Word: iranian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...American policymakers, the latest bombings were all too reminiscent of the destruction of the U.S. embassy in West Beirut last April that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans. One of the groups claiming responsibility for that action was the Islamic Jihad Organization, an obscure pro-Iranian group made up of Shi'ite Muslims loyal to Iran's Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. On Sunday evening the State Department received an unconfirmed report that a faction calling itself the Islamic Revolutionary Movement had taken responsibility for the terrorist attacks. An unidentified caller had apparently phoned the Beirut office of the French news service...
...Exocets, the Iraqis will be better able to threaten Iran's oil exports. Though the missiles cannot knock out the installations at Kharg island, which are well defended and have already withstood Iraqi bombing, the Exocets could be used to discourage vulnerable tankers from calling at the Iranian port. Without ever firing a shot, Iraq could diminish Tehran's main flow of income, thus crippling Iran's ability to wage a war of attrition against the economically strapped Iraqis...
When the jet deal was first mentioned last February, the Iranian government immediately warned that if the planes were delivered and its oil installations were seriously damaged, Iran would prevent any ships from entering or leaving the gulf (see map). Such a maneuver would have far-reaching consequences. Twenty percent of the non-Communist world's oil supplies pass through the 40-to-60-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz. More than 40% of Western Europe's oil imports and 13% of U.S. oil comes from the gulf, while Japan depends on the region for over...
...government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini left no doubt of how it views the new development. "The Persian Gulfs jugular vein is in our hands," declared Iranian state radio. "Should an attempt be made to use the planes to damage Iran's vital resources, Iran would turn the Strait of Hormuz into a quagmire for the West's imperial objectives." Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Speaker of the Iranian parliament, put it more chillingly. If Tehran bottles up the gulf, he warned, "the West will have a very cold winter...
Iraqi officials insist that their goal is not to halt Iranian exports but only to be allowed to increase their own. Besides blocking Iraqi ships from using the gulf, Iran destroyed Iraq's main oil facilities at Fao in 1980. In 1982 Syria turned off the valve on Iraq's pipeline to the Mediterranean. Since then, Iraq has been exporting 3 only about 650,000 bbl. per day via pipeline through Turkey, I compared with a daily total of ; more than 3 million bbl. before the war. Iran, on the other hand, is still able to ship about...