The fierce upsurge of fighting in the six-year-old war between Iran and Iraq has caught American policy in disarray. The practical and principled position of neutrality, discouraging arms sales to either side, has been wrecked by news of the White House's covert policy, trading arms for hostages with Iran and supplying intelligence to both sides.
The policy of neutrality recognized that the United States could not much influence events in the region. It also pivoted on the sad truth that the Iranian regime would have to bleed itself through war before diplomacy could prove feasible.
Significant quantities of Israeli and American arms have been sold to Iran with apparently no thought of consequences, like a possible Iranian victory. The meddling has made Washington complicit in a remarkably bloody war, inviting the enmity of both sides. How did such misjudgments arise?
The regime of Ruhollah Khomeini is a police state, a medieval theocracy and a sponsor of terrorism. But because in Western eyes the Ayatollah belongs so firmly to the past, Washington has persistently misunderstood his present role and the energies he taps in recasting Iranian society. The Carter Administration failed to see how the mullahs' mobs could subvert the Shah's well-equipped army. Mr. Reagan's is constantly surprised at Iran's resilience on the battlefield.
The Iranians are believed to be so ''desperate'' for weapons, Adm. John Poindexter told the President a year ago, that the provider would be able ''to coercively influence near-term events.'' Aside from the fantastic misreading of Teheran politics, the Iranians were far from desperate; the next month they captured the oil terminal of Fao. As this week's offensive reemphasizes, Iran can win but not lose, Iraq can lose but not win. In stretching and probing Iraqi defenses, Iran may in this or a future campaign strike the decisive weak point.
Failure to understand the persistence of Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran made the White House vulnerable to manipulation by self-serving arms merchants. But the Ayatollah, the first Iranian ruler in centuries to defy foreign powers rather than accommodate them, turned out to be the one doing the manipulating.
Despite the White House's best efforts, the American position in the gulf war is not a total disaster. Iraq still welcomes American help, and Iran may recognize the need for a counterweight to its predatory neighbor in the north. Iranian politicians refer less often to the United States as a Great Satan, though perhaps only in puzzlement at finding such extreme naivete in place of devilish duplicity.
What should the White House do now? Most important, recognize the merit of inaction. Iran's internal politics cannot be easily manipulated, nor Iraq readily helped. Washington needs to stop meddling and practice the neutrality it preached.
Second, the Administration needs to prepare for the possibility of an Iranian victory, even the establishment of another fundamentalist Shiite state in Iraq. Should that be tolerated, or prevented at all costs? If the latter, how? Finally, diplomatic opportunities need to be searched out, like a deal at the U.N. to censure Iraq for starting the war, in return for an Iranian cease-fire. That probably won't deflect the Iranians from their demand that Saddam Hussein go, but it might reinject a diplomatic resolution to a dangerous, destructive, endless war.