A Useful War

THROUGHOUT the 35-year reign of the Shah, border conflicts between Iran and Iraq never escalated beyond short exchanges of gunfire. But in the fall of 1980, not a year after Khomeini returned to Iran. Iraqi president Saddam-Hossein launched a full-scale surprise attack into Iran. Today, almost half a million people have died and the two nations continue to wage war.

What were Saddam-Hossein's reasons for attacking Iran? Certainly, the Iraqi president hoped to take advantage of the political turmoil in Iran and the chaotic state of the Iranian army--most of its ablest generals were purged after the Shah's ouster--to settle an old border dispute. But this was the least of his motives; Saddam-Hossein, whose regime has never enjoyed full domestic support, meant to use the war to solidify his domestic political standing. Khomeini had just made public his plans to export Iran's Islamic revolution, and Iraq, with its large population of Shi'ite Moslems and close proximity to Iran, was more than a little threatened by these plans. Further, Khomeini's voiced hatred for Saddam-Hossein, who a decade earlier had ousted the politically active Ayatollah from Iraq, made the latter an even more likely target for revolutionary expansion.

Months after the war started, Iranian troops managed to regain almost all the territory lost to Iraq. Having counted on the advantage of a surprise attack for a quick military victory. Saddam-Hossein no longer had a real chance to win the war against Iran. The Iraqis have since tried to minimize their losses and put an end to the costly ordeal.

Yet the war continues, and its source now stems primarily from the Iranian camp. Pulled into war by Iraq, the Khomeini regime has found almost a dozen ways to put the conflict to its own political advantage. At the time of the outbreak of the war Iran was in a state of anarchy; the Khomeini regime, though officially in power, had very limited control over the country. The various political groups that had united to oust the Shah were in the midst of a power struggle that had taken the country to the brink of civil war. Khomeini shrewdly used the war to restore unity to the country by redefining the struggle between the two nations as a battle in the eternal war between good and evil forces. In short, the war picked up where the revolution had left off. Up to this day, the Khomeini regime uses the war for restoring the revolutionary momentum which continues to be one of the foundations of its power.

The war also offers a convenient scapegoat for the faults and failures of the Khomeini regime. The drastic deterioration in the economic conditions of life that has resulted from the reactionary policies of the regime are attributed to the war. Likewise, Khomeini's immense propaganda machine attributes the lack of political freedom, the atmosphere of terror and the ruthless suppressive measures that enforce the regime's hold on power to emergency conditions supposedly created by the war.

GIVEN Khomeini's ability to use Islam as a tool for political repression and the war as a justification for national crises--political, social, or economic--the regime has managed to eliminate all its rivals. Today, the only threat to Khomeini's power comes from within the army--that gigantic military establishment built by the late Shah. For four years the Khomeini regime has used the war to keep the army out of the capital and thus avert the possibility of a military coup d'etat. In order to prevent the emergence of military heroes, it has tried to attribute as few military victories as possible to the old army and as many as possible to Khomeini's revolutionary guard. Yet despite Khomeini's efforts, the army has accumulated both might and glory from the struggle against Iraq. Military leaders--many of whom have had their close colleagues executed under the current regime and all of whom have had to fight a war perpetuated and selfishly used by Khomeini--have good reason to feel antagonistic towards the religious ruler. When the war ends, many of these leaders will have the opportunity to reenter the domestic political scene; public attention will once again focus on domestic issues.

At this point, Khomeini will come under public pressure to relax political measures and to raise economic conditions to peacetime standards. It should be close to impossible for him to meet these standards. And with troops returned from the front on hand near the capital, the time will be ripe for a military coup d'etat.

Against this backdrop, the senselessly endless war with Iraq makes sense. Khomeini is a master of the politics of power who knows exactly what he stands to lose by ending the war.