Confrontation in the Persian Gulf : U.S. Humbling of Iran Viewed as a Turning Point in Gulf War

As Iranian leaders vowed Tuesday to avenge their losses in the previous day’s clashes with U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, regional analysts viewed the fighting as part of a new chapter that will alter the course of the seemingly endless Iran-Iraq War.

Some described the recent developments as a “watershed,” although they admitted that it is not clear exactly where events are heading.

They noted that Monday’s attack marked the first time that Iran’s nine-year-old revolutionary government has been so humiliated by American military strength.

“The Americans have shown the extent of their firepower for all to see,” noted Heino Kopietz, who monitors developments in the Persian Gulf War for the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “It’s bigger than any previous U.S. action against Iran. It’s a watershed.”

Iran’s government-run radio said Tuesday that the attacks cost more than 40 Iranian lives in addition to two oil platforms, a patrol boat and two badly damaged frigates.

It quoted the commander of the Iranian navy, Commodore Mohammed Hussein Malekzadegan, as saying that 15 sailors aboard the patrol boat Joshan were killed and 20 others were wounded when it was hit by fire from the U.S. Navy cruiser Wainwright. He said others aboard the frigates Sahand and Sabalan also lost their lives after the vessels were hit by laser-guided bombs and Harpoon missiles during exchanges with U.S. warships and aircraft.

Earlier reports indicated that some workers on the two oil platforms had also been killed.

Major Defeat in Land War

Monday’s setback came as Iran appeared to have suffered a major defeat in its land war with Iraq. The Baghdad government reported that its forces, in a 36-hour blitz launched Sunday, had recaptured the Faw Peninsula, a bitterly contested area at the top of the gulf held by Iran for more than two years.

The U.S. government said that Iraq had clearly “made advances” on the peninsula but added that reports of fighting continued and that there was still a large Iranian presence in the area.

Together, the events on land and at sea are viewed here as a significant psychological and military reversal for Iran, effectively placing it on the defensive in the gulf conflict for the first time in several years.

“Time is not on our side any more,” declared the powerful Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, in a television interview later broadcast by Tehran Radio.

During the interview, Rafsanjani, who is also spokesman for Iran’s Supreme Defense Council, called on volunteers to “rush to the battlefields as soon as possible.”

He and other Iranian leaders described Monday’s attack as part of an international plot to support Iraq in its war with Iran. The previous day, Tehran Radio had contended that U.S. helicopters were supporting the Iraqis in the Faw Peninsula fighting.

“We declare that we will forcefully respond to America’s bullying in attacking oil platforms and killing innocent people,” the official radio quoted Iranian President Ali Khamenei as saying Tuesday.

While statements of revenge against the United States, Iraq and Kuwait--a country that has supported Iraq in the conflict--were repeated frequently on Tehran Radio during the day, it remained unclear exactly how Iranian rhetoric might be matched by action.

Further direct confrontations with the superior firepower of U.S. warships in the gulf would appear to offer little for Iran other than more losses.

One Western diplomat here, who declined to be identified by either name or nationality, speculated that Monday’s naval setbacks might dampen Iranian enthusiasm for disrupting gulf shipping, much as the April, 1986, U.S. air raid against Libya was followed by a sharp reduction in terrorist attacks against U.S. targets in Europe.

A significant body of opinion here and elsewhere in the gulf quietly applauded Monday’s U.S. action, seeing it as a lesson learned by Washington that only tough, decisive action can be effective against Iran.

Approves of U.S. Action

“The U.S. is acting differently now,” a Bahraini government official noted with a sense of approval.

However, there is also concern among officials in the small, relatively vulnerable Arab states of the gulf that Iran will respond indirectly by stepping up its marauding attacks on unprotected commercial targets.

Indeed, initial indications pointed in this direction as Iranian gunboats hit two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. As one of its options, Iran’s leaders may be considering raids against Kuwait or other states sympathetic to Iraq in the war, according to some of the sources.

Bahrain, for example, provides limited facilities to U.S. Navy ships operating in the gulf.

“This is the first really serious, widespread military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran, and it comes at a crucial time,” the Western diplomat said. “It’s hard to know how Iran will react.”

Within a few months of starting the war in September, 1980, with an attack across the Shatt al Arab waterway, Iraq called for a cease-fire to end the conflict. Iran, however, has insisted that it will agree to stop fighting only if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein steps down and Iraq admits that it touched off the war.

Some analysts believe that further military setbacks could lead Iran to reconsider a proposed U.N. call for a cease-fire that it has rejected.

Elsewhere in the land war, Iraq said it launched four missiles into several Iranian cities, including the holy city of Qom, the religious base of Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Iran fired a surface-to-surface missile into downtown Baghdad, crushing homes and buildings and killing several civilians, witnesses said.