Terrible Gulf Policy, Tragic Results : Alter Course or Our Interests--and More Lives--Will Be Lost

Tragedy is most bitter when it could have been averted--but wasn’t, because warnings were ignored. Thus the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by a U.S. Navy ship, killing 290 people, was an accident waiting to happen. There can be further tragedy unless, at long last, the Reagan Administration understands the dangers of its Persian Gulf policy.

Since the United States began reflagging and escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers, it has been at the mercy of events and the actions of others. U.S. interests in the region are hostage to both Iran and Iraq. We depend on Iranian leaders to understand the risks in attacking the U.S. forces in the gulf. More ominous, we depend on them to keep tight control over every member of the Revolutionary Guards who has access to weapons that could be used against American targets. Iraq, meanwhile, regularly takes advantage of the U.S. position by attacking Iran’s tankers, in part to try provoking Iran to retaliate against U.S. ships.

Last April the U.S. Navy frigate Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine, and the United States pummeled Iranian oil platforms and naval vessels in retaliation. The Reagan Administration then broadened the “rules of engagement” for U.S. naval forces in the gulf, thereby making the United States a quasi-belligerent against Iran, moving military action to a hair trigger and setting up Sunday’s tragedy.

Under such conditions, U.S. interests were--predictably--placed at risk to a single mistake, and it came when the Navy cruiser Vincennes mistook a jumbo jet for a fighter aircraft. In one accidental act the United States has strengthened Iran’s extremists, discredited the Iranians who want to end the war with Iraq and reach out to the West, and increased the chances that Iran will turn toward the neighbor that historically it has tried hardest to keep at bay--the Soviet Union. In the succession struggle now under way in Iran, America’s enemies have been given invaluable aid.

Meanwhile, the United States has set back its efforts to contain Islamic fundamentalism--the one key area where U.S. and Iranian interests conflict--and earned especially intense opprobrium in the Islamic world. In the process some governments friendly to the United States will be weakened. It would be hard to invent a policy that risked causing more damage to U.S. interests.

At the same time, the world is noting the eerie resemblance between this tragedy and the Soviet Union’s shooting down of Korean Air Flight 007 in 1983. There was universal horror at that act, which the Soviets alleged was a mistake prompted by the activities of a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft. Because the United States and the Soviet Union were not at war, this was no excuse, and that fact--the lack of any confrontation--sets KAL 007 apart from Iran Air 655. But in most of the world this is a distinction without a difference. Whatever the details of this particular incident, the United States has done itself a major injury through a logical consequence of misguided policy.

Most critical is what happens now: Tragedy can be compounded, or this can be the beginning of enlightenment in U.S. policy. Iran’s leaders have vowed retaliation, and, even if they substitute words for deeds, they may not be able to stop the Revolutionary Guards or others bent on serving their own ends. There could be suicidal military action in the Persian Gulf or, more likely, a new spate of anti-American terrorism. The United States and Iran will be drawn more deeply into confrontation. The American people will see justice in any U.S. military action, even though Iranian radicals, fundamentalists and the Soviet Union will make further gains at U.S. expense.

More damage to U.S. interests can be averted only if the Administration resists the temptation to justify past policy and to continue stubbornly pursuing it. Instead, the Administration must finally set a course in the Persian Gulf that has a chance of regaining control over events.

With 290 deaths, any blood debt that Iran has owed the United States has been discharged. U.S. leaders must stop feeding the American people’s hatred of Iran and instead explain facts that are clear to those who have long correctly warned of the risks. Former President Jimmy Carter understood the U.S. strategic interest in Iran, and so did Ronald Reagan--until his attempt to explain it was hooted down as a lame excuse for the Iran-Contra scandal. Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci seemed to understand the dangers in current policy when he gradually reduced the U.S. naval presence in the gulf--until the April 18 engagement with Iran that followed the Roberts incident led bad policy to be reinforced.

During the last several months, the United States has increased its support for Iraqi military actions to the point that it only mildly admonished Baghdad for the most massive use of poison gas since World War I. Washington failed to test Iranian overtures to end the war--an opportunity now likely gone. And, despite the evident dangers, it has done nothing to halt Iraqi attacks on Iranian oil tankers, which put U.S. forces in harm’s way.

The United States should demand that Iraq put a stop to these attacks while American ships are in the gulf--whereupon Iran is almost certain to stop threatening the vessels of other nations. Washington should use all of its diplomatic powers at the United Nations and elsewhere to test the willingness of both Iran and Iraq to wind down the war. It should recognize that it has not been chased from the gulf, that it should stop reflagging Kuwait’s tankers and should return its fleet presence to modest levels. Thereby the United States would rapidly regain control of its fate in the Persian Gulf.

U.S. interests in the region include containing Iranian, Iraqi and Soviet influence. But unless the Administration reverses course, it will fail to secure any of these interests. It will invite more damage to the U.S. position, and it will risk further tragedy--perhaps next time measured in American lives.