Iran–Iraq War
1980–1988 war in West Asia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the First Gulf War (Arabic: حرب الخليج الأولى), was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides. Iraq's primary rationale for the attack against Iran cited the need to prevent Ruhollah Khomeini—who had spearheaded the Iranian Revolution in 1979—from exporting the new Iranian ideology to Iraq. There were also fears among the Iraqi leadership of Saddam Hussein that Iran, a theocratic state with a population predominantly composed of Shia Muslims, would exploit sectarian tensions in Iraq by rallying Iraq's Shia majority against the Baʽathist government, which was officially secular and dominated by Sunni Muslims. Iraq also wished to replace Iran as the power player in the Persian Gulf, which was not seen as an achievable objective prior to the Islamic Revolution because of Pahlavi Iran's economic and military superiority as well as its close relationships with the United States and Israel.
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The Iran–Iraq War followed a long-running history of territorial border disputes between the two states, as a result of which Iraq planned to retake the eastern bank of the Shatt al-Arab that it had ceded to Iran in the 1975 Algiers Agreement. Iraqi support for Arab separatists in Iran increased following the outbreak of hostilities; Saddam disputedly may have wished to annex Iran's Arab-majority Khuzestan province. While the Iraqi leadership had hoped to take advantage of Iran's post-revolutionary chaos and expected a decisive victory in the face of a severely weakened Iran, the Iraqi military only made progress for three months, and by December 1980, the Iraqi invasion had stalled. The Iranian military began to gain momentum against the Iraqis and regained all lost territory by June 1982. After pushing Iraqi forces back to the pre-war border lines, Iran rejected United Nations Security Council Resolution 514 and launched an invasion of Iraq. The subsequent Iranian offensive within Iraqi territory lasted for five years, with Iraq taking back the initiative in mid-1988 and subsequently launching a series of major counter-offensives that ultimately led to the conclusion of the war in a stalemate.
The eight years of war-exhaustion, economic devastation, decreased morale, military stalemate, inaction by the international community towards the use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraqi forces on Iranian soldiers and civilians, as well as increasing Iran–United States military tensions all culminated in Iran's acceptance of a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations Security Council. In total, around 500,000 people were killed during the Iran–Iraq War, with Iran bearing the larger share of the casualties, excluding the tens of thousands of civilians killed in the concurrent Anfal campaign that targeted Iraqi Kurdistan. The end of the conflict resulted in neither reparations nor border changes, and the combined financial losses suffered by both combatants is believed to have exceeded US$1 trillion.[52] There were a number of proxy forces operating for both countries: Iraq and the pro-Iraqi Arab separatist militias in Iran were most notably supported by the National Council of Resistance of Iran; whereas Iran re-established an alliance with the Iraqi Kurds, being primarily supported by the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. During the conflict, Iraq received an abundance of financial, political, and logistical aid from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the overwhelming majority of Arab countries. While Iran was comparatively isolated to a large degree, it received a significant amount of aid from Syria, Libya, China, North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, and South Yemen.
The conflict has been compared to World War I in terms of the tactics used by both sides, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across fortified defensive lines, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, Iranian human wave attacks, Iraq's extensive use of chemical weapons, and deliberate attacks on civilian targets. The discourses on martyrdom formulated in the Iranian Shia Islamic context led to the widespread usage of human wave attacks and thus had a lasting impact on the dynamics of the conflict.[53]
Iran–Iraq relations
In April 1969, Iran abrogated the 1937 treaty over the Shatt al-Arab and Iranian ships stopped paying tolls to Iraq when they used the Shatt al-Arab.[54] The Shah argued that the 1937 treaty was unfair to Iran because almost all river borders around the world ran along the thalweg, and because most of the ships that used the Shatt al-Arab were Iranian.[55] Iraq threatened war over the Iranian move, but on 24 April 1969, an Iranian tanker escorted by Iranian warships (Joint Operation Arvand) sailed down the Shatt al-Arab, and Iraq—being the militarily weaker state—did nothing.[56] The Iranian abrogation of the 1937 treaty marked the beginning of a period of acute Iraqi-Iranian tension that would see significant bloodshed and was to last until the Algiers Agreement of 1975.[56]
The relationship between the governments of Iran and Iraq briefly improved in 1978, when Iranian agents in Iraq discovered plans for a pro-Soviet coup d'état against Iraq's government. When informed of this plot, Saddam ordered the execution of dozens of his army's officers, and in a sign of reconciliation, expelled from Iraq Ruhollah Khomeini, an exiled leader of clerical opposition to the Shah. Saddam considered the 1975 Algiers Agreement to be merely a truce, rather than a definite settlement, and waited for an opportunity to contest it.[57][58]
After the Iranian Revolution
Tensions between Iraq and Iran were fuelled by Iran's Islamic revolution and its appearance of being a Pan-Islamic force, in contrast to Iraq's Arab nationalism.[59] Despite Iraq's goal of regaining the Shatt al-Arab[note 5], the Iraqi government initially seemed to welcome the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was seen as a common enemy.[60] There were frequent clashes along the Iran–Iraq border throughout 1980, with Iraq publicly complaining of at least 544 incidents and Iran citing at least 797 violations of its border and airspace.[61]
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on Iraqis to overthrow the Ba'ath government, which was received with considerable anger in Baghdad.[60] On 17 July 1979, despite Khomeini's call, Saddam gave a speech praising the Iranian Revolution and called for an Iraqi-Iranian friendship based on non-interference in each other's internal affairs.[60] When Khomeini rejected Saddam's overture by calling for Islamic revolution[57] in Iraq, Saddam was alarmed.[60] Iran's new Islamic administration was regarded in Baghdad as an irrational, existential threat to the Ba'ath government, especially because the Ba'ath party, having a secular nature, discriminated against and posed a threat to the fundamentalist Shia movement in Iraq, whose clerics were Iran's allies within Iraq and whom Khomeini saw as oppressed.[60]
Saddam's primary interest in war may have also stemmed from his desire to right the supposed "wrong" of the Algiers Agreement, in addition to finally achieving his desire of becoming the regional superpower.[57][62] Saddam's goal was to supplant Egypt as the "leader of the Arab world" and to achieve hegemony over the Persian Gulf.[63][64] He saw Iran's increased weakness due to revolution, sanctions, and international isolation.[65] Saddam had invested heavily in Iraq's military since his defeat against Iran in 1975, buying large amounts of weaponry from the Soviet Union and France. Between 1973 and 1980 alone, Iraq purchased an estimated 1,600 tanks and APCs and over 200 Soviet-made aircraft.[66]
By 1980, Iraq possessed 242,000 soldiers, second only to Egypt in the Arab world,[67] 2,350 tanks[68] and 340 combat aircraft.[69] Watching the disintegration of the powerful Iranian army that frustrated him in 1974–1975, he saw an opportunity to attack, using the threat of Islamic Revolution as a pretext.[70][71] Iraqi military intelligence reported in July 1980 that despite Iran's bellicose rhetoric, "it is clear that, at present, Iran has no power to launch wide offensive operations against Iraq, or to defend on a large scale."[72][73] Days before the Iraqi invasion and in the midst of rapidly escalating cross-border skirmishes, Iraqi military intelligence again reiterated on 14 September that "the enemy deployment organization does not indicate hostile intentions and appears to be taking on a more defensive mode."[74]
Some scholars writing prior to the opening of formerly classified Iraqi archives, such as Alistair Finlan, argued that Saddam was drawn into a conflict with Iran due to the border clashes and Iranian meddling in Iraqi domestic affairs. Finlan stated in 2003 that the Iraqi invasion was meant to be a limited operation in order to send a political message to the Iranians to keep out of Iraqi domestic affairs,[75] whereas Kevin M. Woods and Williamson Murray stated in 2014 that the balance of evidence suggests Saddam was seeking "a convenient excuse for war" in 1980.[71]
On 8 March 1980, Iran announced it was withdrawing its ambassador from Iraq, downgraded its diplomatic ties to the charge d'affaires level, and demanded that Iraq do the same.[60] The following day, Iraq declared Iran's ambassador persona non grata, and demanded his withdrawal from Iraq by 15 March.[76]
Iranian military preparations
In Iran, severe officer purges, including numerous executions ordered by Sadegh Khalkhali, the new Revolutionary Court judge, and shortages of spare parts for Iran's American and British-made equipment had crippled Iran's once-mighty military. Between February and September 1979, Iran's government executed 85 senior generals and forced all major-generals and most brigadier-generals into early retirement.[60]
By September 1980, the revolutionary government had purged some 12,000 officers of all levels from the army.[60] These purges resulted in a drastic decline in the Iranian military's operational capacities.[60]
On the eve of the revolution in 1978, international experts in military science had assessed that Iran's armed forces were the fifth most powerful in the world.[77] However, by the eve of war with Iraq, the recently formidable Iranian army was in many crucial ways a shell of its former self, having been badly weakened by losses in experienced personnel. The desertion rate had reached 60%, the officer corps was devastated and its most highly skilled soldiers and aviators had been exiled, imprisoned, or executed. When the invasion occurred, many pilots and officers were released from prison, or had their executions commuted to combat the Iraqis. Throughout the war, Iran never managed to fully recover from this flight of human capital.[78]
Many junior officers were promoted to generals, resulting in the army being more integrated as a part of the regime by the war's end.[78] Meanwhile, a new paramilitary organisation gained prominence in Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.[79] Created to protect the new regime and serve as a counterbalance to the army, the Revolutionary Guards[lower-alpha 4] (IRGC) had been trained to act only as a militia and struggled to adapt as needed following the Iraqi invasion, initially refusing to fight alongside the regular army, resulting in many defeats. It was not until 1982 that the two groups began carrying out combined operations.[80]
An additional paramilitary militia was founded in response to the invasion, the "Army of 20 Million", commonly known as the Basij.[81] The Basij were poorly armed and had members as young as 12 and as old as 70. They often acted in conjunction with the Revolutionary Guard, launching so-called human wave attacks and other campaigns against the Iraqis.[81] They were subordinate to the Revolutionary Guards, and they made up most of the manpower that was used in the Revolutionary Guard's attacks.[57]
Stephen Pelletiere wrote in his 1992 book The Iran–Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum:
The human wave has been largely misconstrued both by the popular media in the West and by many scholars. The Iranians did not merely assemble masses of individuals, point them at the enemy, and order a charge. The waves were made up of the 22-man squads mentioned above [in response to Khomeini's call for the people to come to Iran's defense, each mosque organized 22 volunteers into a squad]. Each squad was assigned a specific objective. In battle, they would surge forward to accomplish their missions, and thus gave the impression of a human wave pouring against enemy lines.[82]
Despite neglect by the new regime, at the outset of the conflict, Iran still had at least 1,000 operational tanks and several hundred functional aircraft and could cannibalize equipment to procure spare parts.[lower-alpha 5][80] Continuous sanctions greatly limited Iran from acquiring many additional heavy weapons, including tanks and aircraft.[78]
Iraqi military preparations
In addition, the area around the Shatt al-Arab posed no obstacle for the Iraqis, as they possessed river crossing equipment. Iraq correctly deduced that Iran's defences at the crossing points around the Karkheh and Karoun Rivers were undermanned and that the rivers could be easily crossed. Iraqi intelligence was also informed that the Iranian forces in Khuzestan Province, which consisted of two divisions prior to the revolution, now only consisted of several ill-equipped and under-strength battalions. Only a handful of company-sized tank units remained operational.[58]
The only qualms the Iraqis had were over the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (formerly the Imperial Iranian Air Force). Despite the purge of several key pilots and commanders, as well as the lack of spare parts, the air force showed its power during local uprisings and rebellions. They were also active after the failed U.S. attempt to rescue its hostages, Operation Eagle Claw. Based on these observations, Iraq's leaders decided to carry out a surprise airstrike against the Iranian air force's infrastructure prior to the main invasion.[58]
Khuzestan
It is widely accepted among scholars that Iraq was seeking to annex,[83] or at least to establish suzerainty over,[51] Iran's Khuzestan province, but Saddam Hussein publicly denied this in November 1980.[84]
Border conflicts leading up to the war
On 10 September 1980, Iraq forcibly reclaimed territories in Zain al-Qaws and Saif Saad that it had been promised under the terms of the 1975 Algiers Agreement but that Iran had never handed over, leading to both Iran and Iraq declaring the treaty null and void, on 14 September and 17 September, respectively. As a result, the only outstanding border dispute between Iran and Iraq at the time of the Iraqi invasion of 22 September was the question of whether Iranian ships would fly Iraqi flags and pay Iraq navigation fees for a stretch of the Shatt al-Arab river spanning several miles.[85][86]