HUGE OIL PLATFORMS DOT GULF LIKE BEACONS Huge oil platforms dot the Gulf like beacons -- usually lit up like Christmas trees at night. One of them, sitting astride the Rostam offshore oilfield, was all but blown out of the water by U.S. Warships on Monday. The Iranian platform, an unsightly mass of steel and concrete, was a three-tier structure rising 200 feet (60 metres) above the warm waters of the Gulf until four U.S. Destroyers pumped some 1,000 shells into it. The U.S. Defense Department said just 10 pct of one section of the structure remained. U.S. helicopters destroyed three Iranian gunboats after an American helicopter came under fire earlier this month and U.S. forces attacked, seized, and sank an Iranian ship they said had been caught laying mines. But Iran was not deterred, according to U.S. defense officials, who said Iranian forces used Chinese-made Silkworm missiles to hit a U.S.-owned Liberian-flagged ship on Thursday and the Sea Isle City on Friday. Both ships were hit in the territorial waters of Kuwait, a key backer of Iraq in its war with Iran. Henry Schuler, a former U.S. diplomat in the Middle East now with CSIS said Washington had agreed to escort Kuwaiti tankers in order to deter Iranian attacks on shipping. But he said the deterrence policy had failed and the level of violence and threats to shipping had increased as a result of U.S. intervention and Iran's response. The attack on the oil platform was the latest example of a U.S. "tit-for-tat" policy that gave Iran the initiative, said Harlan Ullman, an ex-career naval officer now with CSIS. He said with this appraoch America would suffer "the death of one thousand cuts." But for the United States to grab the initiative militarily, it must take warlike steps such as mining Iran's harbors or blockading the mouth of the Gulf through which its shipping must pass, Schuler said. He was among those advocating mining as a means of bringing Iran to the neogtiating table. If vital supplies were cut off, Tehran could not continue the war with Iraq. Ullman said Washington should join Moscow in a diplomatic initiative to end the war and the superpowers should impose an arms embargo against Tehran if it refused to negotiate. He said the United States should also threaten to mine and blockade Iran if it continued fighting and must press Iraq to acknowledge responsibility for starting the war as part of a settlement. Iranian and Western diplomats say Iraq started the war by invading Iran's territory in 1980. Iraq blames Iran for the outbreak of hostilities, which have entailed World War I-style infantry attacks resulting in horrific casualties. Each side has attacked the others' shipping.