Growing tensions in the Persian Gulf area threaten to plunge this oil-rich region into violent conflict. The conflict could well become a full-fledged Middle East war involving the U.S. and the USSR as these superpowers go in turn to the aid of their clients. The recent clashes between Iraqi and Kuwaiti troops, Iran's decision to buy $2 billion worth of U.S. arms and political disputes in Pakistan between Baluchi tribesmen and the government are all signs of the tensions.

Who are the antagonists? On the one side, the radical Army-Ba'ath regime in Iraq, with its predominantly Arab population of over nine million, makes no bones of its conviction that the Iranian monarchy is doomed, that the Persian Gulf area (which it terms the Arab Gulf) should be dominated by Arabs, and that Iraq is the natural leader of the Arabs of the Gulf area.