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U.S. Policy in the Gulf: A Second Look
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12073 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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12 / 1987 |
3,148 Words |
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Frederick W. Axelgard
Frederick W. Axelgard is a fellow in Middle East studies at
Georgetown University and author of the forthcoming study
Iraq: The Gulf War and the Struggle for Legitimacy. |
"Should the United States be taking Iraq's side in the Gulf war?" During 1987, this question has gained currency as a mechanism for criticizing U.S. military and diplomatic initiatives relating to the Persian Gulf. Like most rhetorical ploys, this query glosses over facts and incorporates hidden assumptions to facilitate arrival at a predetermined point - in this case, to argue that the United States really has no business deploying men and equipment in the dangerous setting of the Gulf.
But has the United States taken Iraq's side in its war with Iran? And is it automatically wrong for the United States to identify with Iraqi interests and objectives" The conventional wisdom that underpins most criticism of current U.S. policy in the Gulf would answer both questions with a firm "yes." In both cases, though, this answer would be wrong, as a closer examination of the complex realities in the Gulf will show.
The prevailing American and international perspective on the Iran-Iraq war is hopelessly distorted. It is preoccupied with Iraqi and Iranian attacks on maritime targets in the Gulf and the formidable Western naval presence deployed to contain the effects of this so-called tanker war. But the war between Iran and Iraq is first and last a ground war. The offshore conflict is but a sideshow against what has happened (and surely will yet happen) onshore. More than seven years of bloody offensives, counteroffensives, bombings, and missile attacks have resulted in upwards of one million casualties and damages totaling hundreds of billions of dollars for the two sides. This horrific fallout completely overshadows the losses incurred in the four-year-old tanker war. Further more, it is a foregone conclusion that the course of the war and its ultimate resolution will be determined by facts on the ground, not in the water.
With these points in mind, two observations are in order about U.S. policy toward the war. First, its thrust has been to contain the international repercussions of the war, and it has had relatively little direct effect on the ground war. The deployment of naval forces in the Gulf is a perfect example of this practice. Second, to the degree Washington has had an effect on the ground war, the net results have almost certainly been more to Iran's benefit rather than Iraq's. Moreover, a strong argument can also be made that Iran has received more immediate and concrete benefits from the presence of Western naval forces in the Gulf than has Iraq.
The core argument here is that the impetus given to Iran's
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