A Way to Distract the Enemy

Iran and Iraq draw an independent people into their war

The 46-month-old Iran-Iraq war sputtered along last week, but in a locale far from the waters of the Persian Gulf, where 17 oil tankers have been attacked and damaged over the past four months. Iran announced that its troops had cleared 100 sq. mi. of a rugged mountain area controlled by Kurdish rebels who are supported by Iraq. In the process, Tehran said, 220 Kurds had been killed. Last week TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand had a rare opportunity to visit the Iraqi portion of the area known as Kurdistan. His report:

"Over there, on the un-green hills," says the Iraqi major pointing to jagged peaks, "is Iran." The late-afternoon sun is playing tricks with the scenery: Iran looks brown and desolate, Iraq green and attractive. "The Iranians have disappeared," the major explains as he peers through an enormous pair of military binoculars perched on a heavy tripod. "They are afraid of our bombing."

The commander of Iraq's First Army Corps, however, confirms that heavy fighting is taking place farther north on the Iranian side of the border. "The Kurds have been very active and very successful recently, so the Iranian army is trying to clean them up," says General Nazar Abdul-Kerim. Indeed, it is summer, and the harvest is finished, so the Kurds have time for fighting. By the same token, the Iranians find the warm but dry weather good for conducting military operations through passes that are choked with snow and mud for more than half the year. The general will not say that his country is actively helping the Kurds in Iran, but other Iraqi commanders have acknowledged that they supply and assist them as a way of distracting the enemy.

The main objective of Iran is to crush the Kurdish rebels once and for all. But it, too, wants to use the Kurds to create a diversion for its primary foe. If Iran launches another major offensive, it will probably be in the south, near Basra. By attacking the Kurds along the northern border, the Iranians hope to make the Iraqis move some of their forces away from Basra.

For centuries the Kurds have dominated an area that encompasses parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the Soviet Union. They have steadfastly maintained their own language, customs and agrarian life. Modern Kurdish history has consisted largely of the ongoing struggle for some measure of independence from the central authorities of the more powerful states that Kurdistan straddles.

Iraq has its own Kurdish problem, and it was a key cause of the present war. In 1975 the Shah of Iran signed an agreement with Iraq that gave Iran a share of the Shatt al Arab waterway at the head of the gulf in exchange for the Shah's withdrawal of support for Kurds fighting the Baghdad regime. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched his war against Iran in 1980 partly to recover what he had signed away five years earlier. He now has fewer problems with Kurds than Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini does, largely because he created an autonomous Kurdish region within Iraq in 1970. Still, roads in Iraqi Kurdistan are heavily guarded by day and unsafe at night.

The latest Iranian offensive against the Kurds is evidence of a desperate need to win some kind of victory, if only for psychological reasons. "The biggest problem Iran has is morale," says General Abdul-Kerim. "They feel they have not accomplished anything and that they have no hope." For five months there have been reports that as many as half a million Iranians have been massed along the southern Iran-Iraq boundary, poised for attack. Yet the offensive has not materialized, most likely because the Iranian leadership is unable to make the decision.

Meanwhile, Western diplomats in Baghdad agree, Iraq is more confident than at any other time in the past two years. It is continuing to stockpile sophisticated weaponry, acquiring 29 new Mirage F-1 jet fighters from France and 40 additional MiG-21s from the Soviet Union. Experts estimate that the Iraqi air force now has more than 400 combat planes, while the Iranians have been reduced to 40 to 60 operational aircraft, most of them inferior to Iraq's. As long as Iran is not confident enough to take on the Iraqis directly, its fury will probably be directed at such lesser foes as the Kurds.