We ask God to help us fulfill it and to preserve for us the beloved father, leader Ahmad
Hasan al-Bakr, and give him long life. I also ask almighty God to preserve you, take
care of you and grant you victory. May the peace and blessings of God be upon you.
SOURCE:Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Middle East and North Africa, July 18, 1979,
E-1–E-5.Iran and Iraq: Prelude to War
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
The longest and deadliest war in recent Middle Eastern history is among the major
wars of modern times rarely discussed in the West, particularly in the United States.
For eight years during the 1980s, Iran and Iraq fought to a virtual standstill in a war
over territory, regime preservation, and bragging rights to regional supremacy. Iraq
started the war against its much-larger neighbor in September 1980, but failed to
achieve any of its objectives. Iran suffered major military defeats late in the war, but
was the more reluctant party to end the fighting in 1988; its only significant achieve-
ment was proving that a revolutionary government ruled by Islamic clerics could mobi-
lize sufficient public support to sustain itself in power.
By most estimates, at least 500,000, and possibly as many as 1.5 million, people
died during the Iran-Iraq War, most of them Iranians. The war severely damaged cities,
oil installations, military bases, and other infrastructure and weakened the economies
in both countries. The war also served as a precursor to the Persian Gulf War of 1991
that resulted from Iraq’s invasion of another neighbor, Kuwait (Persian Gulf War,
p. 455).
The roots of the Iran-Iraq War grow from a centuries-old rivalry between Iraq—
a predominantly Arab nation long ruled by Sunni Muslims—and Iran—most of whose
residents are Persians adhering to the Shiite branch of Islam. Historical mutual griev-
ances deepened in the early 1970s, when Baghdad and Tehran each began providing
aid to insurgent groups in the other’s country. Iran supported a drive for indepen-
dence by Iraqi Kurds, who mounted a brief but bloody war beginning in summer
- Iraq retaliated by supporting several ethnic and political groups opposed to the
shah’s rule in Iran. An age-old dispute over control of the Shatt al-Arab waterway also
helped bring Iran and Iraq to the verge of war by early 1975. This channel—the con-
fluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers—demarcates part of the border between the
two countries and is an essential transit route for oil exports by Iraq.
The prospect of war between Iran and Iraq was temporarily avoided through the
mediation of Algeria, which helped the shah and Saddam Hussein (at the time, Iraq’s
IRAQ AND THE GULF WARS 423