A U.S. attack on an Iranian oil platformin the Gulf on Monday appeared to be a tit-for-tat raid
carefully orchestrated not to be too provocative or upset Arab
allies, Western diplomats in the region said.
    U.S. Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger said Monday that
U.S. Warships destroyed the oil platform in the southern Gulf
in response to a missile strike on the American-registered
Kuwaiti tanker Sea Isle City in Kuwaiti waters on Friday.
    "We consider the matter closed," he said, a signal the U.S.
administration did not want the Gulf crisis to escalate.
    Iran had warned the United States earlier in the day
against exacerbating the Gulf crisis, saying military action
would endanger American interests.
    Following the raid, a okesman for Tehran's War
Information Headquarters vowed to avenge the attack with a
"crushing blow."
    "The United States has entered a swamp from which it can in
no way get out safely," Tehran Radio quoted him as saying.
    Diplomats noted, however, Iran was also seeking to avoid
ostracism by Arab states due to meet at a summit in Amman on
November 8 and discuss the Iran-Iraq war.
    Iranian Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi is currently in
Damascus, and diplomats said he would seek Syrian help in
preventing a total Arab breach with Tehran.
    Further escalation of the war threatening the Gulf Arab
states could work against Tehran at the Amman gathering, they
said.
    "The ball is in Iran's court now. It's up to Tehran to
respond one way or the other," a diplomat said.
    President Ronald Reagan warned Iran of stronger American
countermeasures if the military escalation continued.
    Western diplomats and military sources in the area said
shelling the platform appeared to be the least provocative act
the United States could have taken once it had decided to
retaliate for the tanker attack, blamed by both the Americans
and Kuwaitis on Iran.
    "It's interesting that they chose something in international
waters because it doesn't implicate any other nation," one
diplomat said. "This was better for U.S. Relations with the Gulf
Arab states, particularly Kuwait."
    Commented another diplomat: "Kuwait must be happy that the
U.S. Has done something, but relieved that Faw was not attacked
on its doorstep."
    One source said of the attack on the oil platform: "They
managed to warn off the crew and hit something that was the
least nuisance to everybody."
    A diplomat commented: "They were very clever in the place
they chose. It gets attention, but it hasn't devastated
anything because it wasn't working in the first place."
    A senior Arab banker in the area said after the news broke:
"This was a good, measured response without risking a flare-up
... It is a face-saving response (for the Americans)."
 Reuter
