The worst is true also begun to grow closer,
There are also more and more indica tions of Turkish intervention to maintain the "stability" of the region. On March 11, French wire service reporters in Ankara reported information that Turk ish planes had bombed Kurdish freedom fighters near two centers in Iranian Kurdistan, Mahabad and Sardasht.
As the dust has settled after the opening of the Iranian spring offensive, the worst accusations against both sides have been confirmed:
1) There can no longer be any doubt, if there ever was, that the Iraqi army is using poison gas on a rather large scale and has made this an important part of its strategy.
2) There can no longer be any doubt either that the Khomeini regime is throwing away masses of young teenagers on the front, and that this is a deliberate and premeditated policy.
In addition to the medical reports on Iranian soldiers sent to Europe for the Turkish authorities fear that the contreatment, the evidence produced by the UN investigating team sent to
Iran is conclusive.
The imperialist governments and press have raised the biggest hue and cry about
Iraqi use of prohibited weapons.
This is, of course, a new development. It also has broad implications. But this issue also offers the imperialist powers an opportunity to pose as humanitarians and
"responsible" leaders of the world community at little cost to themselves.
It is doubtful that the US embargo on shipments of chemicals that can be used to make poison gas will have much effect in keeping Iraq from getting what it needs to wage chemical warfare.
Even if the imperialist countries were intent on applying such a ban, given the nature of the capitalist world market, it would be hard to make it effective.
There are too many conflicting interests and too much of a scramble for profits.
Applying an embargo is a very complex business and offers a lot of room for maneuver. The ban the US and its allies imposed on certain types of trade with
Iran is already well known to have been
Thus, condemnations of the use of poison gas and some token gestures of an embargo on shipments of the component chemicals offer an easy way for the from the Baghdad regime, which in fact can only survive on the credit the imperialists and their local allies provide, and thereby clear their skirts a bit of the government-controlled has played up authorities' condemnations of Baghdad's chemical warfare. This has been accompanied by some comment about the hypocrisy of the imperialist powers, but up till mid-March this seemed rather
At the same time, the Iranian press noted that the Soviet Union criticized the sending of the UN investigating team.
It has also consistently compared alleged
Soviet use of poison gas against the
Afghan resistance with the Iragis' use of it against the "forces of Islam."
Thus, it appears that the effect of both the introduction of poison gas into the war and the official condemnations of it by the imperialists have increased the political room for maneuver in the region. It makes a breakthrough by ill-equipped Iranian volunteers more difficult. It gives the imperialists a way of regaining some appearance of neutrality.
The attention focused on the Iranian occupation of the major part of the Majnun islands can also increase the political maneuvering room. territory is not very far into Iraq. claims of the amount of oil under it, howmake it possible for the Tehran regime to present it to the Iranian population as a worthy prize for the war effort. Since the political settlement in Iran is not stable, there is no reason to think that small changes in the borders will be consolidation of the Iranian bridgehead does demonstrate the fighting spirit of the Iranian forces and the lack thereof on the part of the Iraqi pilots, who did not fly low enough to be
But the reports from reporters allowed to visit the area indicate that the Iranians there were well equipped for chemical warfare, though it is not likely that the Iranian army is able to so equip large numbers of its forces.
There are indications that the political maneuvering in the region is, in fact, in-
In the midst of the new Iranian offensive, the Turkish minister of foreign affairs, Vahid Halifoglu, visited Tehran and had talks with the top leaders of the Islamic Republic.
Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the Majlis, told the Turkish foreign minister that "if an Islamic government is established in Iraq, the threat of communism will be removed from the region."
The solving of the Iraq problem, Rafsanjani said, would also open the way for solving the problem of Afghanistan: "Presently, there are two major problems in the region, the problem of Afghanistan and of the Baathist party of Iraq."
The Majlis chairman went on to say: "If these two problems are solved, Arab countries, ourselves, you and Pakistan can collaborate more fruitfully in
Turkish trade with Iran has expanded greatly in recent years. The political relationship between the two regimes has
Neither town is near Turkey or has any close connections with it. Sardasht is on the Iraqi border and in the past has been a major conduit for contacts between the Kurdish liberation movements in Iran and Iraq.
There can hardly be any doubt that war between Iran and Iraq will give the Kurdish organizations a chance of the shah gave the Kurdish liberation movements a chance to expand massively.
organization of the masses there was much more extensive and radical than in the Persian-speaking areas, where the movement was under the political control of the Khomeini clergy from the beginning.
The Kurdish liberation fighters represent the only mass movement in Iran that has not yet been crushed by the repressive regime. But under the cover of the war with Iraq, the Islamic Republic has subjected the Kurdish fighters to heavy and driven them out of the cities into the most remote areas.
On the other hand, the Baghdad regime has had to make concessions to the Kurdish fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan, since the military pressure it is under makes it unable to keep a firm grip on the area.
There are reports that the Baathist regime has offered free elections for autonomous regional bodies in the Kurdish area, a share of oil revenues to develop the region, and proposed the creation of a Kurdish home guard to defend the area
"foreign enemies," presumably the Iranian army. There have also been continuing reports of bargaining over the extent of the autonomous area.
On March 9 (21 Esfand), the Tehran that captured Iraqi documents talked about collaborathe Kurdish forces of Jelal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Ahmed Qazemlou's Democratic Party of Kurdistan, an Iranian Kurdish organiza-
The documents allegedly stressed the importance of keeping the Kurdish forces under "tight control," because "the present situation is a difficult and tactical one, and close watch has to be kept on what may happen."
This is no doubt the attitude the Iragi regime would take to
It is also interesting that the Iranian press would choose to play up such an account of Saddam Hussein's relations with Kurdish allies. In general, the Khomeini regime has portrayed the Kurdish nationalists simply as revolutionaries" and tools of the "infidel
International Viewpoint 9 April 1984
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GULF WAR
Saddam." Furthermore, previously, al- there, that the Velayete Faghih the rule the hard pressed Iranian Kurds accepted a certain collaboration with the Iraqis, the Iraqi Kurds were inclined to look for help from Khomeini against their
What Etela'at played up most in its account of the alleged documents references to the execution of mutineers. There cannot be much doubt how the Iraqi military maintains military dis-
But what is astonishing in the present circumstances, when the Iraqi soldiers are called on to make heavy sacrifices and have nothing positive to hope for from the fighting, that there have been little signs of a breakdown in
The policy that the Khomeini regime has followed in the one populated part of Iraq that it has managed to occupy il-
One Kurdish faction in Iran has been linked to the Khomeini regime from the start, the group led by the sons of Mullah Mustafa Barzani, who allied himself with the shah in his struggle against the Baghdad regime in the mid-1970s. As a result, he both collaborated in repression of Kurdish nationalists in Iran and prepared the way for a disastrous defeat of the Kurds, when the shah abandoned him to make a deal with Baghdad. Barzanis have very little support in Iranserved as a tool for Tehran's maneuvers treat them much better than the shah did their father.
In the February 2 issue of Politica Mirella Galleti gave this account of what happened: with the regular Iranian army and Pasdaran, Barzani forces and those of the includes a number of the Iraqi Shiite opposition groups) participated in the conquest of the area. But the conquered Kurdish areas were assigned to the Iraqi Shiites [hence Arabs] to establish bases."
Thus, the only forces in Iraq that the Khomeini regime is prepared to appeal to are reactionary groups from which the Iraqi people have no reason to expect anything better than from Saddam and not unimportant grounds for fearing
The Iranian press denounces the Saddam regime only as "infidel." It refers to its own forces only as "the Forces of Islam" and to groups of volunteers for the front as "fighters against the infidel."
On the other hand, despite the claims that Iran is fighting a holy war for all Muslims, the Persian great-power pretensions show through more and more.
in an interview with the weekly Etela'at (quoted in the March 9 Iran Times), Doctor Hadi, representative for Tehran to the Majlis, said: best way for the war to end is for the Islamic republic to eliminate the Iraqi regime and strive to get an Islamic republic set up in Iraq."
"Our demand is that Islam prevail International Viewpoint 9 April 1984 the supreme interpreter of Islam prevail there, that Iraq be ruled by an Islamic government. People must know that five years or ten years is not so much in the life of a nation that has existed for thousands of years and will exist for thousands of years more."
The sending of large numbers of young boys to be slaughtered at the front, moreover, is not hardly an inspiring example of what the "rule of Islam" would mean
Apparently, it is not all that popular with young Iranians of that age group either.
In its March 16 issue, the Iran Times reported the issuance of a circular from the Ministry of the Interior in Tehran forbidding youths between the ages of 15 and 17 from leaving the country.
The same issue of the Iran Times reported an answer by Mehdi Karubi, an official of the Martyrs Foundation visiting London, to the Daily Telegraph, which questioned him about the use of boys in the fighting. He said: "From the standpoint of Islam, we consider puberty as defining adulthood." (Retranslated from the Persian.) The sacrifice of the very young
Karubi went on to say that many boys falsified their identity cards. planation, however, is about as likely an answer as the spread by Iraq's friends or agents in France that the treatment were victims of an explosion an Iranian poison gas factory.
The numbers of boys taken prisoner by the Iraqis, as well as the continuing reports from reporters who have visited the Iranian side of the front make it clear that there are masses of young people of this age involved. in their early teens is not something exceptional or marginal.
In fact, one of the Iranian soldiers sent for treatment in West Germany, Mohammed Resa Assadi, told Der Spiegel in an interview: "There are many of them who are only 13, 14 or 15. But they are much more mature in their thinking. They know a lot about Islam." He went on to talk about an eleven-yearold in his unit.
The question has to be asked exactly what use such young people are in the
A country with a population the size of Iran's does not yet face any big
It has a huge reserve of unemployed adult males. has a shortage on the other hand of trans-
Obviously not many of these people could find their way to the front across many miles of It is not, after all, as if they were fighting in their own areas. And the war at the front is not partisan warfare. "Islamic" regime done for youth of this
It has in fact denied them everything that people their age want everyelse in the world, recreation, education, freedom, social life. Iranian young people were not, in fact, an exception in this respect, especially those who participated in the revolutionary
The mass base of the big left organizations was very largely made up of young teenagers, whose aspirations for a better life were awakened by the spread of growing and the penetration of modern ideas. forces kidnapped the children of the liberal Ayatollah Teleghani in May 1979, the Mujahadeen shut down high schools throughout Tehran in a massive strike. At that time the high-school age youth were able to force the "Islamic" heavies to retreat and release their hostages.
There were spontaneous demonstrations of high-school girls against the ending of co-education. The first demonstrations for women's rights were made up mainly of teenagers.
This radicalization of the very young also explains why there were so many ol this age group among the victims of Khomeini's executioners, including girls in their early teens and perhaps even
Khomeini consolidated his grip with a massacre of the very young. very young continue to be the special victims of this savage and demagogic regime, which has no ability or desire to meet the real needs and aspirations of these youth.
The very young are particularly vulnerable to demagogic deception and indoctrination, since their fighting spirit alone cannot make up for the lack of experience of independence and life.
It is clear from the reports of Western journalists who have visited the Iranian frontlines recently that the mass mobilization set in motion by the revolutionary upsurge against the shah, and the sense of common purpose that came out of that experience continue to be major factors reinforeing the Iranian war effort. They are particularly important for a country where masses of people have long been left to neglect and
Moreover, like any giant upheaval, the Iranian revolution opened up oppor tunities for social advancement to a big layer of young adults, who are undoubtedly a lot more energetic, daring and creative than the Iraqi military.
However, without political and social objectives that can inspire broad international support and offer solutions to the concrete problems of the masses in Iran itself, the sacrifice of the Iranian fighters will in all probability only drain away in the desert and marshlands of the Iraqi border country and leave nothing behind but disillusion and exhaustion. The only likely gainers are the Iranian and imperialist exploiters.
This sacrifice of the young has not, and cannot, offer an enduring and instructive example to the masses throughout the world who aspire to solutions to their problems.