Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 7, 1991 TAG: 9103070295
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TIMOTHY M. PHELPS NEWSDAY
DATELINE: AMMAN, JORDAN LENGTH: Medium
So it backed Saddam Hussein.
After Iran was neutralized by Iraq in eight tough years of war, Saddam exercised his new muscle by invading Kuwait.
The Iraqi president became the new demon,and his army was destroyed.
But some Middle East experts say it appears the United States might again have gone too far, creating a power vacuum that Iranian-backed Shiite rebels and others are trying to use to take over Iraq. The United States, they say, might have unleashed a new menace to the region and American interests there - perhaps the same one they set out to eliminate a decade ago.
"This situation was not sufficiently thought through before the war, what sort of geopolitical changes might take place in the gulf," said Richard Norton, an American expert on Shiite Muslims. "Did we really want to create a situation where Iran is in the stronger position in the region?
"It is so hard to argue against a brilliant military victory, but this is why so many of us counseled against choosing war," said Norton, a senior research fellow at the International Peace Academy in New York City. "You don't know what lies down all those dark alleys." Norton, who is on sabbatical from a teaching post at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, said that Iran, directly or through the Iraqi Shiite militants who Tuesday claimed control of key cities south of Baghdad, might well be tempted to try to take control of Iraq.
Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, denied Wednesday that his country is aiding the Iraqi Shiites.
"I don't think the Americans thought anything about what would happen," said Christine Helms, the author of an academic book, "Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World."
The latest fighting, in which extremist Shiite fundamentalists claim to have taken control of Najaf and Karbala, just 60 miles south of Baghdad, brings events in the region full circle.
In 1979 and 1980, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization called Al Dawa, or The Call, perpetrated a series of bombings in public buildings in Baghdad. Combined with calls by Iran's newly installed ayatollah for the Shiite majority in Iraq to overthrow Saddam's Sunni Muslim regime, the attacks created an untenable situation in Iraq.
Using the pretext of a border dispute, Saddam invaded Iran, thinking that the Iranians would rise up against Khomeini.
During the war, Al Dawa continued to attack Baghdad. In the early years of the war, it blew up the Ministry of Planning in Baghdad, killing 30 young women.
In a vicious crackdown, Saddam killed or deported most Al Dawa members and largely put a stop to the bombings. But Al Dawa conducted a similar bombing campaign in Kuwait, trying to kill the emir and setting off an explosion at the U.S. Embassy. Groups allied with Al Dawa, under an umbrella organization called the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, conducted violent activities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Al Dawa and the Supreme Asssembly, both reported at times to have been headed by Mohammed Bakr El Hakim, were the leaders of the Iranian-sponsored turmoil in the Persian Gulf during the '80s.
They are also connected with Iranian-backed terrorist groups in Lebanon blamed for blowing up the U.S. Marine barracks in 1983 and the taking of the American hostages in Beirut.
Though the major efforts to export the Iranian revolution seemed to have ended with Iraq's defeat of Iran in 1988, it was El Hakim who claimed this week from Tehran, Iran, that the Supreme Assembly had taken control of the major cities of southern Iraq.
Even if Iran last week had no intention of trying to take over Iraq, the destruction of the Iraqi army might have created a situation that is too attractive to resist. The Iranian revolution has been reborn.
Helms and Norton said that although Iraq is more than half Shiite, Al Dawa might have great difficulty winning the permanent allegiance of the majority of the Shiites who predominate in the southern half of the country.
by CNB