Word: conflicts
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...Iran made any attempt last week to interfere with shipping through the strait, the Soviets talked about U.S. "preparations for armed interference in the Persian Gulf," obviously concerned that, in case of a blockade, the U.S. might resort to military action. In Washington, officials expressed fears that if the conflict dragged on, the Soviets, who are Iraq's main armorers and who share a 1,250-mile border with Iran, would have a built-in advantage in case of internal complications in either country...
...knew from the start that its hands were tied. Said American University President Joseph Sisco, former Under Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs: "This is the first time in recent years that the U.S. has not been able to play even a diplomatic role in a significant Mideast conflict...
...back Iraq could mean the loss of a carefully nurtured Iranian connection. Thus Moscow contented itself with asking both countries to stop the fighting quickly. If they did not, the Soviets warned, the U.S. would take advantage. "While calling by word of mouth for neutrality in the Iranian-Iraqi conflict," the Soviet news agency TASS said after the New York meeting between Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, "Washington is in fact building up tensions and making a choice between direct interference in the Iranian-Iraqi conflict and the possibility of launching international intervention...
Part of the Iraqi-French deal covers the sale of a nuclear reactor-a development that has caused great anxiety in Israel, which fears that Iraq, one of the Jewish state's archenemies, could develop a nuclear weapons potential. Indeed the Iran-Iraq conflict, the first recent major crisis in the region in which Israel is not involved, was being closely watched in Jerusalem. "That fight," said an Israeli official acidly, "is proof that there is an inherent instability in the Middle East of which we are not a part...
...Iraq chooses to prolong the conflict, it will almost certainly be to inflict such punishment on the Iranian economy and military machine that they will not be a major factor in the gulf for some time to come. Iraqi Defense Minister Khairallah reiterated last week that his country coveted "not one inch of Iranian territory" beyond that "usurped" by Iran...