SOURCE:Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Middle East and North Africa,September 18,
1980, E–1–E–7.Iran-Iraq War and Diplomacy
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
For more than six years, between late 1981 and early 1988, the Iran-Iraq War ground
on as a military stalemate punctuated by a series of attacks and counterattacks. Small
amounts of territory changed hands, but without either of the combatants able to
inflict defeat on the other. Hundreds of thousands of people, including civilians, reg-
ular army soldiers, and volunteers in militias, died during this period of inconclusive
fighting. Diplomats finally entered the fray in 1987, setting the stage for a settlement
that would eventually be reached the following year.
In September 1981—one year after Iraq began the war by capturing chunks of
Iranian territory near the Persian Gulf—Iran launched a counteroffensive that gave it
the strategic initiative, at least temporarily. A key Iranian tactic involved the use of
well-coordinated “waves” of volunteers, most of whom had little military training or
weapons but were fervent supporters of the religious leaders in Tehran. Volunteer units
known as the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) and Basij (Peoples Army) would attack
in large numbers, effectively overwhelming Iraqi positions. By April 1982, Iran had
retaken Khorramshahr, the largest city that had been captured by Iraq early in the war,
and had pushed nearly all Iraqi forces out of Iran.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein announced in June 1982 that he was withdraw-
ing the Iraqi army from Iran. He characterized the withdrawal as a tactical measure
that would enable Iraq to come to the aid of Lebanon, which had just been invaded
by Israel in its pursuit of Palestinian guerrillas operating there. This claim represented
little more than a cover for the failure of the Iraqi invasion of Iran. Hussein proceeded
to fire the generals who had failed him and replace them with more capable leaders,
spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying upgraded military equipment, and order
the construction of massive defensive positions in southern Iraq in anticipation of an
expected counterinvasion by the Iranians.
Iran began its invasion in July 1982, when it sent wave after wave of volunteer
soldiers—many armed only with copies of the Quran—across the border in an attempt
to capture the holy city of Karbala. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
asserted that the offensive eventually would “liberate” Baghdad and then sweep west-
ward to take Jerusalem from the Israelis. In the face of fierce Iraqi defenses, however,
the first attack quickly withered, as did several subsequent attacks along the Iran-Iraq
border in the following months. Tens of thousands of Iranian volunteers lost their lives
430 IRAQ AND THE GULF WARS