Iran-Iraq War Begins

In September 1980, Iraqi forces under President Saddam Hussein launched a large-scale invasion of Iran, beginning one of the longest conventional wars of the twentieth century. It lasted until 1988 and ended with no clear victor and borders essentially where they had started. Casualty estimates vary widely, but the dead are commonly put in the hundreds of thousands on each side, with totals approaching or exceeding a million sometimes cited. The war devastated both economies and shaped the politics of the Gulf for decades.

The roots of the conflict lay in both old disputes and new fears. Iraq and Iran had long quarreled over the Shatt al-Arab waterway, the channel formed by the Tigris and Euphrates that gives Iraq its main outlet to the sea. A 1975 agreement signed in Algiers had settled the border in Iran's favor, a concession Saddam resented. The 1979 Iranian Revolution then toppled the Shah and brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power. Khomeini's government called for exporting its revolution, and Saddam, whose Baathist regime ruled a country with a Shia majority but a Sunni-dominated leadership, feared unrest at home. He also saw an opportunity, since Iran's military was in turmoil after purges and revolution.

Iraq attacked in late September 1980, striking Iranian airfields and sending troops into the oil-rich province of Khuzestan. Saddam probably expected a quick victory. Instead, Iran rallied around its new government, halted the advance, and by 1982 had recaptured most of the lost territory, including the port city of Khorramshahr. Iran then carried the war into Iraq, often using massed infantry attacks, including volunteers and, according to many accounts, very young fighters. The conflict settled into grinding trench warfare reminiscent of the First World War.

Both sides escalated in ways that drew international condemnation. Iraq used chemical weapons, including mustard gas and nerve agents, against Iranian troops and later against Iraqi Kurds, most notoriously in the 1988 attack on Halabja. Each side bombed the other's cities in what became known as the "war of the cities," and both attacked oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, prompting the United States and other powers to intervene to protect shipping. Iraq received financial and material backing from Gulf states and many Western and Soviet-bloc countries, while Iran was comparatively isolated, though it obtained arms from various sources.

A UN-brokered ceasefire took effect in August 1988, after Iran accepted Security Council Resolution 598. The war left both nations exhausted and deeply indebted. Iraq's debts to its Gulf neighbors, especially Kuwait, helped set the stage for its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In Iran, the war strengthened the revolutionary state and left a lasting memory of sacrifice and suspicion of foreign powers.