Word: straitly
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There is no way that we could stand by and see that sea-lane denied to shipping." So said President Reagan last week, referring to growing concern that fighting between Iran and Iraq could close the 40-to 60-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf shipping lane through which 20% of the West's crude oil travels. That threat grew more worrisome as Iran launched yet another offensive, its biggest since July 1982, against Iraq. By week's end Iranian forces had occupied 37 Iraqi border villages, and were engaged in fierce hand-to-hand battles...
...danger was that if Iraq suffered a major battlefield defeat it might decide to use the Super Etendard fighter-bombers it bought from France last fall to attack Kharg Island, Iran's principal oil terminal. Iran has repeatedly said it would retaliate by blockading the strait, thereby halting shipment of most of the oil produced by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. Last week Iranian officials warned again that if the U.S. and its supporters try to intervene in the war "their fate would be decisively worse than their fate in Lebanon...
...jeopardy. That point was driven home again last week as the war entered a new cycle of bloodletting. While thousands of Iraqi and Iranian troops clashed in major battles, the widening conflict reawakened the U.S. and other oil-consuming nations to the threat of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway through which 20% of the oil supplies of the non-Communist world passes...
...pressure earlier this month with air strikes that, they claim, sank nine "enemy naval targets" in the gulf. In response, Iran has hardened its position. Only an end to the rule of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Iranian officials insist, will bring a settlement. Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping if Iraq launches attacks on its oil facilities...
...terminal at Kharg Island if Iran continued its blockade of Iraq's oil exports through the gulf. In addition, Iraq warned Japan that a large petrochemical complex under construction by a Japanese firm at Bandar-Khomeini would be bombed. Iran, in turn, has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the West's oil supplies pass, if Iraq seriously disrupts Iran's oil exports...