Iran Seeks to ward off enemies with threat of Holy War

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — THE crisis in the Persian Gulf is deepening, assuming more than ever the character of a religious war by Iran against fellow Moslems. Last week it shook the Islamic world, threatening many conservative Arab regimes.

With the United States poised to increase its military presence in the gulf, moreover, the crisis has thrown into sharp relief the growing rivalry there between Moscow and Washington. The United States prepared to send mine-detecting helicopters and, reportedly, helicopter gunships and commando teams to bolster its protection of re-registered Kuwaiti tankers against Iranian attack. (U.S. military options, page 3.) This policy has moved Iran to new heights of anti-American rage, as it sees Kuwait as an ally of Iraq, its enemy in a seven-year-old war.

Moscow, meanwhile, seemed to be seeking influence on both sides of the widening divide, matching its low-key, unpublicized military protection of Kuwaiti oil exports with a delegation to Teheran that sought long-range economic deals

”The real prize in the region is Iran,” said a West European diplomat in Kuwait. ”The Russians know it.”

What convulsed the region anew was the blood-stained event at the Islamic Holy City of Mecca in Saudi Arabia nine days ago. At least 400 Moslems were killed in rioting during the annual pilgrimage, more than half of them Iranians. ‘Lackeys of the U.S.’

The conservative Saudi regime accused Iran of fomenting the violence, seeking, according to one Saudi newspaper, to have the two million pilgrims acknowledge Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s revolutionary leader, as the spiritual head of all Islam. The Iranians called the Saudis lackeys of the United States and accused them of massacring Iranians at Washington’s behest.

Even without political overtones, such bloodshed at Mecca would have represented a profound shock for Moslems, a desecration of their holiest shrine at the most pious event of the religious calendar. (Policing the pilgrimage, page 3.) But Iran’s response added a new and ominous element of jihad, or holy war, to what seems a desperate and angry effort to prevent a coalition of pro-American forces from forming against it.