Iran Seeking Eternal Bliss in Battle

By Sam Allis

The 6 1/2-year Iran-Iraq war has turned into one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century. Some 40,000 soldiers have been killed around the southern Iraqi city of Basra just since January. The entire death toll for the war is estimated at more than 1 million. Last week a United Nations inspection team accused Iraq of using chemical weapons against Iranian troops and civilians. Meanwhile, with the help of local Kurdish tribesmen, Iran's forces have established a new offensive in the northern part of Iraq, where the Iranians claim to have captured 185 sq. mi. of territory. Correspondent Sam Allis filed this report after visiting both Tehran and the new battle area:

The Iraqi helicopter floats in the valley below Mount Hazar Kanian, suspended in the morning light. Then it is gone, and a plume of rich, black smoke rises from the trees below. Young Iranian soldiers smile and wave from open trucks snaking up Kurdistan's dusty mountain roads toward the Iraqi front. "Down with Israel!" they chant. "Down with Russia! Down with America!" Some are not old enough to shave, but no matter. They are basij, the volunteers to whom the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini has promised eternal bliss should they fall in battle. They beam at the soft thud as an Iranian artillery shell is fired toward Iraqi forces in the village of Mawat, just over a nearby ridge. But then they ignore the incoming Iraqi fire that gouges the orchards surrounding them.

Many of these basij will end up at Beheshteh Zahra, the sprawling martyrs' cemetery south of Tehran, where red water symbolizing martyrs' blood flows from a fountain. Every day bulldozers work at the cemetery, carving out new rectangular plots the size of Olympic swimming pools for those slain in battle. Gravediggers say they fill one with bodies in two weeks. The dead arrive so rapidly that pieces of cardboard, usually stapled with photographs of the fallen, mark burial sites until marble slabs can be put in place. Wives and mothers in chadors, the flowing black robes, move silently through the rows of grave markers, washing the dust away from one, squatting silently by another. Hundreds of Iranian flags flutter above in the breeze.

Despite the heavy casualties, most Iranians appear to embrace both the war and the changes the Ayatullah Khomeini has introduced since he overthrew the Shah in 1979. One small demonstration for a peace settlement took place in downtown Tehran in early April, but the conflict generally remains a popular, unifying force. On street corners people donate money and jewelry to the war effort, while children drop coins in plastic piggy-type banks shaped like hand grenades. Diplomats estimate that the country is spending as much as $5 billion of its $7 billion annual budget on the war against Iraq. Religion also unites the people. The regular Friday prayers in Tehran can draw as many as half a million faithful. There is no hint of war, however, in Tehran's northern district. This is where bazaaris, members of Iran's business class, and other people of influence reside, in walled villas along placid, tree- lined streets. Women wear the regulation chador during the day but then reappear in the evening in smart outfits from Paris to drink Scotch and reminisce about visits to Europe. "We have two personalities," explains one woman. But when the casual talk subsides, their businessmen-husbands complain about endless problems. Because hard currency is difficult to obtain, they have trouble buying raw materials abroad. The biggest war concern in Tehran is , the uncertain role of the Soviet Union and the U.S. in the region. Iranians are confident they can defeat Iraq but worry about the two superpowers. Iran's worst nightmare is that the Soviet Union and the U.S. will combine to stave off any Iraqi defeat. Said one Western diplomat: "The two superpowers are telling Iran it can't win the war. Their presence here has become a sort of Iron Curtain." This spring the Iranian Foreign Minister flew to Moscow to plead for Soviet neutrality in the war, but he came back with no such accord. Last month the Kuwaitis chartered three freighters from the Soviets to carry and protect goods passing through the Persian Gulf on the way to Iraq. The Iranians believe the U.S. is giving clandestine aid to Iraq, although Washington denies any such moves.

When the talk in Tehran is not of the war, it is about Khomeini's successor. The Ayatullah now plays no visible role in public life. By most accounts, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 52, the pragmatic Speaker of the Parliament, is the leading candidate to take over. At this point, it is unclear what impact his alleged role in the U.S.-Iran arms deal will have on the succession. "It's a time bomb ticking away," says one diplomat. While Iran's council of experts designated Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, 64, the senior cleric from Qum, as the formal successor, Khomeini has yet to approve the recommendation. Western diplomats say Rafsanjani has the political ability to outmaneuver Montazeri. Regardless of who the next Iranian leader will be, it is not expected that he will change Khomeini's policies or halt the war. One Iranian shrugged and recalled an old saying: "The first hundred years are the hardest."