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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (37285)	8/12/2002 12:57:21 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi carranza2; Re: "Saddam has used chemical and nerve agents in warfare previously against an opponent who did not have WMDs. Will he use them against an opponent who can obliterate him? Doubtful as he did not use them in '91." Actually, if you read a careful history of the Iran-Iraq conflict you will find that Saddam did not use chemical weapons until the Iranians had his back up against the wall. Then he used them. The US never had his back up against the wall. The conflict was about Kuwait, not the Iraqi regime. This is in distinction to the Iranians, who repeatedly stated that they were going to fight until Saddam was gone. Re: "On the other hand, he is volatile and he was not pushed to the end of his rope in the Gulf War." The Iranians sure thought he was a rational actor: The Longest War Dilip Hiro (pages 201-2) At the policy-making level the Iraqi action [gas attack against Iraqi city captured by Iranians, with much civilian casualties] made Tehran worryingly aware that *if Baghdad found itself in a desperate situation in the face of a major Iranian ground offensive, it would load its long-range missiles with chemical warheads and fire them at Iran's urban centres.* In December 1986 Premier Musavi had stated that Iran had developed its own chemical warfare technology. A year later he informed the Majlis that the government had started producing 'sophisticated offensive chemical weapons', but added: 'Iran will not use chemical weapons as long as it is not forced to, and will respect international conventions'. In mid-March 1988 the London Observer reported that a fortnight earlier Iran had tested a chemical warhead for a missile near Semnan. But chemical arms could not be deployed until and unless Ayatollah Khomeini, the commander-in-chief, gave permission. When he was approached on the subject by top officials, he reportedly reiterated his earlier refusal based on the argument that Islam prohibits its fighters from polluting the atmosphere even in the course of a jihad or holy war. However, neither this reasoning nor Khomeini's refusal was publicized: that would have given Saddam Hussein carte blanche and defeated Tehran's strategy of keeping the Iraqi president guessing, and would also have precluded Iran from using poison gasses in the future. For the present, however, given tha tchemical weapons were not to be deployed, Iran felt inhibited about staging an all-out offensive against Iraq in the south. -- Carl