First Iranian offensives bogged down in Iraq
Gerry FOLEY
The Iranian invasion of Iraq in midJuly was preceded by some weeks in which the authorities of the Islamic republic prepared the population for an assault to bring down the Sadam Hussein
In fact, the Iraqi government itself made it virtually impossible for the Iranians to stop their advance at the international border by continuing its shelling of border towns and bombing of civilian
In some cases, the Iraqi bombing resulted in massacres of civilians that appeared to be deliberate atrocities.
For example, on July 14, the Iraqi airforce bombed Hamadan, a city of about 200,000 inhabitants. In this case, an Agence France-Presse correspondent was able to see the damage "Three times, the Iraqi bombers struck this city, dropping quite powerful bombs in four different neighborhoods far from any military or economic target."
One of the bombs fell among a crowd of women and children outside a mosque. "The lawn was still covered with shoes, veils, and women's hand. bags," the correspondent reported.
In the fortnight launching of an offensive across the Iraqi border, the Iranian press was filled with stories of the shelling of border towns and the systematic destruction of towns by retreating Iraqi forces. Pictures of the ruins of Qadr Shirin, for example, appeared in virtually all the dailies.
The Iraqi attacks were generally interpreted in the Western press warning to the Iranian authorities of the losses they would face if they chose to continue the war. If this was the Iraqis' intention, such a course could only be the result of the political blindness of a degenerate military government. Saddam Hussein regime should have learned better in a two-year war against revolutionary Iran.
Against a population that is still affected by the memories of mass mobilizations in the face of the shah's army and which is still being mobilized in the name of those experiences, such attacks could only be a goad that would make it impossible for a government such as the Iranian one, which still has to rule by appealing to the masses, to accept any compromise.
Thus, the likelihood is that Saddam Hussein's offers of peace were intended for the homefront and as international cover, in particular to make it easier for the reactionary Arab regimes of the area to continue their support to his regime, or to increase it.
The Iraqi regime's thus does not seem to have changed with the shifting of the war onto its own ter-
That is, its objective is to bleed and wear out the Iranian revolution. It is for that purpose that the reactionary Arab governments continue to pick up the tab for Saddam Hussein's war.
By retreating into Iraqi territory, Saddam Hussein could both shorten his supply lines and hope to strengthen his hand politically by appealing for unity against the invader. Since there is a large belt of desert between the Iranian border and the nearest target of any importance, the Iraqi forces have a certain margin for maneuver.
Indications so Iraqi troops have been fighting harder and that the Iranians have suffered con-
Agence France-Press has reported evidence of massive destruction of Iranian war material and large numbers of Iranian military priexperts Agence France-Presse reported on July 19: "It is apparent that the Iraqi tactic is to let the enemy units penetrate a sector and then try to encircle them and destroy them.
"This tactic offers the advantage of extending the Iranian lines of communications while shortening those of the
This is important in particular for helicopters, which are heavy consumers of fuel. Since the zone of combat, with the exception of the banks of the Shat El-Arab, is a desert, the tactic offers few dangers.
"Helicopters are playing a major role on the Iraqi side. Most of them are the Soviet MI-24s, veritable air-borne destroyers, equipped with cannon, rocketlaunching tubes, and antitank missiles." These helicopters, for example, have been the Soviet forces' most effective weapon in the war against the Afghan guerrillas.
By attacking now, the Iranian army assured itself of up to five months before the rainy season makes ground operations nearly impossible. But this is also the period of greatest heat, which is hardest on the forces on the move.
Le Monde's correspondent in Bag dad, Paul Balta, an experienced Middle East hand, wrote in the July 26 issue of the Paris daily that seemed to have succeeded in consolidating his homefront politically. other things:
"The regime has announced the release of Kurdish and Communist political prisoners 'to enable them to participate in the liberation of their country.
It was not yet clear, Balta wrote, how much Hussein's amnesty decrees amounted to. But in the face of the reconsolidation of his grip on the government, the divisions in the opposition, and the promises of democratic concessions: "The Iraqi population seems less ready to challenge the government, and still less to overthrow it, as Imam Khomeini is calling on them to do, than to defend their territory and their standard of living.
"It did not understand why the regime wanted to attack Iran....Today, seeing that the Iranians are refusing the offer of peace made by Bagdad in the name of the need to defend Lebanon and the Palestinians, it seems to them that the leaders of the Islamic republic are justifying the Baathist propaganda that accused them of acting not as Muslims but as "hereditary enemies' and 'objective allies' of Israel."
The first days of the new phase of the war will clearly represent a crucial political test between the two regimes in which the main thing at stake is the loyalty of the Iraqi people and army to the present government and their readiness to fight against the Iranian forces. If Sad. dam Hussein wins it, the war could continue to wear down the Iranian revolu-
Unfortunately, the objective results of the first week's fighting, as well as the reports of correspondents such as Balta, indicate that the Baathist regime gained
The fact is that so far the Iranian victories and the Iraqi defeats have resulted in a relaxation of the repression against the Kurdish and Arab masses in Iraq and an increase in the repression against the Kurds and socialists in Iran.
On July 18, Radio Tehran reported that the weekly paper of the Communist (Tudeh) Party had been suppressed. The reason given was "the flagrant opposition of this journal with Islamic criteria and its line opposing the Islamic republic's policy of 'Neither East nor West.'
Thus, this slogan that the clergy tle about them and still less about their and those forces hiding behind them have pushed from the beginning of the mass movement that overthrew the Shah has now become official doctrine, with which it is illegal to differ.
In fact, the period since the occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, when the rulers' forces turned mainly to demagogy to keep their grip on the situation, has been marked by a concerted attempt to build up a new "Islamic" ideology to cover over the contradictions of a regime that rules in the name of the revolutionary masses but acts against their interests.
One of the main purveyors of this ideology has been Jomhuriye Eslami, the daily newspaper of Khomeini's Islamic Republican Party, which, for example, has run long articles arguing that Arab was a creation of British imperialism designed to divide the Mus-
An example of how this ideology is being applied now is the arrest of Hussein Sadeqi in Ahwaz at the end of January and his subsequent sentencing to ten years in prison. Sadeqi was a soldier fighting on the southern front against Iraq and from a working-class back
Reporters for Kargar, the newpapel Revolutionary Workers Party (HKE), one of the three Iranian groups adhering to the Fourth International, investigated the case. They spoke to a court attorney named Salehi, who told them that Sadeqi was arrested for having copies of Kargar and for propagating so-
He was subsequently sento ten years on five charges: distributing Kargar and "heretical" books among the other soldiers on the front, 2. being in the camp of the counterrevolution, views, 4. holding the view that the government of the Islamic republic is not a government of the disinherited, and
The main charge was thus contact with Kargar and agreement with the views it represents, and there could be no doubt that that publication and its sponsor do not support the war and the revolution. No accusation that they did not was even made; "heresy" was apparently sufficient charge.
Moreover, in the sermons of the religious leaders at Friday prayers, a major political platform for the Islamic authorities, the theme has begun to appear that there is a danger of subtle perversion of Islam even by those who profess support for the regime and its values. Even those who seem to be "hezb'ollahi" ("members of God's party") may be
"hezb'ollahi" that was first associated with the rightist gangs who attacked liberal newspapers and left and liberal parties is now used as a synonym for Islamic patriot by the government-controlled press.
In this context, while the regime has tried to present its invasion of Iraq as in the interest of the Iraqi people, the authorities and their press talk relatively lit-
In this context, has tried to present its invasion of Irag as in the interest of the Iraqi people, the authorities and their press talk relatively little about them and still less about their
Most of the slogans for the invasion religious, the most common being "For the Conquest of the Kerbala," the Shiite holy place in southern Iraq. That slogan was featured on the front page of almost every issue of the Iranian dailies in the weeks before the invasion.
The invasion was generally defended in religious terms, as in the following editorial in the July 10 issue of Jomhu-
"In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Beneficent.
"Today the most important ques tion relating to our struggle against the infidels is which is the surest road to achieve the condemnation and punishment of the aggressors.
"This question can be answered in two ways, by reason and by religious law Both lead to the same conclusion. cause calm reason cannot diverge from a judgement in accordance with religious
The principle on which this answer is based is what is right,' and both reason and religious law are based on what is
The judgement of the sacred religious law of Islam on these two questions is the very one that we heard from the blessed lips of the beloved leader of the Islamic revolution in his message on the retreat of the mercenary Saddam. will continue the war to bring down Saddam and root out the infidel Baath party
"This is the fundamental judgement mands, on the one hand: If groups of Muslims make war on each other, and one of these two groups is not prepared to stop the war on the basis of what is 'right, Muslims are bound to make war on this group until it submits to God's commandments, and acts on the basis of the 'right' (Verse 9 of the Hegira Chap-
"On the other hand, the Holy Koran commands that if a group of infidels proposes to Muslims an ending of hostilities, Muslims can accept this only if the infidels abandon their claims completely and their enmity and stop their harm and molestation. Otherwise, Muslims are obliged to make war on them they are everywhere annihilated [Cites a second verse from Koran].
"So, if we recognize Saddam and as Muslims, our behavior must be in accordance with the first verse of the Koran cited....And, if as the Imam has said, Saddam and his crew are infidels, then our behavior must be based on the second verse cited."
The Iranian press also played up a march of Iraqi exiles living in Tehran, which called on the Iranian government to "help the Iraqi people overthrow the infidel Saddam Hussein." It was organized by the "Society of Militant Clergy of Iraq," and headed up by the exiled Iraqi Shi'ite Hojatollah Kerim, who has argued in the pages of the Iranian papers that Iran would be justified in overthrow. ing Saddam by armed force because Islam was spread through conquest.
In its July 13 issue, the Tehran daily Keyhan reported: "Today, on the first day of the Enslaved Iraq' week, militant Iraqi Muslims demonstrated in the streets of Tehran, calling on the Imam Ommat (The Guide of the Islamic People), the leader of the world Islamic revolution to give the order as soon as pos sible for the hero fighters of Islam to advance onto Iraqi territory, together with militant Iraqi fighters for the faith, to overthrow the infidel regime of Saddam Hussein and set up an Islamic republic."
Another Tehran daily, Azedegan, listed the groups participating in the demonstration as follows: The Iraq Bureau of the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic AdDawa Party, the Club of Residents of the City of Kazmin, the Islamic Councils, Iraqi Doctors and Engineers, the Committee of Residents of Najaf (a Shi'ite holy city in Iraq), the Movement of Iraqi Fighters for the Faith; the Islamic Students Movement, and also the Iraqi Army of Guards of the Islamic Revolution (Sepahe Pasdarane Engelabe Eslami-the same name as that of the Iranian militia). Azedegan also mentioned a group of "Iraqi Kurds living in Tehran."
Apparently, both sides are making certain appeals to the Kurds, in the other country of course.
In Iran, since the decisive defeat of the Iraqi invasion, extensive repression operations seem to have been underway in Iranian Kurdistan. In the last weeks, the Iranian papers have frequently carried accounts of actions against "counterrevolutionists" in Kurdish areas. ple, Jomhuriye Eslami reported: "In the last three days, the Pasdaran have gained control of the Deh Fayel region around Bowkan, which was a stronghold of counterrevolutionists. In these opera-
80 counterrevolutionists killed and many more wounded.
"For the first time the flag of the Islamic revolution was raised here, and the population of these villages were the despotism of the In other reports, such operations have been said to be part of a campaign to "remove filth and corruption from the
The statements of the Iranian press and leaders about the war in Lebanon also are generally in a religious framework. The objective of the Islamic Republic is to reconquer Jerusalem. "The Road to Jerusalem Leads Past the Kerbala."
Saddam Hussein is the same thing as the Israeli government, the conservative Arab regimes wanted the Israeli attack. Therefore, the best way to help the Palestinians and the Lebanese is to overthrow Hussein. In the early days of the
phase of the war, Iranian TV showed a young Iranian soldier repeating over and over again "God is Great" with this background, it would surprising if most of the Iraqi population did not find the Iranian government's appeals either very convincing or very attractive. clergy gained the leadership of the revolutionary masses in Iran in quite specific circumstances. And at least a very large section of those who fought the shah did not expect Khomeini to impose the sort of regime he has.
The example of the Islamic republie seems to make it in fact less likely that the Shiite clergy can emerge as an alternative to the dictatorship in Iraq. Furthermore, the evolution of the regime in Iran is not unlike what happened to the Baathist regime in Iraq.
The establishment of a radical nationalist regime in Iraq in 1958 aroused great hopes in the masses and brought them important gains for a whole period, in particular the oppressed Kurdish peo-
This regime, however, like Khomeini one, remained bourgeois and contradictions. The explosion of these contradictions led to a repressive war against the Kurds, accompanied by the elimination of all democratic freedoms and the imposition of a regime patterned on totalitarian models.
In the Iraqi case, a variety of Arab petty-bourgeois nationalism served the function that Islamic nationalism has in Iran. The Baathist party played the role now being filled in Iran by the Shiite the institutions it controls. This process of degeneration of a national revolution is still far from completed in Iran, but the conditions there undoubtedly remind many in Iraq unpleasantly of what happened in their
It is not surprising that a nonpolitical opposition such as the Iraqi Islamic fundamentalists, faced with savage pression at home, should stake everything on a military defeat of Iraq by Iran. In similar conditions, the major opposition groups in Iran have made the same misof perspective for organizing and leading the masses.
In the case of the Iranian opposition groups, this lack is grave because they claim to be socialist and democratic and are in a country where very large sections of the masses are still in motion. And most of the masses consider the govat least to some degree, as representing their revolution.
Thus, defeat and decimation of the Iranian forces by Iraq would tend to demoralize major sections of the Iranian
This is precisely the danger that is increased by the political framework in which the Iranian regime has put its military assault on Saddam Hussein. Those forces that oppose the repression and demagogy of the Islamic republic in the name of socialism and democracy should be explaining this danger to the Iranian people, rather than taking the side de facto of Saddam Hussein by claiming that Khomeini is responsible for the war, as is done by the groups that belong to the National Council of the Resistance. This unfortunately also includes the Mujahadin, who have fought heroically against the repression of the shah and of the right-wing Islamic forces under the Khomeini regime. But they have reacted to the government's massive and savage repression against them by making the physical destruction of Khomeini's state apparatus their supreme objective, separate and above all other considerations.
As the confrontation between the Saddam Hussein regime and the Islamic Republic becomes more total, it also becomes more directly political. The decisive battles now are for the support of the populations. Hussein's concessions to the Kurds and the left testify to that.
These pressures can open up the way for more political life in both states, and give the masses new opportunities to fight for their own interests and select a leadership that will genuinely represent them and lead them to the achievement
Such breaks by the Iranian and Iraqi masses from their reactionary and brutally repressive governments are the best hope for a definitive end to the costly warfare that over the last two years has blocked the progress of the peoples of both countries, and which, if it continues much longer-especially if the Iranians attempt to attack major population centers against the resistance of the inhabitants-could result in exhaustion and demoralization throughout the area.
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