Word: hormuz
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...President Saddam Hussein had been threatening to attack any vessels using Iran's big oil-exporting facility at Kharg Island. The government of Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini had vowed, in turn, that it would respond to such an attack by blockading the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the gulf, choking off the oil lifeline to Japan and parts of Western Europe...
...Iraq hopes that by threatening tanker traffic, it can prevent Iran from financing its war effort with oil revenues. Iraq lost a large share of its oil production to Iranian bombing raids shortly after it invaded Iran in 1980. While Iran is probably incapable of closing the Strait of Hormuz to world shipping by military means, it certainly has the capacity to make travel within the gulf so hazardous and costly that shipping companies would be reluctant to send their tankers into the war zone. Already, several U.S. and Japanese firms, including Mobil Corp., have decided to stay...
...less bellicose policy in Central America. No European country expressed interest in his proposal. But the concern the letter indicated was real. Said Cheysson last week: "If one accepts it [mining] in one part of the world, there is no reason not to accept it in the Strait of Hormuz as well." He was referring to the waterway through which most Persian Gulf oil bound for the West passes. Iran has threatened to mine the strait as part of its war against Iraq; Reagan has pledged to keep the passage open by any means necessary...
...Senator's fear of using American power borders on the pathological. He has opposed the deployment of US troops to Grenada and Lebanon, he refuses to commit American forces directly in order to keep open the vital Straits of Hormuz, through which much of the Western world's imported oil flows, and now he wants America to abandon Central America...
...signature offered a poignant reminder that during the 42 months that Iran and Iraq have waged war for control of the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, an estimated 100,000 soldiers as young as Abbas Shahverdi have fallen in battle. With characteristic zeal, propaganda ministries in Tehran and Baghdad continued last week to churn out the usual contradictory news bulletins of air strikes, casualty figures, shellings and border skirmishes lost...