A Costly, Bloody Stalemate

By Sara C. Medina

No chance of victory, and no hope of peace, in the Iran-Iraq war

The latest battlefield in the long, murderous war between Iran and Iraq is a 50-mile front from Dezful in Iran across the border to the Iraqi town of Amara. There, beginning on Nov. 1, an Iranian force of about 20,000, mostly fanatical Islamic Guard units and including some basij, or groups of teen-age zealots, staged a new offensive. Attacking at night to neutralize Iraq's overwhelming air superiority, and sticking to the high, steep terrain that favors Iranian manpower over Iraqi firepower, they claim to have captured 210 sq. mi. of territory, killing 6,100 Iraqi defenders and taking 3,400 prisoners. The attackers penetrated three to six miles into Iraq, seizing positions within shelling range of a strategically important highway linking Baghdad to the port of Basra, 280 miles to the south.

Having scored that victory, the Iranians went no farther. Nor are they likely to. The reason: the broad, flat plain between the border and Amara is a maze of earthen walls and slit trenches. Hundreds upon hundreds of Soviet-built Iraqi tanks, armored personnel carriers, guns and rocket launchers dot the eerie landscape, each hunkered down behind its own earth revetment. If the Iranians attempted to move toward Amara, they would invite the same decimation that they received in five full-scale attacks last summer, when wave upon wave of poorly trained Islamic Guards rushed across the flood plain of the Shatt al Arab toward Basra.

Western diplomats now believe that the Iranian regime of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini may have learned the costly lesson of its massive, suicidal assaults. In response, Iran has adopted a new strategy of long-term attrition, undertaking only intermittent and limited offensives. The question then becomes: Which government is better able to absorb the continued carnage of a sustained struggle? Many analysts feel that the odds at the moment slightly favor Iran. Says a U.S. official: "The Iranians are still willing to go out and die in this war, but the Iraqis don't have the heart for it any more."

There are indications, however, that the spirit of martyrdom that infused Iran's previous offensives is deteriorating. Iranians are shunning military service, and the Khomeini regime has had to take drastic measures to fill the army's ranks. On Nov. 1, Khomeini told all students and civil servants to report to conscription centers and join up. "Where they are needed," the Ayatullah said, "combat duty takes precedence over everything else." Even childhood. Khomeini also issued an edict that no longer requires children to obtain parental consent before going to war. Regular troops have been telling of "tearful boys" in their midst, and a twelve-year-old Iranian prisoner of war interviewed on Iraqi television said that two of his friends were shot by Islamic Guards while attempting to desert.

While the war is equally unpopular in Iraq, which has suffered more than 100,000 killed, wounded or captured in the past 26 months, the efficiency of President Saddam Hussein's secret police is such that little dissent is heard. Since Saddam became President in 1979, he has maintained his popularity by rapidly improving housing, roads, medical care, and other amenities. These have largely been paid for by Iraq's oil revenues, which reached $21.2 billion in 1979. But Iran's naval dominance in the Persian Gulf and the decision by Syria, which supports Iran, to close one of Iraq's pipelines to the Mediterranean, have cut exports to only 650,000 bbl. per day, down from 3.5 million bbl. per day in 1979.

For the moment at least, there are no shortages of consumer goods. At Baghdad's sprawling Bab al Shurgy used-car market, demand is so strong that vehicles often sell for many times their original price: $52,000 for a 1981 Chevrolet Caprice and $242,000 for a 1980 Mercedes-Benz 2805. Saddam Hussein admitted to a group of American correspondents last week that he would soon have to impose austerity measures to help pay for the war.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein has fended off Khomeini's appeals to Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims, who make up 55% of the population, to rise against the Sunni-dominated regime. To counter the appeal of religious confraternity with Iran's Shi'ites, Saddam Hussein has exploited traditional Arab-Persian enmity. But he realizes that Iraqis are sick of war. "We have tried all means, we have knocked on all the doors [to try to end the fighting]," he said last week. Iraq has repeatedly stated that it was willing to negotiate a peace treaty with Iran. The chief obstacle, however, remains Khomeini's unconditional demand that Saddam Hussein be overthrown. Responded the Iraqi leader last week: "I am staying even if [the war] lasts another ten years." For the time being, the military and diplomatic stalemate seems to be total.

Saddam has lost almost all the territory he won in the fall of 1980, when he started the war by invading Iran's oil-rich Khuzistan province. Now he is counting on his troops to show their fighting spirit when they defend their own land. So far they have done so, holding the Iranians to small victories at a huge cost in lives. But the war of attrition may only be beginning, and the will to win may ebb and flow before the fighting is over. --By Sara C. Medina. Reported by Barry Kalb/Baghdad and Raji Samghabadi/New York

With reporting by Barry Kalb/Baghdad, Raji Samghabadi/New York

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