On this day 42 years ago, the first Gulf War ended after 8 years with a ceasefire between Iraq and Iran.
Both countries had undergone major political changes, some of them violent, before the war began, which brought old conflicts over supremacy in the Persian Gulf to the boil. The monarchy in Iraq had been abolished in 1958, followed first by a period of social and democratic reforms and later by increasingly dictatorial policies. Following a coup and the resignation of the previous incumbent, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq in 1979. On the other hand, Iran’s longtime head of state had fled the country in 1979 after protests, after which a referendum created a theocratic system, the “rule of the Islamic jurist.”
In addition to domestic political conflicts, there were disputes over the region around the border river Shatt al-Arab and the oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan. In addition, there were religious tensions between predominantly Sunni Iraq and Iran, with Shiism as the state religion. Assuming a weakened Iran, Iraq attacked on September 22, 1980, which subsequently proved to be a miscalculation. Iraqi forces were able to advance by December, but were driven back by 1981. The 1982 cease-fire did not end the war, but it continued in a war of position with numerous Iranian offensives aimed at expanding their own “Islamic revolution” to the neighboring country.
The war received a great deal of attention because of the many casualties and several internationally condemned acts of war. Both sides destroyed ships carrying oil, which is central to both states, in order to weaken the enemy economically. Iran additionally attacked foreign ships carrying raw materials for Iraq. The million deaths from the war can be attributed to the bombing of cities and industrial facilities by both sides. Iraq also used chemical and biological weapons against Iran and Iraq’s Kurdish civilian population in the process. Iran, on the other hand, used human “minesweepers” sent to the front lines under the promise of martyrdom, including children and teenagers.
To this day, there is no peace treaty between the two states. Both emerged from the conflict heavily in debt and economically weakened. Even today, 600,000 hectares of land with an estimated 16 million mines that have not been removed are a remnant of the First Gulf War, still causing almost daily casualties. The cause of the war had not been remedied either, which is why the region plunged into the Second Gulf War two years later.
(lh)