IRAN-IRAQ WAR – Mahnoor Bhatti
On September 22, 1980, Iraqi armed forces invaded western Iran along the countries’ shared border, causing open conflict. A cease-fire in 1988 brought an end to the fighting, but normal political relations did not resume until after the signing of a formal peace deal.
Conflicts between Iran and Iraq began nearly immediately after the latter’s independence in 1921, following World War I. Control of the Shatt al-Arab, the canal caused by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which forms the southern border between the two states, was one of the most persistent sources of conflict by the 1970s. In exchange for Iran’s withdrawal of backing for Kurdish uprisings in northern Iraq, the Algiers Agreement, signed in 1975, decreased Iraqi authority over the canal.
The Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, which deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pallavi’s pro-Western government in favor of a fundamentalist rule led by Shi’ite Religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was a watershed moment. Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq and leader of the country’s Ba’ath Party in July 1979, relied on the support of his country’s minority Sunni Muslim population and feared a Shi’ite-dominated Iraq being overrun by Iran’s revolution. Saddam also wanted to rewrite the 1975 border agreements and recapture sovereignty of both sides of the Shatt al-Arab, Iraq’s only access to the Middle East.
Saddam decided on a preemptive strike against Iran because of the country’s weaker military following its revolution. Iraqi soldiers attacked Iranian air bases on September 22, 1980, followed by a land assault of Khuzestan, an oil-producing border area. Iraq captured the city of Khorramshahr and gained further territorial gains by November, making the invasion a success.
The Iraqi progress, however, quickly came to a halt in the face of significant Iranian movement, which was encouraged by the involvement of revolutionary armies in the regular armed forces. Iran began an attack in 1981, and by early 1982, they had reclaimed almost all of the lost territory. Iraq sought to pursue peace at the end of the year, with Iraqi soldiers withdrew to pre-war border lines. Iran objected under Khomeini’s leadership, insisting on extending the fight in order to remove Saddam Hussein’s administration. Iran attacked Iraqi territory in July 1982 in the first of several failed attempts to take control of the Iraqi port town of Basra.
The fight was one of the most violent in the late twentieth century. Although the actual number of fighters on both sides is unknown, both countries were fully engaged, with the majority of males of military age armed. The amount of deaths was huge, but the outcome was also undetermined. Total casualties are estimated to be between 1,000,000 and twice that many. The total number of people murdered on both sides was estimated to be over 500,000, with Iran suffering the most casualties. During the Anfl operations in 1988, Iraqi soldiers are claimed to have murdered between 50,000 and 100,000 People.
Iraq and Iran restored relations with other countries in August 1990, while Iraq was totally obsessed with its attack of Kuwait, and Iraq agreed to Iranian terms for the war’s settlement: the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from unpopulated Iranian territory, division of sovereignty over the Sha Al-Arab waterway, and a prisoner-of-war exchange. The last peace agreement did not take place until March 2003.
Both sides started air and missile strikes on towns, military targets, and oil facilities and transportation, forcing the US and other Western nations to dispatch warships to the Gulf Region. With Iran now on the attack, Iraqi defenses have strengthened, and the fighting has come to a halt along a front that roughly runs along the border.
Iraq started its own series of ground strikes against Iran in the spring of 1988. Under Security Council Resolution 598, the two countries agreed to accept a peace arranged by the UN. The exact number of people killed in the Iran-Iraq War is unknown, however estimates range from 1 to 2 million. Saddam Hussein launched the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, kicking off the first Persian Gulf War.
Mahnoor Bhatti
BS Political Science
International Islamic University
Islamabad.
