Page 149 - NS-2 Textbook

142 MARITIME HISTORY

tions transiting the gulf, especially the Strait of Hormuz,
were subject to air and mine attacks by both nations. Be-
cause of our political posture in the area-the United
States has generally assumed the role of peacemaker-
and perhaps also because we are somewhat less depen-
dent on Middle Eastern oil than most other Western na-
tions and therefore less vlih1erable, the United States
played a major role in keeping the Persian Gulf open for
transit by oil tankers of all nations during the latter
stages of the Iran-Iraq War. Throughout 1987 and 1988
U.S. frigates and cruisers served as convoy escorts, ac-
companying and protecting tankers transiting the gulf.
These operations were not conducted without cost.
A Soviet-built Libyan guided missile corvette burns in the Gulf of In May 1987 the frigate USS Stark (FFG-31) was attacked
Sidra after a clash with U.S. Navy aircraft in March 1986.
and hit by two Exocet missiles launched from an Iraqi
aircraft while the ship was on radar picket duty in the
several American hostages. Some of the profits from the gulf. In April 1988 the USS Samllel B. Roberts (FFG-58)
deal were then used to provide arms for the U.S.-favored was alnlost cut in nvo by a mine but was saved by the
Contra revolutionaries in Nicaragua. A key figure in this damage-control efforts of her crew. Then, in July 1988, an
affair was Marine Colonel Oliver North, who was later lmfortunate incident demonstrated the limitations of
found guilty of, essentially, overstepping the bounds of even the most modern equipment in this type of situa-
his authority in the matter. tion. The Aegis cruiser USS VillceIllles (CG-49), in the
middle of a battle against Iranian gunboats in the Strait
of Hormuz, mistakenly shot down a civilian Iranian
THE PERSIAN GULF
airliner that approached the ship in a seemingly threat-
In September 1980 a war began between Iran and Iraq ening marmer over the strait. All 290 people aboard the
that would progress through several phases until August plane died.
1988, when a truce was negotiated that would end most Many mine warfare ships, mainly in our Naval Re-
of the open warfare. Though the proximate cause of the serve fleet, engaged in mine-clearing operations follm-\T-
war was a longstanding border dispute, there had also ing the end of hostilities in the gulf. These operations
been many years of previous political and ethnic tension continued until early 1990, at which time all the mines re-
between the two COlmtries. The first years of the ·war leased by both sides during the war were considered to
turned into a war of attrition, during which neither side have been neutralized.
was able to achieve significant inroads into the territory
of the other, despite many casualties on both sides. Dur- THE DEMISE OF THE SOVIET UNION
ing much of the conflict from the mid-1980s onward, the
war erupted into much of the Persian Gulf, with each The Soviet economy, never very strong since World War
side trying to disrupt the oil tanker trade of the other and II, had been suffering more and more from both low pro-
thereby gain economic advantage. Soon tankers of all na- ductivity and lack of modern technology in the 1980s.

The USS Fox provides escort to the tanker Gas Prince during the Iran-Iraq War in the Persian Gulf, July 1987.