The Iran Iraq War 1980-1988: Still Influences the Region Today
The Iran Iraq War 1980-1988: Still Influences the Region Today
BACKGROUND
The Iraqi armed forces invaded Iran
on 22 September, 1980. Thus began the most horrific war in the history of
Middle East. The war lasted almost eight years and was ultimately terminated on
20 August, 1988. The war saw armored battles, missile attacks against cities,
the use of chemical munitions, trench warfare, attacks against merchant
shipping and human wave infantry attacks. The cause of the war was two-fold: Iraq’s expansionist policies combined with a
desire for regional dominance politically. Saddam Hussein thought a
‘preemptive’ attack was warranted against the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary
regime. The war, outside the orbit of the U.S.-Soviet ‘Cold War’ would impact
these two nations and many others as this war had grave consequences on the
international petroleum industry and commerce worldwide.
At noon on 22 September, 1980, the
Iraqi Air Force deployed over 190 combat aircraft across the Iranian border to
attack preselected targets. Thus began the most horrific war in the history of
Middle East. The war lasted almost eight years and was ultimately terminated on
20 August, 1988. It is ‘estimated that well over a million men perished in this
war with close to 1,800,000 casualties.[1]
The causes of the war have generally been placed on the two major personalities involved; Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. Both nations, after the deposition of the Shah of Iran by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, experienced an uptick in border tension. Both nation’s forces experienced mild border clashes in the spring and summer of 1980 that escalated.
The
causes of the war, however, appears to have been related to Iraq’s expansionist
policies combined with a desire for regional dominance politically. Regional
actors such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Israel all influenced or shaped
the confluence of conflict between Iraq and Iran. The fall out of the 1967 and
1973 Arab-Israeli wars created a vacuum of leadership amongst the Arab states.
And Iraq had ambitions to fill this vacuum. The 1979 revolution in Iran
ultimately gave Iraq an opportunity. The opportunity however, appeared more of
a preemptive strike against the Iranian regime before the Iranians invaded him,
given Iran’s tacit support of the Kurds inside northern Iraq. The Iranians
viewed Hussein as a tyrant who oppressed the Shia majority in Iraq.
The
Iraqi dictator desired a central place of authority with respect to secular,
and what Saddam Hussein viewed as the ‘progressive’ Arab world. He sought to
establish himself as the central leader of the Arab peoples in both the Gulf
region and in the greater Arab world. He had also calculated that the Iranian
regime, in its infancy and the turmoil it had brought internally, was ripe for
attacking.
The
Islamic Revolution in Tehran sent shock waves across the region on in to
Europe, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Gulf monarchies looked upon Iran as
an aggressive state with desires for dominance and influence over the oil
producing region. The Iranians were also faced with the challenges of
consolidating power in the newly established theocracy on the one hand, and
internal security issues related to the Kurds, the communist party, and Arabic
speaking Iranians.
“The
border dispute’s origins date back to the sixteenth century, while political
and ideological rivalries between Arabs and Persians can be traced back even
further to the Muslim conquest of the Persian Empire in the seventh century and
the subsequent Sunni-Shi’a schism in the Muslim faith.”[2]
Iraq sits between the former Persian Empire to her East and the former Ottoman
Empire to her North. Modern Iraq and Iran had border disputes on occasion but
nothing of significance.
Both
countries, owing to their strategic positions near the Persian Gulf also came
under the ambitions of the British and the Russians in the early late 19th
to early 20th centuries.
The
cold war between the Soviet Union and the West saw Iran allied with the United
States in the 1970’s. Iraq had severed ties with the U.S. for its open support
of Israel in 1967. President Nixon had opened the doors with the Iran and the Shah,
Reza Pahlavi in the early 70’s and subsequently Iran invested heavily in
American made military arms and aircraft. The Imperial Iranian Air Force of the
late 70’s was the envy of the region. Iran shared a border with the Soviet
Union and the U.S. desired Iran’s position as a bulwark against any Soviet
encroachment south into the oil rich region. The Iran-Iraq war, however, was
outside the orbit of the bipolar East-West U.S.-Soviet ‘Cold War’. The war
would draw in these two nations and many more as Iran and Iraq happened to be
geographically in the petroleum rich Persian Gulf. This region was most
important to the global economy.
Iraq, under Hussein and the socialist Ba’ath party, was secular and heavily supported by the Soviets. This relationship, however, was one of friction and tension as Hussein was uninterested in being placed in a position of dependence, regardless of a sponsor being from either the West or East. The Soviets already had a foothold in Syria, which was a state also under the Ba’ath party and led by the Assad regime. And the Soviets sought to further its position in the Persian Gulf region.
The Iraqi armed forces was a combination of both Western and Soviet armament. Iraq had far more artillery and armor than the Iranians. The strength of the Iraqi armed forces was in its Soviet equipped armored formations backed up by artillery. It did possess Western equipped and Soviet equipped attack helicopters armed with both Soviet and French ant-tank missiles. The training and readiness, however, was less than adequate. As the war progressed the better commanders were identified and rose to the top. Those that were incompetent suffered under Hussein. Hussein and his commanders prepared for battle leading up to D-Day: 22 September 1980.
The Iranian armed forces were, in 1980, almost
exclusively comprised of British and American equipment. The strength of the
Iranian armed forces was in manpower and the sophistication of the Air Force
which was trained to U.S. standards. The U.S. had provided an incredible amount
of tier 1 combat aircraft from the sophisticated Grumman F-14 to the battle
tested McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom and F-5 Freedom Fighters. The Iranian Air
Force also had aerial tankers for refueling. The Iranian Army was further equipped
with the Cobra attack helicopter armed with TOW anti-tank missiles.
The Islamic Revolution had tremendous negative
consequences for the former Imperial Iranian Armed Forces. The Western trained
commanders had been jailed to include a high number of the U.S. trained pilots
in the Iranian Air Force. And the U.S. had cut off replacement of spare parts
and ancillary equipment. When Iraq attacked, the Iranians were caught off guard
and unprepared.
The Iran-Iraq War very quickly turned into a slog match that ultimately saw elements of both World Wars at play. The Iraqi’s had more artillery and armor as well as the continued support of both the Soviet Union and the West. Iran suffered under sanctions and sought to re-equip its forces from non-aligned states such as China and North Korea. What the Iranians had was manpower. The Iranians eventually countered the Iraqi hardware with ‘human wave’ assaults by ill trained and ill-equipped infantry.
The center of gravity for Iraq and Iran was the hotly contested ‘Shatt Al Arab’ marshes and the waterway close to the only major Iraqi port, Um Al Qassr. The history of border disputes between Iraq and Iran is lengthy. Kurdish peoples occupied land from South Eastern Turkey, across North Eastern Iraq into Western Iran. The Kurds also lived in oil rich territory across both countries. It was the continued support of the Kurds by Iran that led to more friction, limited combat, and ultimately ended in the 1975 Algiers Agreement brokered by the president of Algeria. The Kurdish War involved the support of the Shah and the U.S. This particular war, that tied the Iraqi’s down had “three separate dynamics—the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran-Iraq rivalry, and Cold War interventionism—all coalesced to ensure that it would have a violent conclusion.”[1] The violent conclusion left Hussein bitter and mistrusting of the U.S.
22 September 1980 marked the day Iraq pulled the
first punches and invaded across a broad front from the central to southern
border of Iraq quickly seizing territory just inside the Iranian border. The
Iraqi’s took limited Iranian territory and went over to the defensive
immediately. Hussein sought so secure further oil fields just inside central
Iran, expand and shore up the Shatt al Arab waterways and through firepower, on
the defensive, force the Iranians to a cessation of hostilities.
As for the Iranians, they were slow to react and
responded with a series of offensives that essentially stabilized the lines
from the central border down to the Shatt al Arab. The Iranians were now faced
with “fighting three wars at once.”[4]
The Iranians were facing the challenges from the
‘Peoples Mujahidin’ and an assortment of other radical opposition movements
that had taken up arms against the Islamic Revolution. The next opposition was
found in Iranian ‘Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, and Baluchistan. This grouping
represented an ‘independence movement of the three parties inside Iran. And
now, the regime was faced with the despised and hated Iraqi’s.
The second order effect of the Iraqi invasion was
that it immediately filled the common folk of Iran with a nationalist spirit.
It helped to assist the regime in consolidation of power in a most timely
manner politically. Over the next four long years the Iranians generally maintained
the offensive. It would see saw and the Iranian regime would on occasion launch
offensives against the ‘Peoples Mujahidin’ and follow up against the Iraqi
front. Or simultaneously attack the independence movement armies of Kurdistan
and Azerbaijan.
In the four years that followed the Iranians had
expertly used its Air Force even attacking the most western H3 airfield in Iraq
near Jordan. But the continued use, the air battles and close air support of
the fielded army eventually took its toll. Along the front a stalemate had been
reached. The Iraqi’s had the armor and artillery but not the sophistication
required for combined arms maneuver. And the Iranians were losing precious
armor and artillery in each action. So much so that replacements were short in
coming. And so the Iranians leveraged what resource it had over the Iraqi’s:
men.
“The conflict turned into a war of attrition, with each side showing a marked disregard for the human cost.”[5] As each month turned into the next, like two prize fighters catching their breath, they would consolidate their gains and losses. The Iranians would push men and boys into headlong attacks. More often than not, the Iranians would gain little to no ground as losses piled against the entrenched Iraqi’s who dominated in tube artillery. The Iraqi’s would weigh in with steel and the Iranians with flesh. And blood.
The Iranian regime mistrusted its own armed forces as they had
been under the influence of the West and had been led by the Shah and his
secular regime. Thus, the ‘Majlis’ built a new organization: The ‘Pasdaran’, or
Revolutionary Guards. The Pasdaran was a lightly armed force. But it was
composed of religious zealots and the ‘true believers’ of the Islamic
Revolution. The Ayatollah gave blessings and the guarantee of ‘martyrdom’. They were recruited from all walks of life,
from the poor to the wealthy. Boys would be recruited from schools, given
limited training, and some equipment. An initiative under the Pasdaran was
created to augment the forces in the field. They were called the ‘Basij’
(‘Mobilization Force’) and then they would be marshalled to the front for some
‘big offensive’. Those that survived were rotated out, to return for another
offensive. By the end of the war upwards of 80,000[6] boys had been slaughtered.
Such were the circumstances of this war.
In 1982 the Iranians, through sheer strength in numbers,
eventually recaptured lost territory and took Iraqi territory in the Al Faw
peninsula. This was singly the move that finally threatened the Iraqi regime,
ever so close to cutting off the access to the Persian Gulf and the shipment of
precious petroleum. In the following phases of the war Iraq solicited and
received massive financial aid from Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations. Iraq
sought continued support from the hesitant Soviets as Iraq denied the Soviets access
to her bases in the region. Iraq also, through Arab state loans, lobbied and
received massive arms shipments from the willing French. Whilst other European
nations stood by, the French were all too willing to use the newly acquired
‘Iraqi’ monies to finance French industry.
In a twist at the height of the ‘Cold War’, both
the Soviets and the U.S. agreed that Iraq must not be allowed to fall. Nor
could the Iraqi’s be allowed to win! Thus, both the Soviets and the U.S.
provided support to Iraq and Iran. The support which included intelligence,
aircraft and spares, as well as munitions did so with a ‘draw’ in mind. They
both approached supporting the Iraqi’s so that Iraq would hold off the Iranians
but not become the victor against the Iranians.
The Soviets provided the lion’s share of military hardware and benefited, reaping in approximately 30 to 45 billion from the Iraqi’s and 1.5 billion from the Iranians.[7] The war drew in support from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and even Israel as well. The Israeli’s provided satellite imagery to the Iranian Air Force as they perceived Iraq to be the greater threat. The Iraqi’s and the French were jointly constructing the ‘Osirak’ nuclear reactor. Israel, understanding the ambition of Saddam Hussein, could only assume the Iraqi’s wanted nuclear weapons. The war and its complexity, cast of sates affected, and the loss of life occupied the United Nations (UN) Security Council.
The war passed through a series of phases. The Iraqi’s, under intense pressure from the Iranians, began a ‘war of the cities’ and used FROG-7 and SCUD missiles to attack Iranian cities close to the Iraqi border. The Iraqi’s also sent TU-22 bombers against Tehran. The Iranians retaliated with its Air Force and attacked Baghdad. Much like London during the ‘blitz’ in 1940, the Iraqi missile attacks had the same effects: the Iranian resolve grew in strength and the citizenry fully supported the regime.
As the mass of Iranian infantry attacks seized back
lost territory across the front, the Iraqi’s used chemical munitions to disrupt
attacks. As the war progressed into 1986 and 1987, almost every Iraqi
counter-attack was proceeded with artillery-chemical munitions. The war had
taken on the semblance of World War I with trenches, miles upon miles of barbed
wire and mine fields. Imagery of Iranian and Iraqi soldiers wearing protective
masks to guard against the mustard gas.
Both the Iraqi’s and Iranians attempted to dent
each other’s petroleum production and shipment. Oil facilities were routinely
attacked and the Iraqi’s began a campaign of attacking merchant shipping and
oil tankers plying the Persian Gulf. Thus the ‘tanker war’ phase. The Iranians
replied by attacking vessels as well and by mining portions of the Gulf. Approximately
430 tankers were attacked and Llyod’s of London reported 543 were damaged in
total.[8] And the international community stood by,
helplessly watching the horror of this conflict. All the while, worried for the
oil shipments threatened by both combatants.
By 1987 into 1988 both sides were in complete
exhaustion. The U.S. began to provide more and more ‘soft’ support such as
intelligence and aerial imagery. And more importantly, tactical planning. “In
1988, for final big Iraqi offensive, the Reagan administration spent months
advising Baghdad on how to retake the strategic [Al] Faw peninsula, where the
Shatt al Arab waterway flows into the Persian Gulf.”[9]
The retaking of the Faw peninsula would essentially return both parties to
their original start lines.
The war had lasted almost eight years. Hundreds of
thousand had perished. The cost in material and financing was astounding.
Hundreds of millions of dollars was spent alone on financing military
operations. Well over 100 billion combined was spent on the war as a whole and
the cost to the region’s security systems, to trade and commerce as well seem
incongruent when attempting to make sense of this war.
One can ask why this war? But given the personality of Saddam Hussein and his ambitions, the long running feud between Iraq and Iran, and the strategic position geographically of both states, one can arrive at determining an inevitable clash. But in 1980 no one could have possibly imagined a war that would last eight long years, involve modern weapons, antique tactics and techniques and the loss of over a million lives.
The reasons for the length and the colossal carnage
of this particular war is due ultimately
to military incompetence on both sides. Combined arms maneuver warfare is
challenging even for the most professional, practiced and well led armies. The
military incompetence of Iran and Iraq compounded by naiveté and seemingly coupled
with two very orthodox and dictatorial systems squashed initiative and left no
room for imagination. “Iraq possessed a large modern military, but its rigid,
top-down doctrine, inept leadership, and lackadaisical battlefield performance
failed to deliver the results that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein wanted from
his invasion.”[1]
And the Iranian regime suffered its own brand of
self-inflicted wounds to its command-and-control system. The armed forces, whom
it thought it could not trust and was constantly alert to its allegiance, built
up a rudimentary organization, the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij because
they were the ‘true believers’. Thus, fanatics and zealots were used en masse
against an organization like the Iraqi’s who were ineptly led but using modern
artillery and chemical munitions.
The outcome of the war would have tremendous
effects in the immediate region as well as outside. The U.S. was finally
invited by the Saudi’s to position equipment and exercise personnel in order to
provide security in the Persian Gulf. The Gulf monarchies were further
influenced to invest in defense and security cooperation. Iraq would waste no
time avenging those whom Hussein believed culpable for the less then desired
outcome of the war. Kuwait being number one on Hussein’s list.
And Iran? Isolated, under sanctions, and suffering
from the loss of hundreds of thousand began an inward recovery. The Islamic
Revolution had survived. And every key personality or leader today in Iran was
a young man in that war. The war has shaped the Iranian regime much like all
nations who experience conflict on such a scale. “No single event has defined Iran’s revolutionary ideology, politics,
perspectives on society and security more than the Iran-Iraq War.”[2]
The Iran of 2017 is still under the influence of that war. Inwardly focused,
desirous of access to markets and riches, and desirous for influence and
prestige. She is only now venturing back into the region with some influence.
Iran is supporting the fight against ISIS in Syria
and simultaneously supporting the Assad regime and Hezbollah fighters in
Lebanon. And Iran is not so subtly supporting the fight in Yemen against her
rival, Saudi Arabia. For Iran, seeing the Saudi’s struggle in Yemen is a
reopening of a cold war between these two powers situated in one of the most
important regions in the world.
Iran continues to produce petroleum. And she still
has one resource above petroleum. Much like she did in 1980: a population of 70
million or so. Much larger than the entire Gulf population combined.
[1] Razoux,
Pierre, “The Iran-Iraq War”, Belknap-Harvard Press, 2015, Appendix 1, Table 1.1
War Losses.
[2] Dodds, Joanna, and Wilson, Ben, “The Iran-Iraq War: Unattainable Objectives”, Rubin Center Research in International Affairs, 6 June, 2009 http://www.rubincenter.org/2009/06/dodds-wilson-2009-06-06/.
[3] Gibson, Bryant, “Kissinger and the Kurdish War: October 1973–March 1975”, Palgrave Macmillan US, 2015, Chapter 8, 163.
[4] Razoux, Pierre, “The Iran-Iraq War”, Belknap-Harvard Press, 2015, Appendix 1, 123.
[5] Hardy, Roger, “The Iran-Iraq War: 25 Years On”, BBC News, 22 September, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4260420.stm
[6] Razoux, Pierre, “The Iran-Iraq War”, Belknap-Harvard Press, 2015, Appendix 1, 349.
[7] Ibid, 456.
[8] Ibid. Appendix G, 563.
[9] Wright, Robin, “The War that Haunts Iran’s Negotiators”, The New Yorker, 28 June, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-war-that-haunts-irans-negotiators.
[10] Dodds, Joanna, and Wilson, Ben, “The Iran-Iraq War: Unattainable Objectives”, Rubin Center Research in International Affairs, 6 June, 2009 http://www.rubincenter.org/2009/06/dodds-wilson-2009-06-06/.
[11] Taleblu, Benham Ben, The Long Shadow of The Iran-Iraq War”, The National interest, 23 October, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-long-shadow-the-iran-iraq-war-11535.
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