In September 1980, Iraqi forces launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Iran, triggering the Iran-Iraq war. Fueled by territorial, religious and political disputes between the two nations, the conflict ended in an effective stalemate and a ceasefire almost eight years later, after more than half a million troops and civilians were killed.
Context of the Iran-Iraq war
Tensions between Iran and Iraq began almost immediately after the formation of the latter nation in 1921, in the aftermath of the First World War. In the 1970s, a lingering source of conflict involved control of the Shatt al-Arab, the waterway formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the southern end of which forms the border between the two nations. Signed in 1975, the Algiers Accord reduced Iraqi control over the waterway in exchange for Iran’s withdrawal from its support for a Kurdish insurgency in northern Iraq.
A turning point came with the Iranian revolution of 1978-79, which toppled the pro-Western government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pallavi in favor of a fundamentalist regime led by the Shiite Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq and leader of the country’s Baath Party in July 1979, counted on the support of his country’s Sunni Muslim minority and feared an extension of the Iranian revolution to Shiite-dominated Iraq. Saddam also sought to overturn the 1975 border agreements and reassert control on both sides of the Shatt al-Arab, Iraq’s only point of entry into the Persian Gulf.
Iraqi invasion of Iran
Aware of the weakening of the Iranian army following his revolution, Saddam decided to launch a preemptive strike against Iran. On September 22, 1980, Iraqi forces launched airstrikes on Iranian air bases, following a ground invasion of the oil-producing border region of Khuzestan. The invasion was initially successful, with Iraq seizing the city of Khorramshahr and achieving further territorial gains in November.
But the Iraqi advance quickly came to a halt in the face of stubborn Iranian resistance, fueled by the addition of revolutionary militias to the regular armed forces. In 1981 Iran launched a counteroffensive; by early 1982 they had regained virtually all of the lost territory. At the end of that year, with the withdrawal of Iraqi forces to the pre-war border lines, Iraq attempted to seek peace. Under Khomeini’s leadership, Iran refused, insisting on continuing the conflict in an effort to overthrow Saddam’s regime. In July 1982, Iran invaded Iraqi territory in an unsuccessful attempt – the first in a long series – to take control of the Iraqi port city of Basra.
A protracted conflict
With Iran now on the offensive, Iraqi defenses solidified and the war turned into a virtual stalemate along a front running roughly along the border. The two sides launched airstrikes and missiles against cities, military sites and oil installations and transports, prompting the United States and other Western powers to send warships to the Persian Gulf to regulate production. of oil on the world market.
While Iran had a great numerical advantage, Iraq had more sophisticated weapons and a better trained officer corps, thanks to direct support from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other states. Arabs and the tacit support of Western countries, including the United States.
In the aftermath of the 1979-81 hostage crisis involving diplomats at the US Embassy in Tehran, the Khomeini regime remained largely isolated from the international community; Iran’s only allies during the conflict were Syria and Libya. Iraq continued to seek peace, but sparked outrage from the international community for its use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops as well as Kurdish civilians in Iraq, who were believed to be sympathetic to Iran. .
Ceasefire, peace agreement and legacy
In the spring of 1988, when Iran was demoralized by its many failed offensives over the years, Iraq launched its own series of ground attacks. Iraqi gains on the battlefield convinced Iranian religious leaders that they had little hope of securing a decisive victory. In July, the two nations agreed to agree to a UN-brokered ceasefire under Security Council resolution 598; the war officially ended on August 20, 1988. Although the total number of casualties in the Iran-Iraq war is uncertain, estimates range from 1 to 2 million, with the total number killed reaching around 500,000, including tens of thousands of Kurds killed by Iraqi forces.
As almost all Arab nations had supported Iraq during the war in order to contain Iran, Iraq emerged from the conflict with more power in the region than before, fueled by a strengthened army and the ruthless ambition to His boss. On August 2, 1990, Saddam ordered the invasion of Kuwait, triggering the First Persian Gulf War.
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Iran-Iraq War. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by William A. Darity, Jr., 2nd ed., Vol. 4, Reference Macmillan United States, 2008.
Iran-Iraq War. Encyclopedia Britannica.
“Iran-Iraq War: Eight Brutal Years”. New York Times, July 22, 1988.
Paul Johnson. Modern Times: The World from the 1920s to the 1990s (revised edition). (Perennial Harper, 1991)
