Word: persian
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Even if none of these things occur, the all too accurate impression that it cannot shape events is certain to hurt the U.S., both with the conservative oil-producing monarchies of the Persian Gulf region and with its European allies. America's dilemma will also surely have some effect on the presidential campaign. Normally, a crisis abroad helps an incumbent, but Ronald Reagan lost no time in charging that "what is happening in Iraq and Iran is the consequence of policies [Carter's] Administration has followed during the last 3½ years-a vacillating foreign policy...
Suddenly the nightmare, the conflict that had only been discussed as a worst-case scenario, was at hand-war amid the oilfields and across the vital oil routes of the Persian Gulf. Day after day last week, Iraqi pilots flying Soviet-built MiGs headed eastward for bombing raids on military targets and oil facilities across the Iranian border, including the Tigris-Euphrates estuary known as Shatt al Arab. Caught by surprise at first, the Iranians responded with attacks of their own, sending American-made Phantom F-4 fighter-bombers against Iraqi cities and installations. A fearful battle was under...
...Hormuz open; it would prefer to do so by diplomatic means, but it has little leverage in Baghdad or in Tehran. Though neither Iraq nor Iran made any attempt last week to interfere with shipping through the strait, the Soviets talked about U.S. "preparations for armed interference in the Persian Gulf," obviously concerned that, in case of a blockade, the U.S. might resort to military action. In Washington, officials expressed fears that if the conflict dragged on, the Soviets, who are Iraq's main armorers and who share a 1,250-mile border with Iran, would have a built...
...down no fewer than 158 Iranian planes, about as many, experts figured, as the Iranians would have been able to get into the air. Propaganda was rife on either side. Iraqi television carried bulletins on the fighting, with commentaries on what "our heroic forces" had done to "the racist Persian enemy." The Iranian media talked of Saddam Hussein's "collusion with Israel." Apparently counting on a quick and glorious kill, Saddam's government initially treated the war as a kind of media event, issuing visas for 300 foreign newsmen and busing many of them to Baghdad from Jordan...
...Minister Andrei Gromyko and U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, "Washington is in fact building up tensions and making a choice between direct interference in the Iranian-Iraqi conflict and the possibility of launching international intervention in case the war between Iran and Iraq jeopardizes oil exports from the Persian Gulf area...