Implications of the Iraq-Iran War

Claudia Wright

From Foreign Affairs, Winter 1980/81

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Summary:  On U.S. Army maps the area of Iraq and Iran on either side of the Shatt al Arab River is shown in white, indicating uninhabited marsh and swamp. A warning indicates that ?border demarcations are subject to international dispute.? It was here, at the tip of the Gulf, variously called Persian or Arabian, that a British expeditionary force first landed in 1914 to drive the Turks from Mesopotamia, and to establish ultimately the independent state of Iraq as it is known today. The expedition?s political adviser, Sir Percy Cox, warned his superiors that ?the position of our ships in the [river], from an international point of view, is undoubtedly a weak one.?

Claudia Wright is the Washington correspondent of the London New Statesman, and a frequent writer on Arab affairs, traveling often in the area. Her report, "Iraq-New Power in the Middle East," appeared in Foreign Affairs, Winter 1979/80.

On U.S. Army maps the area of Iraq and Iran on either side of the Shatt al Arab River is shown in white, indicating uninhabited marsh and swamp. A warning indicates that "border demarcations are subject to international dispute." It was here, at the tip of the Gulf, variously called Persian or Arabian, that a British expeditionary force first landed in 1914 to drive the Turks from Mesopotamia, and to establish ultimately the independent state of Iraq as it is known today. The expedition's political adviser, Sir Percy Cox, warned his superiors that "the position of our ships in the [river], from an international point of view, is undoubtedly a weak one."

Cox's warning echoes ironically through more than 60 years of disputes between Iraq and Iran, together with Turkey, the European powers, the United States and the United Nations, all of which have been involved in the contention. For in this inhospitable part of the world, neither geography nor international law permits any power to feel secure. So long as that has been the case, military conflict was bound to recur-with ever-increasing seriousness as the oil became more precious and the military forces on each side of the Shatt al Arab grew more potent.

Iraqi maps of the region show Iraqi territory in pale gray and Iran in dark gray. But a large zone, corresponding roughly to the Iranian province of Khuzistan (or Arabistan as it is termed in Iraq), is marked out separately in alternating shades of gray. With a population of ethnic (and linguistic) Arab stock that has coexisted uneasily with the Iranian majority of the country, the area has been a battleground for ambitious regional potentates since ancient times. The Shatt al Arab river is both a natural border line for Khuzistan, between modern Iraq and Iran, and a strategically vital means of access for the cities on both sides.

For Iraq, the Shatt al Arab is only one of its geographic vulnerabilities in the area. Another feature of the map is that, between Fao and Umm Qasr, Iraq has less than 50 miles of coastline on the Gulf-most of it unusable for shipping. The main port, Basra, is nearly twice that distance away from the Gulf, up the Shatt al Arab, and even in the best of times it has a three-month cargo bottleneck. Umm Qasr, the Iraqi naval base, lies on the border with Kuwait, and can only be reached by sea through a narrow passage between the Iraqi shore and Kuwaiti islands. The approach to Fao and the entrance to the Shatt estuary is commanded by Iranian artillery and naval posts on and around Abadan island.

From the Iraqi point of view, hostile hands are always potentially around the country's throat. Like Jordan at the Gulf of Aqaba, Iraq at the Persian Gulf must share its access to the sea with a non-Arab state and traditional enemy. Iraq is also the only member of OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) whose ...

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