disarray. This is what tempted the Iraqis to invade
Iran: the conditions seemed ideal for the defeat
of an old rival for predominance in the Gulf.
The immediate cause of conflict was the Shatt
al-Arab, the waterway between Iraq and Iran lead-
ing out to the Gulf. Should the frontier run in mid-
channel or were both banks Iraqi territory? If the
latter, Iranian shipping would have to pay tolls to
the Iraqis and Iraq would control the waterway
through which oil tankers passed. The dispute goes
back to the nineteenth century, and a settlement of
1937 favouring Iraq was torn up in 1969 by the
Shah, who imposed the median line by a show of
force. Relations between Iran and Iraq deterior-
ated, with each country encouraging national dis-
sident movements in the other – especially of
Kurds, who straddled both countries. But between
1975 and 1978 peaceful relations were restored.
The Islamic revolution in Iran, however,
alarmed Saddam Hussein’s socialist Baathist
regime, not least because it was condemned by
Khomeini as hostile to Islamic rule. Saddam ruth-
lessly crushed the internal opposition, executing
militant sympathisers of the Iranian Islamic revo-
lutionaries. Khomeini meanwhile called on the
Iraqi army to overthrow Saddam.
Full-scale fighting began on 22 September
1980 with an Iraqi invasion. The Iranian air force
did well in response. Each side attacked the
other’s oil centres, but despite advancing rapidly
the Iraqi army failed to capture the great refinery
at Abadan. Iranian artillery continued throughout
the war to deny Iraqi warships passage of Shatt
al-Arab, while the Iranian army and the new
Revolutionary Guards defended fanatically,
inflicting heavy casualties on the Iraqi forces and
preventing them from extending their early gains.
The conflict became a war of attrition – though
one which strengthened the hold of the Iranian
clergy. Khomeini declared a holy war which, he
said, would end only when Saddam Hussein, the
aggressor against the Islamic Republic, had been
overthrown. From the spring of 1982, the
Iranians, with their much greater reserves of man-
power, began to gain the initiative, gradually
pushing the Iraqis out of the territories they had
captured in the first month of the war. Mediation
attempts and offers of a ceasefire were rejected by
the Ayatollah because Saddam Hussein remained
in power unpunished.
Young Iranians, many barely out of childhood,
enlisted in the Revolutionary Guards in response
to Khomeini’s call to fight evil. To die for the
faith brought glorious martyrdom and would
ensure a welcome in heaven. In the martyrs’
cemetery in Teheran, ‘the fountain of blood’
graphically symbolised the sacrifice of life. Prayer
meetings, attended by thousands in villages and
cities, strengthened resolve. Tens of thousands of
young volunteers hurled themselves in human-
wave attacks against the Iraqi defences.
Saddam Hussein was equally successful in
maintaining the war spirit but less so in repre-
senting himself as the pan-Arab champion against
the old Persian foe. Syria, Iraq’s rival, backed Iran
and in 1982 blocked Iraq’s oil pipeline to the
Mediterranean; even Israel, though Zionism was
denounced by the revolutionaries in Iran, appears
to have provided some secret technical assistance
to the Iranian army and air force. For most of the
war the Soviet Union and the US were anxious
to contain Iran and to counter the ‘export’ of
Iranian-style Muslim fundamentalism to the
USSR’s Central Asian republics or to America’s
allies in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
The leaders of the Gulf states, which were in the
direct firing line, feared Iran the most and so sup-
plied money to Iraq. But fears that Iranian-style
revolutions would destabilise the Gulf states
proved unfounded.
Iran suffered huge losses in driving the Iraqis
out. Its forces had no hope of defeating the well-
entrenched Iraqi army, whose military supplies
were purchased with Saudi Arabian, Kuwaiti and
US help. The US arms embargo, and the inter-
national fleet from the West, which protected the
tankers of the Gulf states from Iranian retaliation
after the Iraqi attacks on Iranian oil installa-
tions, underlined Teheran’s diplomatic isolation.
Weapons did reach Iran, despite embargoes –
indeed, the bizarre Iran–Contra affair belongs to
this chapter of secret arms deals. They were not
enough to turn the war in Iran’s favour, but they
were sufficient to prolong the military stalemate.
Iran’s war effort was being worn down by the
end of 1987. Long-range Iraqi missile attacks912 GLOBAL CHANGE: FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY