The Iran-Iraq War: Origins and Consequences

The provided document is an in-depth analysis of the Iran-Iraq war, covering its background, causes, and effects. The assignment delves into the strategic importance of the Shatt al-Arab region, which led to the invasion by Iraq. It also examines the series of demographic and political implications resulting from the war. The document references various books, journals, and articles that support its findings, providing a comprehensive understanding of this significant historical event.

Analysis of
Iran-Iraq War
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
The Conditions That Shaped the Conflict..............................................................................3
The Causes of Iraq's Decision to Invade................................................................................4
Brief overview of the war.......................................................................................................5
Consequences of the war for both Iraq and Iran.....................................................................6
The demographic consequences of the Iraq-Iran war.............................................................7
The political implication of the Iran-Iraq war........................................................................7
The war effect on the Middle East.........................................................................................7
Foreign support and positions to Iraq and Iran.......................................................................7
What the Iran-Iraq War Tells Us about the Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal.........................8
Lessons learnt from Iran-Iraq war..........................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
The Iran–Iraq war was an armed conflict between the two countries which started on 22
September 1980. This battle started as a result of an article published in America’s famous
newspaper “Washington Post”. Here, in this newspaper, it was mentioned that there was a place
between Iran and Iraq named Shatt al-Arab where there were huge oil reserves. When this news
came to be known by governments of both the countries, their aim was to claim the place to be
belonging to their territory (DeFronzo, 2018). However, none of the countries were ready to
compromise with this oil-rich place. Thus, without much investigation into the matter,
governments of Iran as well as Iraq started planning of ways to conquer this place. All of this
largely resulted into a battle between both the nations where the major question was in relation to
the fact that who was the actual owner of this place.
When the neighbouring Middle Eastern nations got involved in a prolonged war, it had
massive outcomes. As a result of this battle, more than a million casualties took place. Also, the
war resulted into a loss of a property and other infrastructure of a certain billion dollars. There
were no real positive outcomes out of this war. This war was initiated by dictator of Iraq,
Saddam Hussein in September 1980 (Li and et. al., 2016). When this battle between Iraq and Iran
started, there was a large scale use of chemical weapons which were very dangerous to be
handled and used. Also, as a part of this war, ballistic-missile attacks took place in an
indiscriminate manner. Besides this, this battle also included numerous attacks upon third
country’s oil tankers situated in the Persian Gulf. During the war, Iraq was on the strategic
defensive side. On the contrary, Iran was not successful in effectively reconstituting and
reinforcing the formation of its air force to be ready for the war. As an adverse result of this, Iran
was not able to enter into the borders of Iraq intensively enough so as to be able to feasibly attain
the decisive outcomes. Thus, the end had to come in July 1988 with the compromise on part of
Iran and Iraq to share the place collectively.
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The Conditions That Shaped the Conflict
The Iran-Iraq War was a result of a large number of historical and militarial factors.
These collectively led to shaping of the conditions and causing the war to begin and continue
over its due course of time. With the passage of time, there were always historical tensions
between the two countries. Also, there were conflicts in relation to the cultural and national
aspects of Iran and Iraq. The two leaders heading these nations have different perspectives
regarding the views of world and various economic conditions prevalent widespread. Some other
factors which shaped the course of conflict between two countries were the trends associated
with economy, military along with manpower. These, being a part of the period just before war
also significantly contributed towards the initiation of war between Iran and Iraq.
Religious Tensions
There were a number of elements which collectively contributed to the beginning of war.
One dominant reason which led to the conflict was the religious undercurrent between Iran and
Iraq. This largely happened when Khomeini's power and role increased. Both the nations are
Moslem where Shi'ite sect is prevalent (Nonneman, 2015). When Khomeini got the authority,
Iran was 90% Shi'ite while Iraq was 50% Shi'ite. This shaped the beginning of conflict between
both countries.
Border and Waterway Tensions
Geographical issues are another big cause which shaped the beginning of conflict
between the two nations. There have two major conflicts prevalent between Iran and Iraq in this
context. One is related to the possession and control of Shatt al-Arab which is the biggest
waterway that connects Gulf with Iraq's port of Basra and Iran's ports of Abadan and
Khorramshar. This has been the major issue which led to massive attacks and loss of life,
property and money over the course of time.
Another major geographical issue which shaped the initiation of war between Iran and
Iraq was the controlling power of major defensive elements situated along the land border. Also,
it owed to the approaches of land to Iraq's capital of Baghdad and its dominant facilities related
to oil situated at Kirkuk. Both these issues together constituted a strategic importance as Iraq
possessed only around 58 kilometers of sea coast (Cordesman, 2018). Also, its only major port at
Basra was at a distance of less than 30 kilometers by road from Iran. Besides this, its capital of
Baghdad was just a little more than 100 kilometers away from the border and possessed certain
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number of natural defensives. Iraq did not have much secured access to the Gulf and also lacked
a strategic penetration for protection from Iran. This resulted in tensions between both the
countries and thus, laid the foundation of Iran and Iraq war.
The Causes of Iraq's Decision to Invade
It was largely viewed that such a large scale war was not possible as the issues that were
prevalent between Iran and Iraq were not so significant to initiate a war upon it. The religious
and geographical tensions between both the countries were significant yet not so dominant that
they could lead the beginning of a war. Although both the countries were actively trying to
undermine the other, it did not reflect that they would commit their forces to start a raging war. It
was Saddam Hussein’s decision to take the conflict beyond the border and start a war upon it.
When the movement of troops of Iraq took place in September, it was evident that the country
had been preparing for this move since a long time ranging from a few weeks to some months
(Razoux, 2015). When the clashes took place on September 14, Iran executed its invasion within
a couple of days. This led to the two nations being involved in a large scale conflict which was
supposed to a decade long. Also, this comprised a huge numbers of persons indulged in the war
from both the countries.
Brief overview of the war
The Iran-Iraq war began as a result of intrusion of Iraq into Iran. This war ended on 20
August 1988 consequent of the situation when Iran accepted the UN-brokered ceasefire named
UN Resolution 598 (Pauly, 2017). This witnessed a series of events starting from Iraq trying to
replace Iran as the major Persian Gulf State. The worry was that the 1979 Iranian Revolution
would make the Iraq's Shi'ite majority to revolt against the Ba'athist government. This war also
led to a chain of border disputes. Further, Iraq made a plan to take over the possession of
the Khuzestan Province which is full of oil reserves along with the east bank of the Arvand Rud
which is more commonly referred to as Shatt al-Arab.
As a result of this battle, more than a million casualties took place. There was a huge
damage as numerous lives, livestock, infrastructure, businesses and money got wasted. There
were no real positive outcomes out of this war. This war was initiated by dictator of Iraq,
Saddam Hussein in September 1980. When this battle between Iraq and Iran started, there was a
large scale use of chemical weapons which were very dangerous to be handled and used. Also, as
a part of this war, ballistic-missile attacks took place in an indiscriminate manner. Besides this,
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this battle also included numerous attacks upon third country’s oil tankers situated in the Persian
Gulf.
During the war, there was large scale use of chemical weapons by Iraq. Manned machine
guns, bayonet charges, human wave attacks, extensive use of chemical weapons by Iraq took
place during the war which led to a massive destruction in both the countries. Iran strongly
opposed the use and possession of chemical weapons during the war. This was due to the large
scale impact that these weapons have upon human lives. These caused prolonged diseases in
citizens of both the nations. Also, nerve agents were used in the war between Iran and Iraq which
had detrimental effects on health and lives of human who even got saved in the war. The most
impactful and harmful of all the substances used by the Iraqi army were organophosphate
neurotoxins referred to as nerve agents Tabun and Sarin, and mustard gas (Darchini-Maragheh,
Blain and Balali-Mood, 2015). Also as per the Iraqi reports, vomiting agents were being largely
used in initial and small-scale attacks in 1981. Besides this, it was noted that the Iraqi army
started carrying out extensive chemical attacks in the year 1984. This was done with the use of
tons of sulfur mustard and nerve agents on Majnoon Islands.
Consequences of the war for both Iraq and Iran
When the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein declared war, he expected Iran to be defeated. 8 long
and destructive years of military conflict continued that resulted in loss of half of the military and
dozens of people who lost their lives. War began in the year 1980 on September 22 when
military or Iraq invaded Iran in their western joint border. Main reason of that war is that Iraq
wanted control of oil producing border of Iranian region (Milani, 2018). Both Iraq and Iran
engaged in missile and air attacks against each other cities those results in so much of bloodshed.
Both these countries attacked on each other’s oil tankers. This led to a number of severe
consequences that are briefly described below:
 Oil exporting capacity of Iraq and Iran was reduced by many times largely owing to
missile and air strikes.
 Decrease in income level and foreign currency earning of both the countries. This
brought the economies of Iraq and Iran at a standstill.
 International reputation of Iraq was damaged in a huge manner as a report had been
revolved of use of lethal chemical weapon by them on Iranian troops and civilians.
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 Estimated number of civilians and army killed and suffering from both sides during the
war was in between 50,000 to 100,000 (Loveday and et. al., 2017).
 Major consequences of that war for both countries were horrified. Millions of lives were
lost and more than two million people founded to be wounded.
 Towns and villages in both the countries were damaged and destroyed severely.
 Almost 1500 villages were reported to have been wiped out from world map as a result of
this war.
 This war costed about USD 1.2 billion. This reflects that this was one of the most
expensive and longest wars of the world.
 In the prolong war between Iraq and Iran, so much use of chemical weapons took place
which resulted in end of hostilities and only resulted in adverse impacts upon both the
countries.
The demographic consequences of the Iraq-Iran war
The dominant demographic outcomes of Iran-Iraq war are briefly explained below:-
Small Youth Cohort: As a result of the war between Iran and Iraq, there were large
impacts upon the age as well as sex structures of the population of both the countries. This was
owing to the military casualties that took place consequent to the Iran and Iran War where
numerous males who were in their teen life or in early twenties lost their lives. With respect to
Iran, over 200000 of 3,829,000 males of the age group 15-24 lost their lives during the course of
war. On the contrary, in Iraq, these figures were estimated to be 75000 out of total 1,281,000
males (Jackson, 2018).
Birth Rates and Death Rates: It is believed that birth rates in Iran as well as Iraq have
not been affected as a consequence of the war between both the countries. Yet, as per the
findings and results of surveys conducted by various organisations and agencies, it has been
found that birth rate in both countries have decreased post the war. Also, the death rates have
substantially increased after the Iran-Iraq war.
Immigration and Emigration: The effect of Iran-Iraq war upon Immigration and
Emigration has been uneven. Both these factors are dominant in influencing the total population
size of Iran as well as Iraq. With respect to Iran, international population movements associated
with battle have been inconsequential. In reference to Iraq, this war resulted in exit of a
significant number of foreign workforce (Eisenstadt, 2015).
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The political implication of the Iran-Iraq war
War between both the countries have created a large impact on all aspects including
economical assets, population and more. In context with Iran and Iraq war, due a huge loss of
life, no one state had considered as a true winner. Each nation had felt to be cheated by outside
by outside powers. Therefore, Iraq had not bring down the revolutionary government in Iran.
Similarly, Iran has not formed revolution in Iran. Along with this, Iraq was considered as a
revolutionary state while Iraq as an isolated one. Thus, all such facts and assumptions had
created the difference related to political outcomes under Iraq and Iran war. Iraq had also a
strong centrifugal trend therefore, for re-establishing the post Iran-Iraq war, the internal political
condition was also not seemed to be easy.
Under this state, various problems had risen because of Kurdish uprising that was based on anti-
Kurdish animus. The population under Kurdas was increased up to 15% to 20% also (Davis,
2016). Due to this issue, the end of war had created a bigger fragmentation under domestic
politics of Iraq. During war period, they had also become victims of chemical weapon as well as
massive hunts from Iraq’s government. The Reagan administration has seen it was fit with
Saddam condemned for using nuclear weapons under war against own nation. It leads Iraq to
loss the support of US.
As compared to Iraq, condition in Iran was totally different. As rather to fragmentation of
government, this country had started a national unity which was supported by Islamic ideology.
In 1989, there was created an amendment towards political direction. Here, under the guidance
Grand Ayatthola Imam Khomeini, Iraq had applied a set of Islamic parliamentary (Limbert,
2016). Similarly, Iran and USSR had also made a relationship for improving the economical
condition of Iran after war. Similarly, Moscow and Tehran had fixed the relationship and
cooperate each other for improving commercial-economic, cultural cooperation and scientific-
technical condition.
The war effect on the Middle East
The war between Iran and Iraq had created a large impact on middle east or Golf region. There
was a significant loss in power of both states because of loss in economical and military assets.
In addition to this, both have failed to impose their vision in terms of geopolitical region. Under
this stage, it had evaluated that Iraq was failed related to own bid for regional hegemony. While,
in place of this, Iran had failed export own revolution. Similarly, policy of Iraq related to
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confrontational and expansionist foreign, had also failed to gain leadership of Middle East. Iraq
had also suffered from a variety of setbacks for achieving geopolitical dream in terms of regional
hegemony. During 1991, USSR had considered as a supplier of arms to Iraq. Therefore, due to
loss in relationship with USSR, Iraq had faced loss in military power also (Moltz and Ross,
2015). In addition to this, other powerful countries like United States and Western states had also
turned against Iraq. US state had tolerated the belligerency of Saddam which includes usage of
nuclear weapons and chemical attacks during Iran-Iraq war. This leads to creates a total loss
related to global legitimacy.
As related to geopolitical effects on Iran, in terms of foreign policy and confrontational
had also failed to generate gain in the era of 1979 to 1989. The radical Islamic goal of this state
i.e. exporting the revolution had also isolated it internationally (Behrouzan, 2015). It had also
provoked violent as well as exaggerate reactions from middle east states like Iran neighbours and
gulf monarchies. In beginning year of 1990, Iran had striven to enact a tranquilizing revolution
under presidency of Akbar Rafsanjani with aim of normalisation and non-confrontational of
relation. These goals also related with remedy to economical condition of Iran and regain its
security by global of international legitimacy. It has proven that Iran was a rational actor in
middle east (Gulf). However, the geopolitical objectives of Iran had also remains unchanged
during 1990s. It includes to ensure national security and secure economic benefits.
Foreign support and position of Iran and Iraq
During the war of Iraq and Iran, it was evaluated that Iraq had regarded by United States and
Soviet United in terms of counterbalance with post-revolutionary Iran. Here, Soviet Union was
considered as the main arms supplier of Iraq during entire period of war. However, it had not
wished to create end with Iraq’s alliance as well as alarmed at threats of Hussein if Kremlin had
not provided the weapons as per requirement. Therefore, Iraq had found some new arms
suppliers from other nations like West and China. Along with this, John Bulloch and Harvey
Morris who was The British journalists had written that during entire period of war, the Soviet
Union had remained the main supplier of Iraq. The reason behind same was Treaty of Friendship
and Cooperation, which had signed by Baghdad and Moscow in 1972 (Ehsani, 2017). This
agreement was treated as a formalisation of something different type of relationship within two
nations, which were existed at the time of monarchy’s overthrow. In addition to this, it had also
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survived as rift among Communist Party of Iraq and Ba’ath, including all bloodshed which was
entailed.
It has also evaluated from historical reviews that near about 30 nations had provided their
support to both Iraq and Iran. In this regard, especially Iraq had seemed to have a complex
clandestine procurement type of network for obtaining munitions as well as critical materials.
This had involved transactions including approximately 10 to 12 countries. In addition to this,
various Arab mercenaries, a number of volunteers from Egypt and Jordan had also give their
participation in tug of war especially for Iraqis. The table below had shown the foreign support
to Iraq and Iran war:-
Foreign countries Iraq Iran
United States Give support to Iraq during
war
Provide its support to Iran also
during war
United Kingdom British support to Iraq Didn’t give any support to
Iranis during war
Saudi Arabia Support to Iraq Had not given any support
Soviet Union Give support to this nation
during war
Soviet had also supported to
Iran
China Chinese had supported to Iraq During war, China had also
supported Iran
France Had supported for Iraq Not supported
Kuwait Kuwait had given economical
support to Iraq
Not given
Israel Didn’t support Israel had supported to Iran
only during war period
Italy Italian had supported to Iraq
only
Didn’t support
West Germany West Germany had also
supported to Iraq
Didn’t support
Egypt This nation had also supported
to Iraq
Didn’t support
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What the Iran-Iraq War Tells Us about the Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal
From the analysis of Iran and Iraq war, it was evident that Iraq largely believed in
winning the war devoid of humane behaviour expected of the forces of nation. During the battle,
Iraq largely used destructive and massive chemical weapons that led to massive loss of human
life, property and money. As a result of this, Iraq was made to sign a nuclear deal wherein the
country will assure in written form that they would strive to decrease the use of nuclear weapons
and activities in wars. The Iran nuclear deal was a preliminary framework agreement arrived at,
in 2015 between the Islamic Republic of Iran and a group of world powers:
the P5+1 (the permanent members of United Nations Security Council, United States, United
Kingdom, Russia, France, and China plus Germany) and European Union (Goldschmidt Jr and
Al-Marashi, 2018). This was done with the aim to assure that there is least loss of life and
property on part of Iraq in future.
Lessons learnt from Iran-Iraq war
Both Iraqis as well as Iranians believed that US was involved in manipulation of both the
countries. Ironically, United States tried to reach out to both nations through course of war and
get a strategic advantage of partnership. The harmful arms for hostage policy more commonly
known as Iran Contra affair was able to convince Iraqis that US was cunningly playing from both
the sides involved in the war (Gibson, 2017). As a result of this, at the time of end of war, the
Iraqi regime and most Iraqis considered United States as a big threat even though Washington
supported during the course of battle.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis, it has been concluded that there was a prolonged war which
took place between Iran and Iraq as a result of religious and geographical tensions between both
the countries. Also, it has been analysed that as a result of this war, there was massive loss of
lives, property and money. In addition to this, it has been evaluated that although the war took
place so that the countries can gain a strategic advantage by taking the possession of Oil rich
Shatt al-Arab, there were only negative outcomes of this battle. Furthermore, it has been assessed
that there were a long series of demographic and political implications as a result of this battle.
Along with this, it has been analysed that there were a number of reasons which led to invasion
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by Iraq. It has also been observed that the war which involved a series of attacks on both the
countries, was initiated without much further investigation into the claim made by a well
renowned newspaper’s article.
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