The Iran-Iraq War: The Original Gulf War

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Recommended: Political changes in Iran after the Islamic revolution

Iraq has a long history of conflicts with its neighboring countries but none more notably than Iran. Iraq and Iran have had boarder disputes dating back to 1501 during the rule of the Persian Empire. More presently a standing feud has been raging over a 127 mile patch of land known as the Shatt al Arab River, a key point of real-estate due to its important oil shipping ports and access to the Persian Gulf. A treaty was signed in 1937 to settle the border dispute. It seemed to quell many of the tensions between these two countries but peace, it seems, was not meant to last. By 1955 political struggles in both countries caused tensions that would ultimately lead to the Gulf War. What happened in the years to come would change the way the world sees these two countries forever.
The Rise of the Warring Political Parties
Between the years of 1953 and 1979, both countries saw their fair share of political unrest. The Iranian people successfully staged a coup in 1953 to overthrow, the western friendly, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. While successfully removed from power his deposed rule, with the help of the United States, was not to last and he was quickly restored to power as the leader of Iran. The Shah’s reign would last until January 16, 1979 when his health finally failed him and he left Iran for good seriously ill with cancer. Shah’s position as leader of Iran would be replaced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the anti-shah movement and the favorite of the people (Willett, 2004). Khomeini hated the western influence and often referred to the United States as “the Great Satan” (Willett, 2004, p.13). Iraq was not without its political unrest. In 1963 Abdul Karim Kassem, a nationalist republication which strongly opposed fo...

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...cumented sense of brutality upon his enemies insuring that the stage of the world was set saying I am the ruler of Iraq and I will use whatever means necessary to insure a victory.

Works Cited

O'Ballance, Edgar. (1988). The Gulf War. Oxford, England: Brassey's Defence Publishers
Hiro, Dilip. (1989), The Longest War. London, England: Grafton
Willett, Edward. (2004), The Iran-Iraq War (War and Conflict in the Midle East). New York, NY:
The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
Ali, Javed. (2001), Chemical Weapons and the Iran-Iraq War: A Case Study in Noncompliance.
Retrieved from http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/81ali.pdf
Robinson, Julian P & Goldblat, Jozef (1984), Chemical Warfare In The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988. SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) Fact Sheet.
Retrieved from http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/chemical_warfare_ iran_iraq_war.php

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