailing, would
soon die or become incapacitated, and that his fanatical regime might
then collapse.  The U.S. considered seeking closed ties with Saddam,
a longtime ally of the Soviet Union who suddenly was sending signals
that he was trying to extricate his country from the Soviet orbit.
But once the U.S. hostages were released by Iranian authorities on
Jan. 20, 1981, the new Reagan Administration decided to do nothing
and hope for the best in Iran.  The war between Iran and Iraq, which
Saddam had launched in September 1980 in an effort to make Iraq the
prominent power in the gulf, sputtered along inconclusively, a
problem for the Iranians but a matter of little concern to the U.S.

But late last year the gulf war suddenly heated up again, culminating
in the battle of Khorramshahr two months ago.  There, after a few
hours of combat, the Iranians drove the discouraged Iraqis back
across the western shore of the Shatt.  In June, Saddam declared a
unilateral cease-fire, withdrew the last of his forces from Iran and
asked for peace.  Absolutely not!  cried the old Ayatullah.  Khomeini
responded with a set of demands that Saddam could not accept.
Besides calling for the resignation of Saddam and the overthrow of
the ruling Baath Party, Khomeini declared that the Iranian armed
forces would seek to enable the people of Iraq to form "a government
of their own choice--that, an Islamic government."  When Iraq's
friends in the gulf suggested that he settle for $50 billion in
reparations, which they promised to raise, Khomeini turned down the
offer as insufficient.  "Why should he accept $50 billion?" an
Egyptian official commented last week after the fighting shifted to
Iraqi territory.  "He thinks he can have it all."

For the past year the Khomeini government has been gaining increasing
support from the Soviet Union and its allies, including North Korea,
Cuba and East Germany.  Most helpful, perhaps, has been Syria, an
Arab neighbor with a long history of hostility toward Iraq.  Through
Syria, Iran received large shipments of Soviet weaponry, including
130-mm artillery pieces, antiaircraft guns and tank engines.  In the
meantime, Washington remained silent while Israel sold Iran an
estimated $120 million worth of military hardware, including spare
parts and ammunition for Iran's American-made equipment, which had
been acquired during the rule of the Shah.  Nor did the U.S. openly
complain that the Israelis were sending experts to Tehran to help the
Iranians use their American-made weapons.

With apparent shortsightedness, the government of Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin was supporting Iran in order to cause trouble
for Saddam, whom it has regarded as its primary enemy in the Arab
world.  Thus the ancient adage "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
which guides the convoluted politics of so many nations in the Middle
East, had reached its ultimate absurdity in revolutionary Iran:  both
the Soviet Union and a U.S. ally were contributing to the Ayatullah's
war machine.

From the beginning, the Soviets have moved with extreme caution in
Iran.  They ordered the local Tudeh (Communist) Party to infiltrate
organizations of clerical power but to avoid any actions that could
arouse official suspicion.  Meanwhile, Moscow provided Iran with
increasing amounts of military and economic aid, though always by
proxy.  Indeed, to hedge their bets, the Soviets continued giving
token support to Iraq, with which they have had a friendship treaty
since 1960 and whose army they have largely supplied.

As an indication of how secure the Iranians have become about their
relations with the Soviets, Iran decided several weeks ago to move
eight divisions away from its border with the Soviet Union in order
to relocate those forces along Iran's border with Iraq.  It was the
first time since the end of World War II, when the Soviets occupied
Iran's northern province of Azerbaijan, that the Iranians had left
their 1,090-mile border with the Soviet Union virtually unguarded.
When King Hussein of Jordan visited Moscow late last month, Soviet
Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told him that when the Iranian
invasion of Iraq began, Moscow would be supporting Iran.  It was the
Soviet official's unsubtle way of hinting to Hussein that even though
Jordan was Iraq's most faithful ally, the King would do well to
remain on the sidelines of the forthcoming battle.

Within the U.S. foreign policy establishment, there is disagreement
about the degree of Soviet involvement in Iran.  Soviet Expert Helmut
Sonnenfeldt, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, believes
the Soviets cooled on Saddam because he wanted unconditional support
from Moscow for whatever he proposed to do against Israel or Iran,
and was angry when he failed to obtain it.  Moreover, Sonnenfeldt
says, the Soviets were tilting increasingly toward Iran after the
fall of the Shah, because they regarded Iran as a greater strategic
prize.  William Quandt, a former National Security Council official
now at Brookings, doubts that the Soviets played a significant role
in Iran's decision to invade Iraq.  Says he:  "Khomeini is a genuine
revolutionary, and he would like to export his revolution.  He is
also a man who personalizes his quarrels--he 'brought down the Shah,'
he 'brought down Jimmy Carter,' and he wants to bring down Saddam
Hussein.  If he could bring into power an Islamic regime in Iraq, so
much the better."

In early June, the Soviet Union urged Iran to make peace with Iraq
under some of the terms Iran had demanded but with "modifications."
The Soviets even proposed that the two countries join them in
establishing an "anti-imperialist front."  Had the Soviets brought
about a peace agreement, it would have enabled them to retain close
relations with both Iran and Iraq, and would have greatly bolstered
their position in the region.  Khomeini said no.  On June 21, he made
a speech in which he not only rebuffed Moscow's peacemaking efforts
but denounced the whole Soviet role in the Middle East.  Said
Khomeini:  "The Americans fear the Soviet Union might do this or that
in the region if we defeat Iraq.  The Soviet Union can do nothing.
It has proved to be capable of nothing."  Have put the Soviets in
their place.  Khomeini continued to accept support from them, just as
he has accepted clandestine help from the Israelis.

Iran's plan to attack Iraq, with Soviet acquiescence, was in the
formative stages when the Israelis launched their invasion of
Lebanon.  The Israelis gambled that with a quick strike at their
northern neighbor's heartland, they could impose a solution of sorts
on their 34-year-old conflict with the Palestinian Arabs.  They
bought Defense Minister Ariel Sharon's argument that such an assault
could free northern Israel from occasional P.L.O. attacks, break the
organization's leadership and perhaps even create pressure on the
Palestinians to make Jordan their homeland.  If Syria attacked
Israel's invasion force, so much the better, because Sharon was
prepared to carry his anti-Palestinian offensive all the way to the
Syrian capital, Damascus.

Their campaign in Lebanon has generally produced the results the
Israelis were seeking, but it has spilled enough blood to worry the
Reagan Administration and its allies.  The spectacle has been
observed by 100 million or more citizens of the Arab would on their
TV sets:  the siege of Beirut, the brutality of the ceasefire
violations, the Beirut negotiations leading toward the Israeli goal
of expelling the P.L.O. fighting force from Lebanon.  Even Arabs with
the highest stakes in the gulf war,the emirs of Kuwait and princes of
Saudi Arabia, have been traumatized and distracted from their more
immediate problems by the war in Lebanon.  They have watched the
first siege of an Arab capital by an Israeli army, and they have
become alarmed at the emotions aroused in their own countries.

For the Soviets, according to most Western analysts, the long-term
goal is control of Middle East oil.  In Afghanistan, they have built
a new airfield in the corner of the country closest to the mouth of
the Persian Gulf.  In the Horn of Africa last week, Soviet-back
Ethiopia attacked its traditional enemy next door, Somalia, probably
with the help of Cuban and East German advisers.  If the Ethiopians
should defeat Somalia, they and their Soviet allies would gain a
position of influence over a country that is strategically located at
the southern end of the Red Sea.  Moscow could then, if it wished,
call South Yemeni troops back into combat with Oman, which, like
Somalia, is scheduled to provide facilities for the U.S. Rapid
Deployment Force.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has sold Iraq $500 million worth of
arms and ammunition since the Iran-Iraq war began.  Nonetheless,
Mubarak fears that Saddam may not be able to stand up to the
Ayatullah's army and Revolutionary Guards for long.  Iran is four
times the size of Iraq and has a population that is three times as
large.  The Egyptian government believes that the fighting may be
over by September at the latest.  And after that?  Would Khomeini
rules Iraq as the reigning ayatullah, as he does Iran, or through a
Shi'ite-dominated political mechanism more closely attuned to the
Arab traditions of Iraq?

That question matters less to Arab leaders than the fact that
Khomeini's forces are already plotting the overthrow of every
government in the gulf.  TIME has learned that a new corps of
revolutionaries is being trained under the name of the Popular Front
for the Liberation of the Gulf.  The group is led by a noted
ayatullah operating out of Tehran.  Recruits are being trained in
camps in South Yemen and Libya and in a new facility recently opened
for a class of 600 in northwestern Iran.  The initial graduates began
to filter into the gulf states two year ago.  Some of them bungled
their first coup attempt last December, when Bahrain police arrested
80 terrorists trained and armed by Iran for the purpose of
overthrowing the government of Sheik Isa Al-Khalifa.  Other
subversive activity in the gulf sponsored by Iran is known to be
under way.

One plan being discussed among Iraq's Arab allied for countering
subversive activity calls for the establishment of an Arab rapid
deployment force.  The proposal would involve an Egyptian contingent
of several divisions and would perhaps be deployed along the borders
of Iraq in Kuwait and in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.  As a
down payment, Egypt would insist on the restoration of diplomatic
relations that were broken off by most of the gulf states following
the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.  The Egyptians
would also require ample supplies of U.S. equipment and strong
American support, including air force and naval assistance if
necessary.

But Mubarak must be cautious about committing his troops to foreign
service.  After the late Anwar Sadat made his historic trip to
Jerusalem in 1977, with the full support of his military commanders,
they told him that in the future they would fight only for Egypt.
They did not want to right for Palestinians or for the antiroyalists
in the civil war in Yemen.  Egypt's commanders were prepared to
accept peace with Israel, provided that they would never again have
to send Egyptian troops to fight outside their own country.

Mubarak knows it could be a mistake for him to send troops to assist
Saddam in Iraq.  Such a move not only might antagonize Egypt's
generals, but would also anger the Islamic fundamentalists in the
country.  It was the fundamentalists who assassinated President Sadat
last October, and they remain a threat in spite of Mubarak's
crackdowns.  Nonetheless Mubarak is prepared to offer Egyptian troops
to defend Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other gulf states,under the
terms of the 30-year-old Joint Arab Defense Pact, if the arrangement
is approved by the states involved and supported militarily by the
U.S.  Considering Mubarak's reluctance to send forces anywhere
outside Egypt, the current discussion of such a mission is an
indication of how worried he is about the spread of Islamic
revolution.

Even some of Khomeini's friends are upset about the Iranian invasion
of Iraq.  The P.L.O., which has generally supported Khomeini out of
deference to Syria, is furious with the Iranians for launching an
invasion that can only divert attention from the Palestinians' plight
in Lebanon.  Arab and Western diplomats feared that the Iranian
attack would enable Israel to move briskly into West Beirut to settle
the problem of the stubborn P.L.O.  Not that such an argument would
carry much weight with the ruler of Iran, which has once more become
the primary power in the gulf.  If the Palestinians want Jerusalem as
the capital of a state of their own, Khomeini wants it as the goal of
a holy crusade.

Officially, Iranians quarrel with the notion that they are committed
to the overthrow of Arab governments.  They also deny that they have
fallen under the influence of the Soviet Union.  As Iran's Ambassador
to the U.N., Rajaie Khorasani, said last week, "We have proved that a
nation armed with the ideology of Islam need not choose between the
superpowers but can stand on its own feet."  It is true that a wave
of Islamic revolutionary fervor moving across the Middle East would
not necessarily serve the interests of the Soviet Union any more than
it would help the West.  But since it would damage existing ties of
all kinds, cultural as well as political and economic, it would have
a great impact on the Arab world's links with the West than on those
with the Soviet Union and its allies.

Still to be determined is the effect of the gulf war on world oil
prices and markets.  Taken together, Iran and Iraq have about half
the oil reserves and export capacity of Saudi Arabia, the world
leader.  In recent months, Iran's refusal to abide by production
ceilings set by the Organizations of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries has helped keep world prices down as global output
continued to exceed demand.  There was no evidence last week that
either prices or supplies had yet been affected by the fighting in
Iraq.

But the petroleum industries of both countries, and particularly
Iraq, are quite vulnerable.  After its attack on Iran's Kharg Island
facilities last week, Iraq reportedly warned Japan that its tankers
should stop using the island.  If Iran decides to retaliate in kind,
it would probably aim first at the Iraq-Turkey pipeline, the only
export route now available for Iraqi oil, and at the scattered fields
to the west of Basra.  A determined Iran could take Iraq out of the
oil business for as long as two years.  But even if warfare should
paralyze the oil industries of Iran, Iraq and neighboring Kuwait,
thereby removing about 4 million bbl. per day from world oil markets,
the loss could be overcome by Saudi Arabia, which could increase
production from its current 6.5 million to 10.5 million bbl. per day.

What seems indisputable, as the two Middle East wars continue, is
that they are costing the U.S. dearly in prestige.  Arab rulers who
privately would welcome American assistance at the moment fear that
they would only inflict damage on their regimes by appearing to be in
league with the U.S.  The Reagan Administration last week offered to
hold joint military exercises with Saudi Arabia and any other gulf
states that might feel threatened by the Iran-Iraq conflict, but so
far there have been no takers.  The most critical problem afflicting
U.S.-Arab relations at the moment stems from the link that many Arabs
believe exists between the U.S. and Israel's operation in Lebanon.
But the Arabs also deeply resent the fact that the Israelis chose to
give military support to Khomeini's Iran.  The Israelis respond that
the aid effort was based on their traditional enmity toward Iraq.
They claim their aid was halted several months ago, long before the
Iranian invasion of Iraq began.  Other sources say that some Israeli
aid, including the training of Iranian military personnel in the use
of American arms, is continuing.

What the Reagan Administration still needs most, after 18 months in
office, is a strong policy for the Middle East.  Another central
problem has been its unwillingness to say in public what it has been
telling the Israelis in private.  According to most observers, the
U.S. opposed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, though this did not
have any effect on the Israeli government.  But by failing to state
its position forcefully, the Administration appeared to the Arab
states to be a silent partner in the attack or at the very least an
overly indulgent ally.  Until the U.S. can distinguish openly between
American policy and Israeli policy, and rein in some of the more
expansionist tendencies of the Begin government, it cannot make real
headway in improving its relations with the Arab world.

Theoretically, the Administration was correct to hew a neutral line
between Iran and Ira, but changing circumstances call for a defter
touch than the U.S. has displayed thus far.  Says Richard Helms, a
former U.S. Ambassador to Iran (and onetime head of the Central
Intelligence Agency):  "Now is the time to come to the aid of our
moderate Arab friends.  We shouldn't tilt toward Iraq so much that we
throw Iran into the arms of the Soviets, but we can tilt a little
bit, enough to encourage the Saudis and some of the others to
conclude that we are still their friends and would come to their
rescue if worse comes to worse."

The first step for the U.S. is to deal forthrightly with the
Palestinian question.  This, in fact, is exactly what Secretary of
State George Shultz promised at his confirmation hearing last week.
The Lebanese crisis had made it "painfully and totally clear," Shultz
told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that the "legitimate
needs and problems" of the Palestinian people must be resolved.  He
might well have added that the West's failure to solve the
Palestinian problem has had a lot to do with giving Islamic
fundamentalism its anti-Western basis of action.  The more ambitious
Khomeini's forces become, and the more expansionist his goals in the
name of Islam, the more vital it is that the U.S. have a Middle East
policy that is perceived to be consistent and fair by all moderate
parties in the Arab world.

--By William E. Smith.
  Reported by Murray J. Gart/Middle East and Dean Brelis/Baghdad


Shi'ites:  A Feared Minority

With the death of the Prophet Muhammad in A.D. 643, the conflicts
that led to the great division of Islam between Sunnis and Shi'ites
began.  Today the Sunnis account for more than 80% of the world's
750 million Muslims, but the Shi'ites, who predominate in Iran, Iraq
and Bahrain and who have unstable minorities in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon
and Kuwait, generate fears far out of proportion to their numbers.

The Shi'ites believe that the leadership of Islam should have
remained in the Prophet's family.  The Sunnis prefer to make such
decisions by consensus.  The Shi'ites supported Muhammad's cousin and
son-in-law Ali, who became the fourth Caliph, or successor, before
his assassination in 661.  According to the Shi'ites.  Ali and his
descendants were Imams, divinely guided leaders and mediators between
God and man.  The last of twelve Imams disappeared in 940, and is
believed to be in hiding, awaiting the right moment to re-emerge and
establish a purified Islamic government of justice.

Because of the violent deaths of Ali and his son Husain, Shi'ites,
unlike Sunnis, emphasize martyrdom and atonement.  Every year the
Shi'ites mourn Husain's death with public re-enactments of the
occurrence and displays of self-flagellation.  The same passion
seems to have motivated hundreds of thousands of unarmed Iranians who
faced down the Shah's troops in the streets of Tehran in 1978 and
1979.  Khomeini, no doubt, is counting on that fervor to propel the
Iranian legions that stormed across the Iraqi border last week.


Personal Power, Personal Hate

The decision to attack Iraq last week was taken personally by
Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini.  Despite his advanced age (82) and frail
health, the religious leader has relinquished none of the levers of
power that he grasped upon his triumphal return to Tehran 3 1/2 year
ago.  Under Iran's Islamic Republican constitution, Khomeini's role
as Velayat-e-Faqih, or religious guardian, gives him more power than
either President Seyed Ali Khamene'i or Prime Minister Mir-Hossein
Moussavi, and he uses it to shape all major strategies, domestic as
well as foreign.  He also remains the final arbiter of all policy and
personality disputes.

Almost every day, government officials, military officers, clerics
and foreign representatives travel to Khomeini's modest home in
Jamaran, a village north of Tehran.  Some have been summoned to brief
the Ayatullah on everything from logistic problems on the Iraqi front
to statistics on mosque attendance.  Others who wish to see Khomeini
must submit a request through a cleric who acts as an appointments
secretary; Khomeini receives only a small proportion of those seeking
an audience.  Sometimes he will make an appearance at the mosque
adjacent to his house.  There he receives petitions from the faithful
and obeisance from his followers.  Khomeini uses these occasions to
speak out on religious and political subjects.  Though his precarious
health has been complicated lately by kidney problems, which have
necessitated an even stricter diet than the one he favors, and by
difficulties in breathing, he remains psychologically firm and
mentally alert.

Khomeini's approach to decision making is to keep his counsel at
first, allowing the advocates of different options to debate issues
openly.  But once Khomeini has announced his choice, all contending
factions rally to his view, regardless of where they stood before.
So it was with the invasion of Iraq.

Personal motives played an important part in Khomeini's decision to
send his forces into Iraq.  The Ayatullah, who was exiled to Iraq's
Holy City of An Najaf after several arrests for anti-Shah activities,
has never forgiven Saddam Hussein for trying to use him as a paw, in
Iraqi-Iranian relations.  To placate the Shah during a short-lived
period of rapprochement between the two countries.  Saddam Hussein
placed Khomeini under virtual house arrest in 1975.  Three years
later, as the Shah came under increasing pressure from Islamic
fundamentalists operating with Khomeini's backing, Saddam agreed to
expel the Ayatullah.  It was then that Khomeini moved to France.
Today Khomeini refers to Saddam as "the epitome of atheist filth."

In addition, Saddam's aggressively secular, socialist regime has long
been anathema to Khomeini's philosophy of government, which insists
on the clergy's God-given right to rule.  With its 55% Shi'ite
majority and Shi'ite shrines at An Najaf and Karbala, Iraq should, in
Khomeini's view, be the natural home of a sister Islamic republic.

Four years ago, when Khomeini was still an exile in France, he was
asked who his enemies were.  "First the Shah,"  Khomeini replied,
"then the American Satan, then Saddam Hussein and his infidel Baath
Party."  Today the Shah is dead.  The U.S. was humiliated by the 444-
day capture of its embassy staff in Tehran.  That leaves Saddam
Hussein on the front line of Khomeini's hatred.