The Fearsome Cost

Iran, says its president, is today stronger than ever. Iraq, says its dictator, has achieved a martial triumph. With these characteristically self-serving lies as counterpoint, one of the longest and most brutal wars of modern times moves toward its victorless end. On Aug. 20 a cease-fire monitored by U.N. observers is to take effect in the Persian Gulf. Five days later the belligerents are to open direct U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Geneva. The cease-fire is to be followed by an exchange of war prisoners and the evacuation of all occupied territory. With that, each side will be back just where it was on Sept. 22, 1980, the day Iraqi tanks and troops rolled across the border into Iran.

The journey back to the starting point has been achieved at fearsome cost. Largely hidden from the eyes of the outside world, an estimated 1 million men have fallen in the mud and dust of the gulf killing grounds. Close to twice that number may have been wounded, while rocket attacks on cities have claimed thousands of civilian lives. In a huge military cemetery outside Tehran a loathsome “fountain of blood” celebrates those whom Iran is pleased to call martyrs. In Iraq thousands of corpses reportedly fill refrigerated warehouses. The regime releases a few bodies at a time so that the real toll of the war can be kept hidden.

If the grisly standards of 20th-Century warfare were not surpassed in the Iran-Iraq War, they surely were equaled. Countless Iranian boys, many no older than 13, were regularly sent to their deaths in human mine-clearing operations. All carried little plastic keys that their spiritual advisers promised would open the gates of paradise. Prisoners of war have apparently disappeared by the thousands, their existence and captivity confirmed by the International Red Cross but denied by their captors. And poison gas and other chemical-warfare agents are now openly acknowledged to have been used to hideous effect by both sides.

Conservative estimates place the economic costs of the war at well over $200 billion. Some Western experts calculate that Iran will need $80 billion and Iraq $30 billion just to repair the damage that was done to homes, factories, oil installations, transport and schools. The Japanese Institute of Middle East Economic Studies puts the eight-year loss in oil revenues at $23 billion for Iran and $65 billion for Iraq. Lloyd’s insurance exchange estimates that more than $2 billion in claims has been paid for ships damaged in the Persian Gulf. The so-called war of the tankers, which brought many ships from many countries under attack from both Iran and Iraq, left at least 300 sailors dead and 300 injured.

Reports from Iran and Iraq say that there is rejoicing at the news that the slaughter and destruction are nearing an end. So there should be. The pity is that those countries cannot also see aroused public questioning about the criminal misjudgments and stubborn cruelty of leaders who caused the war to go on and on, consuming a generation of young men. Iraqis and Iranians, citizens of police states, are in no position to raise these questions, and the rest of the world, grateful that the war is finally coming to a close, probably has little further interest in doing so. So soon enough the crimes and follies of this long conflict will pass from memory. Those who bear the guilt for all that happened will keep their power, while those who suffered because of their crimes will soon be forgotten.