Iran and the United States: Foreign Policy during the Khomeini Years
The Iranian revolutionary cry to ‘liberate’ all lands for Islam and export the revolution was taken very seriously in the wider Middle East, and given Iraq’s majority Shi’a population (under the rule of the Sunni minority), the rhetoric from Tehran was perceived as a direct threat by Saddam Hussein. For his part, Hussein believed that Iran was militarily weak following the revolution and hoped to exploit the situation by attacking the oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan. The war, launched by Iraq on 22 September 1980, further radicalized Iranian politics as the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) – the most radical of Iranian political factions – was left at the uncontested helm of Iranian policy-making. There were pragmatists in Iran who understood that recovering their land from Iraq was essential, and since that goal had been accomplished by 1982 and the Saudi peace initiative was on the table, striving to ‘liberate’ all of Iraq would be detrimental to the domestic agenda.39 The pragmatists were vehemently opposed by the more radical mullahs of the IRP and as was often the case in the 1980s, Khomeini sided with the radicals who viewed their effort to export the revolution as a compulsory war of Jihad. (Click here for maps on the military engagements during the war)
Iran believed that the increased American naval activity in the Persian Gulf beginning in February 1979 was aimed at toppling their regime. They believed that the U.S. had instigated the war by authorizing or encouraging their ‘deputy,’ Saddam Hussein to attack.40 Hussein was thus seen as an ‘infidel’ in Iran and as an American puppet. Add to this Israel’s June 1982 invasion of Lebanon and Iran decided to ignore calls for a ceasefire and go on the offensive, bringing the war to Iraq a few weeks later. The new rallying cry was to march to Jerusalem by way of Karbala, Iraq. The dogmatic idealists won the day over the pragmatic realists in Iran, a trend that would often repeat itself until the war’s end in July 1988. As Khomeini saw it, “It is not a question of a fight between one government and another. This is a rebellion by blasphemy against Islam.” The war would continue until “the government of heathens in Iraq topples.” 41 On 21 June 1982 Iran launched their attack against Iraq.
Khomeini viewed the export of his revolution as a gift to the Muslims of the world. He assumed (even expected) that he would have the assistance of the Iraqi Shi’a in Basra when he attacked. It was not forthcoming. Even the new war tactics he employed were dogmatic in nature. Khomeini employed large Pasdaran and Basiji formations in human-wave attacks. “The fighting was ferocious with wave after wave of Basijis marching into the automatic weapons fire of the fortified Iraqi lines, often bringing nothing into battle but a Quran and a headband proclaiming their willingness to be martyred for the Imam.”42 This was Iran’s preferred mine-clearing tactic.
Khomeini actively supported and encouraged the Shi’a uprising in oil-rich eastern Saudi Arabia, and called for an Islamic uprising during the Hajj. In December 1981, Bahrain broke up a coup plot by a group of 150 Shi’i from a Tehran-based group named the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain.43 Khomeini also set up a camp at Manzariyeh Park near his residence to train terrorists in small arms, explosives use, and even more ominous, to teach the art of suicide attacks.44
After Iran strung together a series of victories against Iraq in the summer of 1982, the United States decided to support Iraq. America’s strategic reason at the time was that Iran’s effort to export their revolution posed a direct threat to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain – and to a larger extent, the newly formed Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which was established as a defensive mechanism against Iranian aggression.45 James Bill explains that “clashes of power among hegemonic actors are most intense where gaps in world view are the greatest. As global hegemon, the US considers itself protector of the international status quo.”46 Bill and Springborg explain that “the principal cause of the war centered on a struggle for hegemony of the Persian Gulf.”47 If nothing else, Iran was certainly threatening the status quo. In 1982, America removed Iraq from their list of terrorism-supporting states in order to offer Iraq direct assistance. However, as many American officials used to joke, “the only bad thing about the war was that someday it would have to end.”48
By 1985 pragmatists in Iran were worried about the survival of the revolution. Many felt that the way to export the revolution was to become a source of Islamic inspiration and admiration – something the Islamic world would seek to emulate. This meant ending the war and repairing relations with other countries. The pragmatists, led by the Majlis Speaker Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were supported by the Bazaaris who desired rational, not revolutionary economic policies. They were opposed by the radicals, led by Prime Minister Musavi and Ayatollah Montazeri. Khomeini again sided with the radicals and the war waged on.
A chain of events ultimately brought the United States into the war in 1987, albeit unofficially. Iran attacked random oil tankers in the gulf, using small boats armed with antiship and antitank missiles, and began fitting other boats as suicide crafts designed to ram ships and set off explosives. Tehran considered most Gulf tankers as enemy ships because they came from the same states who were pouring money into Iraq’s war coffers. During the height of their al-Basrah offensive, they struck twenty tankers, fifteen of which were Kuwaiti.
Kuwait lacked a sufficient navy, they decided to rent one. They asked the United States to reflag a number of their ships so that they would be registered as American, flying the American flag, and thus escorted by American warships. At first, Washington declined the offer; however, when Kuwait turned to the Soviet Union with the same request, America quickly reconsidered.49
On 17 May 1987, while American ships were escorting a convoy, the Iraqi air force slammed two missiles into an American frigate in the Gulf, killing 37 sailors. While Washington knew the shots came from Iraq, they blamed Iran for making the Gulf a hostile region.
There was a real fear among some Gulf states that the U.S. would pull out of the Gulf in response – much like they did in Lebanon. In Iran, this was a hope; not a fear. As far as they were concerned, they had proven the United States was weak during the hostage crisis and in Lebanon. As a result, Iran increased their naval guerilla warfare and stepped up their mining activity. To make sure America understood the Iranian position, the Revolutionary Guards hoisted a banner on their Tehran headquarters that announced, “The Persian Gulf will be the graveyard of the United States.”50
On the night of 21-22 September, the United States dispatched special forces to follow the Iranian ship, the Iran Ajr. After they confirmed that the ship was laying mines in the middle of the Gulf they attacked, catching the Iranians off guard. The next day the United States showed off the ship, mines, charts, and orders from higher authorities that ordered the mind-laying. Tehran saw this as American restraint, not decisive American power, and it only served to further provoke the Iranians.
In early October Iran tried to mount a large-scale operation by Pasdaran naval units against Saudi offshore oil facilities but the Saudis and Americans were prepared and drove them back. In mid-October Iran began firing Silkworm missiles into American-flagged tankers in Kuwait Bay. Washington responded by destroying an Iranian offshore oil platform used as a Revolutionary Guard base. In November, Iranian-backed dissidents attempted to bomb the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry and in March 1988, Iranian proxy organizations began a campaign of attacks against Saudi facilities outside the Kingdom.51
1988 proved to be a defining year in the debate between Iranian realists and idealists. A cascade of defeats left the radicals without an argument supportable by the masses and thus, without an argument supportable by Khomeini himself.
In early 1988 public support for the war had dwindled and Pasdaran units held demonstrations in favor of ‘forgiving’ Saddam Hussein, favoring a war of attrition instead. Iraq mounted an offensive, clearing Iran from al-Faw. Concurrently, with European assistance, Iraq was able to modify their Scud missiles so that they could fly twice the distance as before. These new al-Husayn missiles rained down over Tehran and Qom from February through April. Given Baghdad’s proximity to the Iranian border, the capital city had become acquainted with Iranian attacks during the war; however, Tehran was far from the border. This was the first time the Iranian capital came under fire.
Rumors spread like wildfire in Tehran that Iraq had developed chemical warheads to fit upon the Iraqi al-Husayn missile. Khomeini pushed the public’s panic button when the regime began issuing instructions for such an eventuality. Civilians fled Tehran by the droves.
During this period the Iraqi Kurds rose up in defiance of Hussein. On 16 March 1988, the Iraqi Kurds in Halabja were gassed with chemical weapons on Hussein’s orders. America was aware that during the Iran-Iraq war, both sides used chemical and biological weapons and that Iraq employed these tactics far more frequently. Washington chose to look the other way during all the previous chemical attacks. Upon learning about the civilian deaths in Halabja, Washington’s finger pointed to Iran.52
In July, Iran planted new mines in the Gulf awaiting American-flagged ships. When days later an American convoy passed and a U.S. frigate hit an Iranian mine, the United States launched Operation Praying Mantis and destroyed three more Iranian offshore Pasdaran oil platforms. Tehran, not accustomed to half-measures, sent their navy out in force to confront the U.S. This time the Reagan administration had had enough; they were finished with provocative half-measures. America reacted to the direct Iranian attacks by crippling the Iranian fleet. Their response convinced the Iranian admirals that directly confronting the United States in the Gulf waters was fruitless; however, the Pasdaran launched several more attacks against U.S. ships.
On 3 July, in the midst of one of these skirmishes, a regularly scheduled Iranian passenger flight left from Bandar Abbas airfield in Iran. The airport was both a civilian and military base. The flight trajectory took Iran Airbus Flight 655 over the American fleet and the U.S.S. Vincennes launched two missiles bringing down the plane with its 290 passengers and crew. At the time, it was the sixth worst aviation disaster in history.53
Initially, Washington tried to cover up their mistake.54 Both hardliners and pragmatists in Iran misread Washington. Iran thought that the U.S. had entered the war decisively on Iraq’s side and would spare nothing – including shooting down civilians in flight – to defeat Iran.55 The silence with which the international community greeted the news led many in Iran to wake up to the fact that they were internationally isolated. This was the proverbial straw that broke the Iranian camel’s back.
Given Iran’s recent spat of defeats in Iraq, the appearance of America’s full entry into the war against Iran, and their international isolation, Rafsanjani and Khamene’i together with other pragmatists were able to convince Khomeini to end the war in July 1988. The realists defeated the idealists – yet at the same time, Iranians (be they average citizens or politicians) were no longer interested in singing the same dogmatic song.
39 The Saudi peace proposal of September 1982 would have provided $70 billion in reparations to Iran. Hussein accepted it immediately.
40 Ramazani. "Iran's Foreign Policy: Contending Orientations." p. 209. Some Western historians not only agree with this appraisal, but further posit that the U.S. essentially gave a thumbs-up to Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait by “excusing and apologizing for the excesses of his [Saddam Hussein’s] regime, the United States puffed him up and inadvertently encouraged him to pursue further aggression in the region,” which resulted in Hussein “holding a blank check for aggression.” See: Bill, James A., and Robert Springborg. Politics in the Middle East. The Longman Series in Comparative Politics. 5th ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2000. pp. 293-96.
41 Wright, Robin B. In the Name of God : The Khomeini Decade. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. p. 88.
42 Pollack. The Persian Puzzle. p. 194.
43 Wright. In the Name of God : The Khomeini Decade. pp, 111-112.
44 Pollack. The Persian Puzzle. p. 198.
45 Ramazani, Rouhollah K., and Joseph A. Kechichian. The Gulf Cooperation Council : Record and Analysis. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988.
46 Bill, James A. "Iran and the United States: A Clash of Hegemonies." Middle East Report.212 (1999): 44-46. p. 45.
47 Bill, and Springborg. Politics in the Middle East. p. 293.
48 Pollack. The Persian Puzzle. p. 206.
49 Kuwait was the only member of the GCC with longstanding ties with the Soviet Union. The U.S. did not want Kuwait to legitimize their presence in the Gulf.
50 Wright. In the Name of God : The Khomeini Decade. p. 167.
51 Pollack. The Persian Puzzle. pp. 226-27.
52 Keddie, and Richard. Modern Iran. pp. 259 & 345. There was a long-running debate in the West regarding who was responsible for the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja because the city passed between Iraqi and Iranian hands several times in 1988. In the lead-up to the 1991 American-led war to evict Hussein from Kuwait, the United States chose Iraq’s shoulders to saddle the blame – a reversal of their original claim. See: The U.S. Department of State’s website available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/18714.htm, accessed on 24 October 2005.
53 Wright. In the Name of God : The Khomeini Decade. pp. 186-87.
54 Bill. "Iran and the United States: A Clash of Hegemonies." p. 44.
55 Keddie, and Richard. Modern Iran. p. 259.