ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- The U.S. naval attack on Iranian oil installations Monday further raised tensions in the volatile Persian Gulf but some moderate Arab officials were privately disappointed it was so limited.
Iran vowed to deal a 'crushing response' against the Americans for the third U.S. attack on Iran in less than a month.
But after initial concern in the immediate aftermath of the strike, gulf Arab officials privately expressed dissatisfaction the attack did not target the main threat to gulf shipping -- the deadly Silkworm missiles that have so far damaged two U.S.-linked oil tankers in Kuwait's territorial waters.
'All are disappointed,' said a highly placed source, when asked to comment on what President Reagan said was a 'prudent yet restrained' response to Iranian attacks on American and other non-belligerent shipping in the gulf waters.
'After all this fuss about retaliation (by U.S. officials), they come out with this,' said the source of the 'limited' military operation in central gulf waters.
Gulf diplomatic sources said Reagan's statement Sunday that the United States would retaliate raised high expectations the U.S. might strike Silkworm sites in the Iraqi Faw peninsula, occupied by Iran in 1986.
'We were hoping for some action in Faw,' said an Iraqi diplomat based at the gulf, referring to the southern peninsula from where U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said Iran has launched at least five Chinese-made Silkworm missiles against Kuwait in the past few months.
One of those missiles Friday slammed into U.S.-flagged Sea Isle City supertanker, wounding 18 crewmembers and causing extensive damage to the Kuwaiti vessel. The attack came less than 24 hours after another Iranian Silkworm missile damaged the U.S.-owned, Liberian-registered supertanker Sungari inside Kuwaiti territorial waters.
News media in the gulf Arab countries reported the attack by four U.S. warships, but withheld comment.
Gulf officials said the conservative states -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates -- grouped in a loose defensive and economic alliance called the Gulf Cooperation Council - would refrain from issuing any statement that might involve them deeper into the 7-year-old Iran-Iraq conflict.
However, a Western diplomat based in Bahrain said, 'The mood among the people here seems to be one of gung ho -- wanting something big done to the Iranians.'
'They might see this as being enough to cause a lot of problems, but not enough really to teach the Iranians a lesson,' the diplomat said.
Other diplomats and political analysts said the limited U.S. response was characteristic of two previous retaliatory strikes and indicated the U.S. administration was trying to avoid humiliating the Iranians and pushing them into a high-risk military confrontation.
'The Americans have clearly chosen the least provocative reaction,' said one source, who asked not to be identified.
On Sept. 21, the United States crippled a mine-laying ship, the Iran Ajr, killing at least two Iranians and wounding four others, and on Oct. 8, a U.S. helicopter attacked Iranian speedboats, sinking one and destroying two others.
