The Iran-Iraq War

 

Background: Where Did Iraq Come From?

 

- if we go way back, Iraq had historically been a part of the Persian Empire

- this was all changed by the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, who captured Iraq from the Persians in the 16th century - here’s a picture of Suleyman (see also the song by Neil Diamond):

- Persia managed to regain Iraq, which was then recaptured by the Ottomans in 1638 by Sultan Murad IV, seen here:

- the border between the Persian Empire and the Ottoman Empire was perpetually in dispute - between 1555 and 1918, the two empires signed 18 separate treaties attempting to define the border

- during World War I, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and the Central Powers - as a result the British launched their “Mesopotamian Campaign”, a military invasion of the Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, i.e. present-day Iraq - needless to say, they won easily - here’s a photo of British troops entering the formerly Ottoman city of Baghdad in 1917:

- prior to this invasion, France, Britain, and Russia had in 1916 agreed to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which established the following spheres of influence in the Middle East:

- thus, from 1917, Baghdad was within the zone of direct British control, particularly after the 1919 Treaty of Sevres created the British Mandate of Mesopotamia, encompassing the 3 provinces

- in 1920, there was a mass revolt against British rule - as a result the British held a plebecite, in which 96% of Iraqis agreed to form the Kingdom of Iraq under King Faisal I (an outsider brought in to be king), seen here at the Conference of Versailles in 1919, posing alongside Lawrence of Arabia:

- Faisal presided over Iraq becoming formally independent in 1932

- after Faisal’s death in 1933, his son Ghazi became King of Iraq:

- Ghazi was a pan-Arab nationalist; he was rumored to harbour sympathies for Nazi Germany, but he died in a car accident in 1939

- Ghazi was succeeded as King by his son Faisalh II, seen here:

- the King was overthrown by a coup in 1958 led by Abd al-Karim Qasim

- the major theme of Qasim’s tenure was the rise of the Baath Party

- in 1963, a Baathist coup resulted in Abd al-Salam ‘Arif becoming President of Iraq

- so, who were the Baathists?  well, the Ba’ath Party was founded in 1945 by Michel Aflaq, seen here:

- just a minute - that’s the wrong Aflac - here’s the real Michel Aflaq, though I imagine he also had a duck to say his name:

- Aflaq was a Greek Orthodox Christian from Syria - he founded the Ba’ath party as a secular, left-wing Arab nationalist party

- here’s the Baath party flag:

- as a pan-Arab party, the Baathists set up shop in several countries - they came to power in Syria in 1963 and have ruled the country ever since

- and, so, in 1963, they also came to power in Iraq

- later in 1963, the Baath Party, at its 6th National Congress, adopted a hardline leftist platform, calling for socialist planning, collective farms, and other Soviet-inspired changes - this leftward turn disappointed Aflaq, and led to a series of anti-Baath protests - later in 1963, Iraqi President Abd al-Salam Arif  withdrew from the Baath Party

- in 1966, Abd al-Salam Arif was killed in a helicopter crash and replaced as President by his brother Abdul Rahman Arif

- he wasn’t that great a leader though, and was overthrown in a 1968 coup by Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, who became Iraq’s new president - here he is:

- al-Bakr was actually involved with the Baath party, and his coup was supported by Egypt, which was currently being run by Gamal Abdel Nasser, seen here:

- this makes sense - Nasser was just like the Baathists - secular, socialist, pan-Arabist

- in fact, under al-Bakr, Iraq thought very seriously about joining the United Arab Republic, which you will recall was formed as a union of the Egyptian and Syrian republics in 1958 - and, although Syria withdrew in 1961, Egypt continued to refer to itself as the United Arab Republic until 1971 and sought to draw in more Arabs

- al-Bakr allied Iraq with the USSR, and continued the country’s close ties with Syria, providing Syria support in the 1972 Yom Kippur War against Israel

- in 1974, the Kurds in northern Iraq rebelled, with Iran providing aide to the Kurds - here’s the Kurdish leader, Mustafa Barzani:

- with this pressure, Iraq agreed to a border settlement favourable to Iran in 1975, and Iran ceased its support of the Kurds

- meanwhile, al-Bakr’s cousin Saddam Hussein was overseeing a major Iraqi modernization programme: oil interests were nationalized, agriculture was mechanized, and social services were instituted - here we see Saddam promoting women’s literacy and education:

- by 1976, Saddam had risen to the position of head of the Iraqi armed forces, and was appointed as Al-Bakr’s vice-president - there was much speculation that Saddam was a strongman who was already running the show in Iraq

- 1978: the Soviets attempt a coup against al-Bakr and Saddam - Iranian agents inform the Iraqi government and they’re able to prevent it, in part because Saddam orders dozens of army officers executed - as a thanks to the Iranian government, Saddam expels the Shah’s enemy, the Ayatollah Khomeini from the country, as noted above

- Saddam forces al-Bakr to resign on July 16, 1979 and on July 22 has 68 prominent members of the Baath Party executed - Saddam is now totally in control of Iraq

 

Background: Iraq-Iran Relations Leading Up to the War

 

- 1950s-60s: Iraqi leaders angry that Iran is in charge of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan - here’s Khuzestan’s location within Iran - note how it’s on the border with Iraq:

- recall that Iraq is an Arabian country and that Baathism is a pan-Arab movement - beginning in the 1960s, the Iraq government calls on Arabs living in Khuzestan (or, as they like to call it, “Arabistan”) to revolt against the Shah’s corrupt government

- beginning in 1970, after Nasser’s death, Iraq aspires to be what Nasser had been - the “leader of the Arab world” - this leads to a ratcheting up of their anti-Shah, pro-Arab rhetoric, and makes Arabistan a hot issue for them - on Iraqi maps from the period, they showed Arabistan as part of Iraq, and the Iranian cities all had Arabic names

- in 1971, Iraq broke diplomatic relations with Iran because of a dispute over three islands, control over which effectively meant control over the Strait of Hormuz, the islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb, all three of which were administered by Iran, but claimed by Iraq - here’s where they’re located:

- there were other tensions between the two countries: there was also a dispute about an area owned by Iraq, but claimed by Iran, the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which controlled access to the Persian Gulf at the other end:

- Iraq also sent aide to separatists fighting the Iranian government in the province of Baluchistan, seen here:

- so, remember those pesky separatists the Iranian government was always having to fight?  turns out that Iraq was on their side too

- and finally, Iraq encourages Kurdish separatists in Iran while Iran encourages Kurdish separatists in Iraq - Kurdish separatists can be useful, so long as they’re not separating from you

- in 1974, Iraq attacked Iranian forces

- 1975: the President of Algeria, Houari Boumédienne, invites the Shah and Saddam (who then held the title of Vice Chairman of the Revolution Command Council) to Algiers and brokers a deal between the two, by which Iraq agreed to territorial concessions (including the Shatt al-Arab waterway) in exchange for normalized relations - hooray - let’s just all get along

- 1978: as a sign of their new friendliness, Iran informs Iraq of plans for a Soviet coup - the coup is thwarted, and as thanks, the Ayatollah is expelled from Iraq

- so relations between Iran and Iraq are great

- and then the Shah gets overthrown and Iran his an Islamic revolution - see above

- so, as we move into 1980, we have two new leaders in both Iran and Iraq

- Iran has a new Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini:

- so, what were the Supreme Leader’s thoughts on Iraq?  well, he had lived in Najaf, Iraq for thirteen years, 1965-78, so presumably he thought it was nice - but then in 1978, he’s just minding his own business and Saddam and his old enemy the Shah get together and kick him out - this really makes the Ayatollah mad

- shortly after he became Supreme Leader, Khomeini started calling on fellow Muslims to follow Iran’s example and to rise up against their corrupt secular governments and have their own Islamic Revolutions - he seems to have had a particular eye on the masses of Iraq, the only country besides Iran with a Shi’a majority, and the corrupt secular government of his personal enemy, Saddam Hussein

- Saddam, on the other hand, wanted to get back Arabistan (he assumed that the people of Arabistan would greet him as a liberator and be happy to join Iraqi forces against Iran), and, at any rate, it’d be nice to transform Iraq into the major power in the region

- and of course, nobody else wanted a spread of Islamic revolutions - not the other rulers of Muslim countries, not the US (who hated Iran at this point because of the hostage crisis), not the Soviet Union, nobody - so pretty much everyone was on Iraq’s side, hoping that Iraq would form a solid buffer against an Islamized Iran in the region

 

War! - Phase 1: September 1980 - May 1982

 

- September 1980: Saddam’s forces invade Iran, claiming as a pretext an assassination attempt against Iraqi Vice-President Tariq Aziz

- Saddam’s goals: (1) retake the Shatt al-Arab waterway; (2) liberate the people of Arabistan and add an oil-rich province to Iraq; (3) set up defensive barriers against any possible Iranian intrusion into Iraq (he never planned to conquer all of Iran); (4) acquisition of the 3 islands guarding the Strait of Hormuz (which were to be handed over to the United Arab Emirates); and (5) destabilize Khomeini’s regime

- Saddam sends in 10 divisions across the breadth of the Iran-Iraq border

- Iran was aware that Saddam was planning to invade, but had only massed 8 divisions - the new Islamic regime was worried that the armed forces were really loyal to the Shah - instead, they formed a new organization, the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, known as the Pasdaran in Persian, and in English, often referred to simply as the Revolutionary Guards - here’s their logo:

- anyhow, after some initial gains, Saddam’s push into Iran is halted, in particular as volunteers from throughout Iran rush to volunteer to defend their homeland and their Revolution - recall that the Revolution had just happened and was immensely popular - many Iranians viewed the Iraq invasion as a US-backed attempt to end the Islamic Revolution, so they were eagre to volunteer to fight against the invasion - and then, Saddam’s hope of the people of “Ababistan” joining him in the struggle proved to be misguided - they were like all “Yo, we’re not Arabistan - we’re Khuzestan, and we want to stay part of Iran”

- in April 1982, Iranian forces launched Operation Jerusalem, designed to recapture the province of Khuzestan

- this all came to a head on May 24, 1982, in an event referred to in Iranian national mythology as the Liberation of Khorramshahr - Khorramshahr was a major city in Khuzestan (pop.  approx.  300,000)

- here’s a famous picture of an Iranian woman during the Battle of Khorramshahr:

- 70,000 Iranians faced off against 70,000 Iraqis - at the end of the battle, about 6,000 Iraqis were dead, and 19,000 more Iraqi troops were captured and became prisoners of war - here’s a picture of captured Iraqi soldiers:

- approximately 2,000 surrendering Iraqi troops were executed in cold blood by the victorious Iranian forces, in retaliation for the rape of some Iranian women - as a result, May 24, which is celebrated in Iran as the Liberation of Khorramshahr, is remembered in Iraq as “Martyrs’ Day”

- in the wake of this defeat, Saddam ordered his troops to withdraw to the Iraq-Iran border and following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon on June 6, 1982, called on Iraq and Iran to join the Lebanese against the Israelis - Saddam consequently proposed terms of peace with Iran

 

War! - Phase 2: June 1982 - August 1988

 

- Iran, however, was not yet ready for peace

- Iran demanded, as a consequence of peace: (1) the removal of Saddam Hussein from power; (2) $150 billion in reparations; and (3) the repatriation of 100,000 Shiites expelled from Iraq before the war (btw - Saddam had expelled 100,000 Shiites from Iraq before the war)

- these terms were obviously unacceptable to Saddam and were probably not genuine negotiating points on the part of Iran - many in Khomeini’s circle now pushed for an Iranian invasion of Iraq, possibly to be followed by annexation

- Iranian forces entered Iraq on July 13, 1982, near Basra

- this set the stage for brutal trench warfare, reminiscent of the horrors of World War I, except that it lasted 50% longer

- even before the invasion of Iran, Iraq had a considerable defensive mechanism on its border with Iran, involving a network of bunkers and artillery fire bases

- the Basra Offensive was thus going to be difficult for Iran given the best circumstances - however, to make things worse, there was growing tension between the Army and the Revolutionary Guards - thus, the five assaults of the Basra Offensive lacked the expertise and equipment of a professional army - rather the new Revolutionary Guards - accompanied by an all-volunteer paramilitary force, the Basij (which consisted mainly of teenagers) - were the ones who attempted the offensive - the boy-soldiers of the Basij were often ordered on suicide missions to clear minefields by running through them

- in this photo, we see the Ayatollah Ali Khameini (the present Supreme Leader of Iran) in the battlefield with the Revolutionary Guards:

- this alarmed American leaders - at this point, Ronald Reagan declared that the US could not afford to have Iraq lose the war to Iran and determined that the US would do everything necessary to prevent Iranian victory - the US had broken off relations with Iraq as a response to Iraq’s position in the Six Days War in 1967, but now reestablished diplomatic relations

- - Iranian forces launched five more assaults in 1983 - none were successful - this didn’t stop Khomeini, who insisted that the war should continue until Saddam’s regime was toppled and replaced by an Islamic Republic

- the besieged Iraqi leader was happy to have the support of the US in his fight to protect his country from Iran, best exemplified by this famous picture of Donald Rumsfeld visiting Saddam in December 1983:

- - Saddam announced that unless Iran ceased its attacks on Iraq, he would launch an attack on the civilian populations of 11 Iranian cities in February 1984 - instead, in February, Iran launched Operation Dawn 5 and Operation Dawn 6, in an attempt to capture the vital town of Kut al-Amara - in retaliation, Saddam carried through with his promises and launched the first of the “Wars of the Cities”

- also in February 1984, Iran launched Operation Khaibar, which, after a month of fighting in which Saddam deployed chemical weapons, resulted in Iranian forces taking the Iraqi city of Basrah

- this use of chemical weapons is exemplified by this photo of an Iranian soldier wearing a gasmask, which can be taken as emblematic of the whole war:

- the United Nations passed a resolution on March 24, 1984 condemning Saddam’s use of chemical weapons, but Donald Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad that same day to assure Saddam that the US supported him

- 1984 was also the beginning of the “Tanker War”, as both nations repeatedly attacked each other’s oil tankers, as well as the oil tankers of neutral nations - mines were laid, etc., etc.

- in March 1985, Iran launched Operation Badr, an attempt to capture the Baghdad-Basra highway - they were repulsed - in response to Operation Badr, Saddam launched the second of the Wars of the Cities, targeting Iranian urban populations

 

Sidenote: The Iran-Contra Affair

 

- in November 1986, the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa broke the story that the US had sold arms to Iran

- what!?  I thought the US was vehemently anti-Iran all through this period! - how could this possibly have happened?

- well, recall that the Reagan presidency began with the release of the American hostages held in Iran - here, for example, is Vice President George Bush on his way to greet the hostages as they return to the US:

- if there was one thing that the Reagan administration had learned from watching Jimmy Carter, it was: avoid hostage crises

- but that’s just what they got in 1982, with the Lebanon Hostage Crisis

- well, where did that come from?? - alright this gets tricky

- let’s start with a picture of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr:

- al-Sadr is an Iraqi Shi’ite cleric - in the late 1950s, he founds the Islamic Dawa Party - he is upset that the Baath government has been suppressing the Shiite religious academy at Najaf - al-Dawa is therefore, an Islamic party concerned with maintaining traditional religion in the face of the (Sunni) Baath regime’s secularizing and modernizing policies

- note its affinities with the Ayatollah Khomeini, who is also opposing the Shah’s modernizing programme, and who is going to settle in Najaf in the 1960s

- however, during the 1960s and 1970s, while Khomeini is developing his idea of “clerical guardianship” and that power in a state should ultimately rest with the ulema (learned Shia clerics), al-Sadr engages in academic arguments with Khomeini, insisting that the power in a state ultimately rests with ummah (i.e. with the people) - for this reason, al-Sadr was willing to allow Sunnis to join the Islamic Dawa Party

- so we see that when the Islamic Revolution occurred in Iran, the Islamic Dawa Party was, broadly-speaking, happy to see the Shah’s government overthrown and Shia clerics dominant in Iran, they were nevertheless wary of Khomeini’s grab for political power

- the Islamic Dawa Party was brutally repressed by the Baathist regime

- it was likely a member of al-Dawa who attempted to assassinate Tariq Aziz in 1980 (the cassus belli of the invasion of Iran) - in March 1980, Saddam declared membership in al-Dawa a capital crime

- throughout the Iran-Iraq War, al-Dawa functioned basically as a fifth column within Iraq, receiving money from Iran, and in turn working to destabilize Iraq

- there was also a second Islamic Dawa Party, this one in Lebanon - where did it come from?

- well, this is Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah:

- Fadlallah studied at the Shia religious academy in Najaf, graduating in 1966 (a year after Khomeini, a spiritual hero to the Shia for his opposition to the Shah, arrived) - Fadlallah greatly admired al-Sadr and thus founded an Islamic Dawa Party in Lebanon when he settled there

- Lebanon became engulfed in a Civil War starting in 1975 - the causes and nature of it are too complex to explain here, but it was basically Christian vs. Muslim (note: though no census has been taken since 1932, the CIA World Factbook estimates that 29% of Lebanon is Shiite, 29% is Sunni, 20% is Maronite Christian, 15% are other Christians - wow, that was really just a civil war waiting to happen)

- the main leader of the Lebanese Shia in the 1960s and 1970s was Musa al-Sadr (a distant cousin of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr), pictured here:

- his group was called Amal (the Arabic word for “hope”) and its militant wing initially supplied the main Shiite militia during the Civil War - Amal was basically a moderate party

- following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Khomeini despatched members of the Revolutionary Guard to aide Lebanese - they liaised with the Lebanese al-Dawa party, and together formed Hezbollah

- on December 12, 1983, members of the Iraqi al-Dawa party (probably) attacked the French and American embassies in Kuwait (France, the US, and Kuwait had all been supporting Iraq against Iran) - in response, a number of al-Dawa party members were imprisoned

- in protest of the imprisonment of the Iraqi al-Dawa party members, Hezbollah in Lebanon took 30 western hostages, including 6 Americans

- what should the US do??  remember the first rule of the Reagan Administration: don’t make the same mistakes Jimmy Carter made

- enter Reagan’s National Security Advisor, Robert McFarlane:

- McFarlane has a great idea: get Iran to tell Hezbollah to let the hostages go - what leverage does the US have with Iran?  well, Iran was currrently in a messy war with Iraq (sidenote: you might recall that Donald Rumsfeld was also shaking Saddam Hussein’s hand in December 1983) - and Iran certainly needs arms for that war - why not agree to sell Iran arms in exchange for a deal?

- throughout 1984, McFarlane began to think more broadly that selling arms to Iran could be a way to reach out to Iran more generally - McFarlane basically has a realpolitik idea: the Islamic Revolution is not going to be undone - what do we really care if Iraq or Iran wins the war between them?  let’s make some money by selling arms to Iran, and hopefully do a deal with them

- within the Reagan Administration, McFarlane’s view is supported by CIA Director William Casey, but opposed by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Schultz - however, it’s ultimately Reagan who is the decider, though how much he actually approved has been a matter of some controversy

- so, enter McFarlane’s associate, National Security Consultant Michael Ledeen, seen here:

- Ledeen decides that the sale should take place via Israel, so he contacts Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, seen here with model Tami Ben-Ami and some dudes:

- the plan is: Israel ships arms to Iran, then the US reimburses Israel

- enter Manucher Ghorbanifar:

- who the hell is Manucher Ghobanifar!?  - he was an Iranian arms dealer - a friend of the prime minister of Iran - he’s in charge of buying arms for Iran

- so Shimon Peres arranges for Manucher Ghobanifar to receive the arms and to arrange for payment

- but who is Ghorba (as he was affectionately called by the press) supposed to pay?  well, long story short, the money went to Oliver North, who then proceeded to funnel that money to the Contras in Nicaragua - so, were McFarlane, Ledeen, and North rogues or were they just following orders? - this cover of Time magazine sums up North’s testimony to Congress after the scandal broke:

- anyhow, this sidenote into Iran-Contra has been much more convoluted than I wanted it to be - but the takeaway is that by 1985, the US was on both sides of the Iran-Iraq War

- but at any rate, they didn’t stop supporting Saddam - here’s a photo of US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy in 1986 explaining the Iran-Contra Affair to Saddam:

- some might argue that the US’s policy was a little messed up

 

War! - Phase 2: June 1982 - August 1988 - continued from above

 

- so, getting back to the War! - to summarize where we’ve got to so far

1980-82: Iraq tries to invade Iran

1983-85: Iran has been trying to invade Iraq and had few successes - it’s just like World War I - lots of dying, not a lot else going on

- in addition, from 1985, Saddam was launching air strikes on Tehran, and from 1986, Iran was launching Scud missiles at Baghdad

- 1986: more of the same

- 1987: one of the fiercest years of fighting - in early 1987, Iran launches Operation Karbala-5, yet another futile attempt to take Basra - again it results in a stalemate - again, the War of the Cities is ratcheted up - Iraq orders airstrikes on 8 Iranian cities, in the process killing 65 children in an elementary school in Borujerd - Iran again retaliates with Scud missiles - not wanting to miss the chance to kill schoolchildren, a Scud missile lands on a primary school in Baghdad

- meanwhile, the other part of the war, the Tanker War, is also continuing - here is a dramatic photo of the Iranian minelayer Iran Ajr which has been captured by the American navy:

- July 27, 1987: major diplomatic victory for Iraq as the United Nations passes Resolution 598, calling for an end to fighting and a return to prewar boundaries - Iraq, of course, is happy to accept these terms, but Iran, which had been having some success in the area around Kirkuk refused the peace terms

- early 1988: Saddam’s forces launch a major attack, recapturing the al-Faw peninsula (lost in 1986), and pushing into northern Iran

- this finally forced Iran to agree to accept Resolution 598 in April 1988

- by this point, however, Iraq was thinking that it might be able to gain some Iranian territory, so fighting continued

- meanwhile, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran began a campaign in the western province of Kermanshah - here’s the People’s Mujahedin’s logo:

- just a minute - who are the People’s Mujahedin of Iran anyway?  well, they were an Islamic Marxist party founded in 1965 in opposition to the Shah’s government - they had a broad interpretation of Islam that they saw as providing socialist doctrines - after the Islamic Revolution, they were the largest group opposed to the establishment of the Islamic Republic and were brutally repressed by the Iranian government - we’ll come back to this - in 1986, they fled into exile in Iraq, where Saddam was happy to greet them as allies - so, with the Iranian government faltering in summer 1986, they launched their operation - with Saddam’s support, they rolled into Permanshah, Iran - here they are:

-  this didn’t work out so well - the People’s Mojahedin suffered estimated casualties of 2,000-10,000 (estimates vary) and were routed by the Revolutionary Guard

- meanwhile, Saddam’s forces failed to move forward in Khuzestan - everyone now realized that nothing more was to be gained by fighting

- August 20, 1988: Iraq accepts the terms of Resolution 598, thus bringing the Iran-Iraq War to a close

 

Assessment of the Iran-Iraq War

 

- at the end of the day, the Iran-Iraq War was a lot of fighting for very small changes in territory - on this map, the red line represents the furthest that Iraqi forces ever advanced into Iran and the yellow line represents the furthest that Iranian forces ever advanced into Iraq:

- and of course, after 8 years of fighting, Resolution 598 only restored the status quo ante - neither side gained anything

- but the loss of life was staggering: Iran (2006 population of 70 million) saw an estimated 500,000-750,000 killed or wounded, while Iraq (2006 population approx. 25 million) saw an estimated 375,000-500,000 killed or wounded

 

Meanwhile, Back in Iran...

 

TO BE CONTINUED

 

go to http://iranianhistory.pbwiki.com/iranianhistory4