The Gulf War
AUTHOR LtCol Mukram F. Tal, Jordan Armed Forces
CSC 1990
SUBJECT AREA Topical Issues
-TEXT-
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
TITLE: The Gulf War
THESIS: The conflict between Iraq and Iran has deep roots in
the history of the Middle Eastern region.
ISSUE: The rise of Islam in the sixth century led to the fall
of the Persian empire and its absorption into the emerging
Islamic empire. The later seventh century witnessed the
emergence of the Shiite sect, which was dominated and
influenced by the Persians. This was the first fragmentation
of the Islamic empire. There was also a new rise of the
consequential confrontations between the two rival factions,
the Shiites and the Sunnis. The split of Islam into these two
rival sects during the late seventh century still fuels much
of the current Muslim unrest in the region. Iraq was under
the Ottoman Empire, which claimed the role of protector of the
Sunnis, and Iran was under the Safani Dynasty, which presented
itself as the protector of the Shiites. The quarrel over
Shatt Al-Arab, the river running between Iraq and Iran, cast a
long shadow of conflict during the modern era and clashes
between the two countries continued.
Another reason for the conflict is the ideologies that govern
the political systems of Iraq and Iran. Iraq is led by the
Socialist Arab Ba'ath Party, while Iran is led by an Islamic
fundamentalist regime.
The internal situation for both Iraq and Iran is almost the
same, and both of them have ethnic minority groups and
different religions and religious sects.
The superpowers were looking carefully at the war, but the
United States and the Soviet Union were not involved directly
in the war. The Arab states in the Gulf were two groups, one
supported Iraq and the other group was conservative.
CONCLUSION: The Iraq-Iran War lasted for eight years, and
it's estimated that one million died on both sides. As of
today, no peace agreement has been reached and no one knows
what's going to happen to that historical struggle.
THE GULF WAR
OUTLINE
THESIS. The conflict between Iraq and Iran has deep roots in
the history of the Middle Eastern region.
Introduction
I. The Main Causes of the War
A. General History of the Conflict
B. Two Different Ideologies
C. Iraq's and Iran's Internal Situation
D. The Personal Causes of the War
II. The Super Powers and the War
III. The Gulf States and the War
IV. Conclusion
INTRODUCTION
The War between Iraq and Iran lasted for eight years and
it is estimated that 1 million people died on both sides. As
of today no peace agreement has been reached, the negotia-
tions have stopped and nobody knows what is going to happen.
This paper will discuss the main causes of the war,
focussing on four different perspectives: 1) the historical
context of the conflict, 2) the different ideologies in-
volved, 3) the internal situation in each of the countries
involved, and 4) the personal hatred of the leaders of Iran
and Iraq toward each other . The paper will also discuss the
positions of the superpowers as well as that of the other
Gulf states (in the G.C.C.) concerning the war.
I. THE MAIN CAUSES OF THE WAR
A. A General History of the Conflict
I would argue that this conflict goes deep into the
history of the Middle Eastern region. In order to facilitate
understanding of the conflict, therefore, it is important to
give a short historical background of this long-term conflict
between the Arabs and the Iranians.
In general, it is believed that a long-term conflict is
usually caused by two types of precipitants - - general and
specific. William O. Staudenmaier stated: "The general
precipitants are the underlying cause of a conflict, usually
rooted in history, while the specific participants are the
more provocative and proximate causes of a conflict."1 In
the case of the Iran-Iraq conflict, the general precipitants
can be traced to the ethnic and cultural differences that
divided the Arabs and the Persians. These differences led to
a persistent conflict between these two groups which has been
present since the early Islamic period.
The rise of Islam in the seventh century led to the fall
of the Persian empire and its absorption into the emerging
Islamic empire. It is believed, however, that during Abasaid
Caliphate's regime the dispersion of the Persian elements
throughout the Islamic Arab society produced a new influen-
tial Persian power within the Islamic empire.
The late seventh century witnessed the emergence of the
Shi'ite sect, which was dominated and influenced by the
Persians. This was the first manifest sign of the fragmenta-
tion of the Islamic empire. There was also a new rise of
consequential confrontations between the two rival factions
-- the Shi'ites and the Sunnis. Staudenmaier believes that
Islam's split into these two rival sects during the late
seventh century still fuels much of the current Muslim unrest
in Southwest Asia.2 There was a consequential incorporation
of the Middle East into the Ottoman Empire in the 15th
century, along with the rise of the Safawia Dynasty, which
presented itself as the protector of the Shi'ites, while the
Ottomans claimed the role of protector of the Sunnis.
During this era, Iraq became a stage of conflict and a
target between the two rival powers of the Ottomans and the
Safawia. Under the Shah Ismail, the Safawi ruler of Persia,
Iraq fell under Persian occupation in 1508. However, after a
consequential conflict, Iraq was retaken by the Ottomans in
1543. This rivalry between the two regimes over Iraq
reflected, in effect, the precarious military balance between
the Ottomans (the Sunni and the Safawia) and the Shi'ite on
the one hand, and the administrative weaknesses of the two
powers on the other hand. In fact, neither of the two powers
could decisively defeat the other and achieve permanent
military control over the region of Mesopotamia, nor could
either establish effective administrative control when in
possession of it.
In 1639 the Treaty of Zuhab was signed between the two
powers, briefly establishing a peace and defining the border
between the Ottomans and the Persian Safawia. The 1639
treaty was a commitment to a short period of peace throughout
the historical conflict between the Ottomans and the Safawia.
The eighteenth century brought with it more hostilities
between the Persians and the Turkish. One of the most
significant events during this era was the Persian occupation
of Basra in Iraq which occurred in 1776. However, this new
conflict was resolved by the first Treaty of Erzerum in 1823.
"The creation of the Shi'ite state of the Safawia in the
sixteenth century also sharpened the antagonism, some of them
latent, between the Persians and their neighbors to the west.
New relationships and exacerbations replaced the religious
and cultural unity of the Arab and Iranian worlds. Certainly
after this period relations and influences between the two
declined. Not only did their religious paths part, but the
development of culture and thought went more and more along
separate ways."3
By the nineteenth century, the growth of the British
imperialist power in the region of Mesopotamia and the Gulf
area had transformed the balance of power and changed the
nature of the conflict between the Arabs and the Persians.
Within this framework, the instability maintained in the area
by the Ottoman-Persian rivalries, the political autonomy of
many tribes in the frontier zones between the two powers of
the Ottomans and the Persians, and the general instability
brought many difficulties to the British imperialists. At
the same time, Britain was attempting to consolidate its
position in the region by sponsoring support of the two
powers. This was done in order to facilitate Britain's
political and economic interest in the region. In short, the
relations between the Arabs and the Persians has frequently
been hostile in the past.
The quarrel over Shatt Al-Arab, the river running
between Iraq and Iran, cast a long shadow of conflict during
the modern era. In the 1930s, the clashes along their
disputed borders and the Shatt Al-Arab waterway led to a
treaty between the two countries, Iran-Iraq, in 1937, which
allocated the entire Shatt Al-Arab to Iraqi sovereignty
except for small anchorage areas at the Iranian ports of
Abadan and Khorramshahr. The treaty was in line with earlier
agreements of 1847 and 1913-14, and reflected the political
weight of Britain as Iraq's sponsoring power.
The next two decades were relatively peaceful between
the two countries, after the signing of the treaty of 1937.
However, this relative peace ended when Iraq's British
monarchy was toppled by Iraqi army officers in July 1958.
Iran had regarded the 1937 treaty as an imposition of British
hegemony, and in November 1969 the Shah demanded that the
river border be moved from the Iranian shore to the middle of
the Shatt Al-Arab channel. Iranian ships stopped using Iraqi
pilots or paying Iraqi tolls.4
The next month, Iraq's Abdul-Karim Qassem responded by
also declaring the 1937 treaty void, claiming the waters
around Abadan and Khorramshahr for Iraq. But Baghdad lacked
the military strength to challenge Teheran.5
The dispute over territory and borders between Iran and
Iraq came to the fire again after the Ba'ath party took over
political power in Iraq in July 1968. And hostilities
between the two countries erupted again in 1969. The dispute
over territory escalated during late 1974 and brought direct
military clashes between the Iraqi and Iranian military
forces. "The border conflict was symptomatic of deeper
problems between the two regions, and in many respects the
shifting location of the river boundary simply expressed
changes in the overall balance of forces between the two
countries."6
This threat prompted mediation efforts first by Turkey,
then by Algeria to end this new dispute over borders of the
Shatt Al-Arab between Iran and Iraq. On March 6, 1975,
Saddam Husayn, Vice President of Iraq (now President of
Iraq), met with the Shah of Iran during an OPEC conference in
Algeria. Their agreements called for an end to all acts of
infiltration and hostilities. The two leaders signed a
Treaty of International Boundaries and Good Neighborliness.7
In 1979, the regime of the Shah of Iran was overturned
by a revolution led by Islamic fundamentalists under the
Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini abrogated the treaty of 1975
and a new outbreak of war erupted between the two countries
on September 22, 1980. Thus, the general precipitants of the
1980 war were the legacy of centuries of religious, ethnic
and territorial differences between the Iraqi's -- the Arabs
-- and the Iranians -- the Persians.
B. Two Different Ideologies
Another reason for the conflict that should be addressed
are the two ideologies that govern the political systems of
Iraq and Iran. Iraq is led by the socialist Arab Ba'ath
party while Iran is led by an Islamic fundamentalist regime.
In order to understand the nature of this ideological
conflict a summarization of both are given.
The Ba'ath party is a nationalist party that was
established in Syria on April 7, 1947, by Michel Aflak. The
main goals of this party, as stated by its constitution, is
to achieve unity, freedom and socialism.
The Ba'ath party regards Islam as the Arab's great
cultural heritage. It nonetheless subordinates it to Arab
nationalism, which becomes the propelling force of Arab
regeneration. Thus, Islam becomes an element and a manifes-
tation of Arab nationalism while Arab nationalism takes
precedence over Islam. In other words, the Iraqi Ba'athists
are vehemently opposed to the politicization of the religion.
By unity the Ba'ath Party means that the entire area
from the Arabian Gulf in the east to Morocco in the west, and
from northern Iraq and Syrian in the north to Somalia in the
south is one nation that should be united politically,
economically, militarily, etc., in one state. Freedom means
the independence and liberation of all this area from
colonizers. Self-reliance in all aspects of life is a main
concept in the Ba'athist ideology. Socialism means equal
distribution of the fortune, nationalization of the means of
production, and equal rights for women and men.
From the understanding of these concepts, the Ba'athists
main goals involved the government of Iraq having balanced
relations between the two superpowers. Iraq has strong
relations with the Soviet Union; they were even the first
noncommunist group to sign a friendship treaty with the
Soviet Union. Yet at the same time they do not hesitate to
condemn the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They also
condemn the U.S.A.'s policy toward the Middle East and the
third world, and yet still keep good relations with the
U.S.
As for inside the country, in the last ten years Iraq
has built and maintained an intensive economic plan aimed at
modernizing all aspects of the country. The party also
worked hard to institutionalize the country by encouraging
people to participate in the election for the first National
Assembly in Iraq.8
After the 1979 collapse of the Shah the Ayatollah
Khomeini took power in Iran. Khomeini had a new ideology
which introduced a new factor: pitting a radical, univer-
salist, Pan-Islamic religious regime in Iran against a
secular, socialist, nationalist regime in Iraq. Complicating
the ideological clash was Khomeini's personal antipathy
towards the Ba'athist government, which in 1978 had expelled
him from Iraq (where he had lived for 14 years), at the
request of the Shah.
In order to understand the ideological orientation of
the Iranian revolution, it is necessary to examine briefly
the ideological precepts of Khomeini, the architect of Iran's
new ideological orientation. In his work, Islamic Govern-
ment, based on a series of lectures delivered in the holy
city of Najaf, Iraq, in the late 1960s and early 197Os,
Khomeini set forth his conception of society and government.
His intense antipathy towards the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran was
the point of departure for his unmitigated animosity towards
a hereditary monarchy. He attributes the corruption and
moral decline of society to the corruption of the ruling
dynasty and the royal family.9
For Khomeini, the only salvation for Muslims was to
overthrow the corrupt, oppressive and "anti-Islamic" regimes
and establish the Islamic revolution which would usher in a
new social and political order in the Islamic world. In his
words:
We have no alternative but to work for
destroying the corrupt and corrupting
systems and to destroy the symbol of
treason and the unjust among rulers of
peoples. This is a duty that all Moslems
wherever they may be are entrusted - - a
duty to create a victorious and trium-
phant Islamic political revolution.10
Thus, the objective is to establish the Islamic revolu-
tion which will destroy the heads of treason, the idols, the
human images and the false gods who disseminate injustice and
corruption on earth and preserve the unity of the Moslems.11
To achieve this objective, Khomeini called on the Ulema
(religious leaders) to abjure passivity and to become
involved in the political process: "The duty of the Ulema is
to put an end to this injustice and to seek to bring happi-
ness to millions of peoples through destroying and eliminat-
ing the unjust governments and through establishing a sincere
and active Moslem government."12 Since the Islamic govern-
ment is a government of religious law (i.e., a theocracy),
Khomeini argues that only the religious jurisprudents of the
faqih and nobody else should be in charge of the govern-
ment.13 This is equivalent to a total monopolization of
power by the Ulema. Thus, the Ulema have exclusive authority
over all matters. They have been trusted with governing,
ruling and running the affairs of the people.
Khomeini's delegation of absolute power to the Ulema
stems from his perception and conviction that the religious
jurisprudents are the representatives of the prophets. The
religious jurist is defined as a person knowledgeable in the
Islamic creed, laws, rules and ethics.14 Khomeini's concept
of vilayati faqih (the governance of the jurist) is viewed by
some scholars as an innovation and a radical departure from
the classical doctrine of Ja'fari Shi'ism.15
The concept of vilayati faqih is based on Khomeini's
conviction that the Islamic state is the best form of
government, and that only in an Islamic state can the
Muslims' interests be safeguarded and promoted. Since the
Islamic state is the best form of government, only the faqih
can provide genuine leadership for such a state, which aims
at the spiritual regeneration of man.16
Upon his accession to power, Khomeini enshrined the
concept of vilayati faqih in the newly proclaimed constitu-
tion of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Accordingly, the
constitution grants the faqih wide-ranging powers in the
political process, such as appointing and dismissing the
chief of the General Staff and the Commander-in-Chief of the
Revolutionary Guards, declaring war and even dismissing the
President of the Republic on the basis of a supreme court
decision.17 The power of the faqih is also manifested in his
power to appoint half the members of the Council of Guar-
dians, entrusted with the protection of the constitution as
well as of Islamic precepts.18 Furthermore, article 162 of
the constitution grants the faqih the power to appoint the
head of the supreme court and the Attorney-General in
consultation with the supreme court judges.19 These provi-
sions conferred tremendous powers on Ayatollah Khomeini and
made him the final arbiter in Iran's power structure.
Implicit in Khomeini's attack on the status quo and his
conception of the Islamic government is his intense opposi-
tion to the territorial state and his quest to revive and
reconstitute the universal Pan-Islamic state under his
spiritual and political leadership. For Khomeini, the
division and fragmentation of the Muslim states into indepen-
dent political entities is an anomaly. He attributes this
fragmentation to the schemes of the imperialists and the
tyrannical self-seeking rulers who have divided the Islamic
homeland. They have separated the various segments of the
Islamic Umma (nation) from each other and artificially
created separate nations.20
As a corollary, nationalism and the "west-phalian"
territorial state are anathema and hence devoid of any
legitimacy, according to Khomeini. This ideological, Pan-
Islamic version of the state was articulated by Iran's
President, Ali Akbar Khamanai when he declared that "there is
no geographic border for the Imman Khomeini."21
Convinced of his messianic vision of Islam and embol-
dened by the collapse of the Shah's regime, Khomeini advo-
cated the export of his brand of Islamic fundamentalism to
every corner of the Islamic world. In a speech on 11
February 1980, he vowed to export his fundamentalist, radical
Islamic movement abroad: "We will export our revolution to
the four corners of the world," he declared, "because our
revolution is Islamic, and the struggle will continue until
the cry of `La ilaha illah'llah' ['there is no God but God
and Muhammad is his messenger'] prevails throughout the whole
world."22 It is this novel conception of international
relations, advocated by Khomeini, which lies at the root of
Iran's strained relations with Iraq and the other Arab Gulf
states.
C. Iran and Iraq's Internal Situation
Iran is a big country with many ethnic minority groups
such as Arab, Azerbaijani Turks, Baluchis, Kurds and Turko-
mans. There are also different religions and religious sects
in Iran, for example, Judaism, Christian, Islam (Sunni and
Shi'ite), Baha'is and Zoroastrianism.23
After the Iranian revolution, these ethnic groups
demanded independence and spurred their struggle to gain
self-determination and other human rights. In 1978 the line
of Khomeini and his clerical followers began destroying the
power and position of other groups, whether conservatives or
liberals, in the national front and related groups, the
secular or Muslim leftists; the national minorities (who, in
the case of the primarily Sunni Kurds, Turkomans and
Baluchis, feared Shi'ite theocracy); or even some high reli-
gious critics of Khomeini, notably Ayatollah Shariatmadari.
Many in these groups opposed the proposal of Khomeini and his
followers for a straight referendum allowing people to choose
between monarchy and an "Islamic Republic," either because
the latter was undefined (Khomeini explicitly refused to add
the word "democratic" to the title), or because there needed
to be a wider range of better defined choices, with time for
debate. Khomeini's forces won and the referendum was held in
late March of 1978, with an overwhelming vote for the Islamic
Republic. In the Sunni Kurdish area, however, there were
boycotts and some active fighting at the time of the referen-
dum.24
In the same year there was also a revolt among the Kurds
in the region of Khorasan, in northeastern Iran where a small
minority of the Kurds live. This was met with severe action
by the government's military.25 In the west of Iran, where
the majority of the Kurds live, there were more rebels
against the central government in Teheran. The Kurds
operated in mountain country and the Kurdish Democratic Party
(KDP) enjoyed considerable support in the major towns, such
as Mahabad, Sardasht, Bukan and Piranshahr. Mojahedin and
Fadayan were receiving valuable training fighting alongside
the Kurds. Both the KDP and the Mojahedin broadcast anti-
government news and programs from small transmitters in
Kurdish territory.26
From the beginning Khomeini tried to suppress all these
opposition movements, including the Kurdish movement. In
addition, he tried to monopolize the political power and put
it in the hands of the clerics.27 Instead of declaring a
secular constitution, Khomeini insisted on having a Muslim
conservative constitution. The united Muslims of Kurdistan,
meantime, threatened to take up arms if the constitution was
not revised to satisfy their demands, while the Union of
Muslims Party of Baluchistan demanded the right to revise any
national law not in keeping with local requirements before
application to their province. The assault on the draft
constitution by the secular parties led Khomeini to spur the
Islamic groups to a counter attack.28
In remarks to a delegation of preachers from Mashad at
the end of June Khomeini said, "clerics and Islamic groups
must review the draft from an Islamic perspective and for an
Islamic constitution," rather than allowing "others" to
correct the document. "This right belongs to you. It is
those knowledgeable in Islam who may express an opinion on
the law of Islam. Don't sit back while foreignized intellec-
tuals, who have no faith in Islam, give their views and write
the things they write. Pick up your pens and in the mosques,
from the alters, in the streets and bazaars, speak of the
things that in your view should be included in the constitu-
tion."29
The minority groups, especially the Kurds, were also
active in the military of Iran. Several military attempts to
overthrow the Islamic regime were discovered. The chief
judge of the military revolutionary tribunal, Mohammadi
Rayshari, announced in quick succession the discovery of two
plots in the armed forces. One of them was announced in June
and code-named "Operation Overthrow" and was centered on the
military base in Piranshahr in Kurdistan. Some twenty-seven
junior and warrant officers were arrested in the plot. It
appeared to be a minor affair, primarily related to the
Kurdish rebellion, although Rayshahri treated it as an
attempt at a full coup to return the Shah and Shapour
Bakhtiar to power.30
In the three years that followed the overthrow of Bani-
Sadr, the Khomeini regime beat back an attempt at armed
rebellion by left-wing guerrillas, neutralized or eliminated
other opposition groups, contained the Kurdish rebellion, and
consolidated its hold on the country.31
The internal situation in Iraq, on the other hand, was
not much better, as Shi'ite unrest inside Iraq started. This
unrest made the leadership look to the Iranian revolution as
a major threat to its power, especially after the attempt in
April 1980 on the life of Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Premier.32
An Iraqi spokesman described the conditions inside Iraq as
being near civil war in 1980.33
That was not the only problem facing Saddam Husayn,
Iraq's President. There was also a struggle for power in the
higher circles of the Ba'ath party. On July 18, 1979 before
the Revolutionary Command Council meeting, a special inves-
tigation committee declared that some of the senior members
in the party were cooperating with Syria for the overthrow of
President Husayn and established a federation between the two
countries.34 As this indicates, the internal situation in
Iraq was very bad for the ambitious young President Saddam
Husayn, and thus he had to take action, no matter what the
cost, in order to maintain power.
D. The Personal Causes of the War
The personal factor is an important one in considering
the causes of this war. The personalities of the two leaders
and their hatred for each other played a major role in both
causing and maintaining the war.
Ayatollah Khomeini was very active in working against
the Shah's regime. Because of Khomeini's activities, the
regime of the Shah of Iran arrested him for several days but,
under pressure from the Ulema (the religious body in Iran),
the Shah's regime did not impose a severe punishment and
instead banished him to Turkey. In October 1965, he was
permitted to change his place of exile to the Shi'a Shrine
city of Najaf, in Iraq, where he spent thirteen years.35
Khomeini was very active against the Shah of Iran during this
period from 1964 to 1978. In exile in Iraq, Khomeini
directed his efforts to the type of activity that, during his
Qam period, he had described as incumbent on a religious
leader: teaching, writing, speaking, and issuing declara-
tion, all aimed at exposing the "crimes" of the Iranian
government, warning of the threat posed to Islam and Iran by
a regime of "tyranny and unbelief," using Islam as an
instrument for mobilizing and forging a united opposition,
and teaching his followers to gird themselves for resistance
to a ruler who had turned himself into "a servant of the
dollar."36
As discussed earlier, the Iraqi government signed a
peace treaty with Iran concerning the dispute over Shatt Al-
Arab in March 1975, during the OPEC conference in Algeria.
Because of friendlier relations between the two nations, the
Iraqi government, at Iran's request, pressured Khomeini to
desist from political activities and inflammatory statements.
When Khomeini refused, he was asked by the Iraqi government
to leave the country. Khomeini tried to cross over into
Kuwait, but was refused entry. Khomeini next considered
trying to enter Syria. But Ebrahim Yazdi, who had hurried to
Khomeini's side, urged him to come to Paris rather than to
try to settle in another Arab country. It is possible that
the incident of being deported from Iraq led Khomeini to have
resentment toward Iraq and the Iraqi government.
On the other hand, the personality of the President of
Iraq, Saddam Husayn, and his mentality toward peace with Iran
must be taken into account. In 1975, President Saddam Husayn
was forced to sign a treaty to cease fire with the late Shah
of Iran. It is not the purpose of this paper to detail the
circumstances that forced the President of Iraq to sign the
treaty at that time. Suffice it to say that the outcome of
the treaty was the dividing of Shatt Al-Arab between Iraq and
Iran. The treaty was considered unfair from Iraq's point of
view. However, there was a kind of compromise, land in
replacement for peace, because Iran was more powerful than
Iraq at that time. The Iranian revolution created new
circumstances and Saddam Husayn thought it was the proper
time to break the treaty that he and the Shah had signed.
Here we have a leader who believes that he was forced to
sign a treaty which hurt his dignity. He also felt that he
could use the new situation in Iran. At the beginning of the
revolution in Iran there was an absolute collapse of the old
institutions and the new ones were not yet established.
Therefore, Saddam was mentally prepared to go to war against
Iran. On the other side, Khomeini once lived as a political
refugee in Iraq and was politically active there but he was
deported because the 1975 treaty indicated that both Iraq and
Iran should eliminate the opposition against each other from
their lands.
II. THE SUPERPOWERS AND THE WAR
It is very important to examine the superpowers'
position towards this war because the war took place in a
very important area of the Middle East, the Gulf region,
which has oil reserves. This area is of importance, espe-
cially to the United States, because the U.S. and its allies
are depending on this area for their oil needs.
When the war broke out in September 1980, the U.S. was
involved in policy planning and in the hostage crisis. Thus,
a defined policy was not made towards the war except to take
a position of neutrality.
In 1981, the new administration was less worried about
the war itself than about its "spillover" to other Gulf
states. The U.S. policy was "to support the resolution of
the war...by negotiation and in a manner consistent with the
principles of international law, including nonintervention in
internal affairs of another state...We have taken steps to
guild the confidence of key states in our commitment to their
security from Soviet and Soviet supported external threats
and from Soviet exploitation of conflict...we have increased
the national resources for our own military to accelerate the
development of their capability to better deter threats to
the region..."38
The war reached a point of stalemate in mid-1981 and did
not seem threatening to the lower Gulf. Between 1982 and
1984, Israel invaded Lebanon and the U.S. attention shifted
back to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Meanwhile, the U.S.
continued a policy of arms sale to Saudi Arabia that reached
$16.182 billion from 1981-85.39
In 1984, Iraq began air attacks against oil tankers and
oil facilities on the Iranian Gulf coast. Iran responded by
attacking Kuwaiti ships and oil facilities. During that year
71 ships were attacked, 53 attached by Iraq and 18 by Iran.40
Thus, the U.S. changed its first concern from the Soviet
threat to the flow of oil. On June 11th, Under Secretary of
State Richard Murphy outlined the U.S. policy in the Gulf as
one that consists of four crucial elements. The first is to
ensure the free flow of oil to the west. Second, to contain
the expansion of Soviet and other radical influences. Third,
to maintain the security of the Arab states of the Gulf.
Finally, "...whatever steps we take must complement our
efforts to achieve peace between the Arab states and Is-
rael."41
In December 1984, the U.S. resumed diplomatic relations
with Iraq, which was cut off after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli
war, thus giving Iraq some assurances that the U.S. will not
allow an Iranian victory. However, for the next two years
the United States was implicated in secret arms deals with
Iran that became public in 1986, President Reagan told the American
public that "for 18 months now we have had underway a secret
diplomatic initiative to Iran. That initaitive was undertaken
for the simplest and best of reasons: to renew a relationship
with the nation of Iran, to bring an honorable end to
the...war... Without Iran's cooperation, we cannot bring an
end to the Persian Gulf war, without Iran's concurrence,
there can be no enduring peace in the Middle East."42 This
new perception of Iran was further elaborated in geopolitical
terms and common interests. Reagan continued in the same
speech, "Iran encompasses some of the most critical geography
in the world. It lies between the Soviet Union and access to
the warm waters of the Indian Ocean... The Iranian revolution
is a fact of history, but between American and Iranian basic
national interests there need be no permanent conflict."43
This change of perception conveys that U.S. power, as
has been claimed, cannot determine the course of events in
the region, and that CENTCOM was designed only to meet a
Soviet threat.
Along the line of meeting Soviet threats, the U.S.
policy towards the war continued in the last two years of the
war. In 1987, the U.S. agreed to protect the Kuwaiti cargo-
ships under the reflagging agreement. When Kuwait requested
the protection in March of 1987, the U.S. was reluctant to do
so. On May 17, 1987, Iraqi fighters mistakenly hit the
American battleship Stark, killing 37 American servicemen.44
This attack made it difficult for the administration to sell
the idea of protecting Kuwait tankers to Congress. When the
issue came before Congress on May 20, the Senate voted 91-5
demanding information on the safety of American escort
forces.45
The rationale that the administration used to defend
this policy was the fact that the Soviet Union offered such
protection to Kuwait. In April, the Soviets offered the
leasing of the cargo ships to Kuwait. President Reagan used
this to defend his policy. "We will accept our respon-
sibility to guard the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf and keep
the oil flowing to the West. If we abdicate our role as a
naval power we would open opportunities for the Soviets to
move into this check point of the free world's oil flows."46
This policy produced a rather lengthy debate among
academicians and policy makers.47 The debate took the shape
of asking many questions on definition of the Gulf policy,
rules of engagement for the U.S. forces, mission capabilities
and objectives that are sought. In July, the State Depart-
ment issued its Gulf policy that talked about U.S. interests,
threats, and policy.48
The U.S. interests were defined in strategic terms
(keeping the Soviets out), economic terms (maintaining the
flow of oil) and political terms (stability of friendly
countries). Threats were over-exaggerated ones:
- Iranian ability to "sink" tankers passing through the
straits of Hormuz by using the newly bought Chinese Silk
Worm missiles;
- The existence of Soviet combat vessels outside the Gulf
(number unspecified);
- Spillover of the war to the Arab Gulf states.
The U.S. policy was described as a "two tracked" one --
diplomatic to end the war and "strategic" to protect U.S.
interests.
The flows in the treat argument were many. First, the
assertion of an Iranian closing of the Straits of Hormuz was
unreal because, on the one hand, Iran, despite Iraqi air
attacks, continued to use the Gulf for most of its oil
exports. On the other hand, in 1987 the world market was
flooded with oil and was selling at $12 per barrel, the
lowest price since 1974.49
Second, the "Soviet naval force," consisting of 12
combat ships outside the Straits of Hormuz, could hardly be
compared to 23 ships, including two aircraft carriers, two to
five nuclear powered submarines, 16 warships and four
warships stationed in Bahrain, inside the Gulf.50
Finally, the "spillover" of the war: This threat was
indeed real, as evidenced by the fact that Kuwait and Saudi
oil facilities were hit in 1986 by Iranian missiles and jet
fighters. But since 1981 countries in the area became aware
of the threat and acted by forming their own regional
security arrangement, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The United States has talked about this threat but does not
have a real policy of how to respond to it.
The U.S. policy followed more than "two tracks" towards
the war. The U.S. first took a neutral stand but was
concerned with Soviet threat, then tilted towards the side of
Iraq after 1984, sold arms to Iran after 1985, stood against
Iran in 1987, and when the war ended in 1988, launched a
media campaign against Iraq for an alleged use of chemical
weapons against its Kurdish population. The only consistent
stand the U.S. kept was the continuous fear of a perceived
Soviet threat.
In responding to the war, the Soviets wanted to maximize
their basic regional policy objectives. But they could
probably not achieve such a goal without incurring political
penalties. The fundamental problem was that the war raised
the possibility that Moscow might have to choose sides at an
inconvenient time. On the one hand, Moscow has supported the
Iranian revolution as a means of ingratiating itself with the
mullahs. Moscow's support did not extend to Iranian schemes
for exporting the revolution. On the other hand, Moscow
pursued a parallel Arab policy, which emphasized support for
Arab causes and amicable bilateral relations.
There was a complication. If Moscow gave its treaty
ally, Iraq, full support, Iran would be enraged, and if Iran
became desperate enough, the mullahs could turn toward the
West. As it turned out, Iran accepted Israeli military aid.
Failure to support Iraq, however, would only worsen the
already cooling Soviet-Iraqi relationship. In the year or so
preceding the outbreak of the war, the views and interests of
Moscow and Baghdad had diverged in several areas, including
trade and economic matters, political affairs (particularly
over Afghanistan and regional security) and arms purchases.51
A decisive tilt toward Iran offered potential strategic
gains, particularly if Iran disintegrated under the impact of
the war. Moscow would be much better positioned to pick up
the pieces. Such a course of action had associated costs,
however. In addition to losing Iraq, a significant tilt
would alarm the Gulf states, which view Iran as a threat, and
would significantly reduce if not eliminate Moscow's hopes of
increasing its acceptability in the Arabian Peninsula. An
Iranian tilt would reinforce the U.S. claim that the Afghan
invasion was indeed another step in a series of offensive
moves into the region.
Therefore, in framing a policy toward the war, the
Soviet took the line of least resistance. They acted as
through they were neutral, although they made no official
statement specifically outlining such a position. Instead
propaganda emanating from Moscow stressed that only "the
imperialists" could gain from such a mutually destructive
war. Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev commented that
"neither Iraq nor Iran will gain anything from mutual
destruction, bloodshed and the undermining of each other's
economy."52 On September 23, the Soviet newspaper Izvestia
claimed that the United States was seeking to exploit the war
to gain control of the region's oil while weakening Iran's
ability to resist U.S. pressure on the hostage issue..53
III. THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL STATES AND THE WAR
There are two groups of countries in the Gulf states.
The first group includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.
This group is led by Saudi Arabia as the largest oil exporter
in the world and opinion leader of the smaller arab states in
the peninsula. This group fully supports Iraq's armed forces
against Iran, because they are not comfortable with the
Khomeini revolution and its success in the Gulf area. There
are minority of Shi'ite Muslims in most Gulf states and these
may try to gain power with Iran helping to change the region.
The Islamic revolution in Iran constituted a danger to
the Saudi regime on both ideological and communitarian
grounds: Khomeini threatened to knock out the religious prop
to Saudi legitimacy.54 When the Islamic revolution succeeded
in Iran and its charismatic leader, Ayatollah Khomeini,
denounced the very institution of kingship as un-Islamic, the
Saudis were faced with the danger of being undercut on
precisely the issue on which they themselves had chosen to
take a stand.55
Ayatollah Khomeini began appointing personal envoys to
the Gulf states in order to propagate his religious and
political teachings. Thus, Iran announced the appointment of
Hajat al-Islam Abbas al-Mohri of the Friday Congregationalist
Prayer in Kuwait. He began politicizing his religious
sermons, attacking what he saw as the all-pervading corrup-
tion,a nd disseminating Khomeini's fundamentalist precepts.
Equally disturbing for the Gulf countries was Iran's
commitment to export its Islamic fundamentalism to neighbor-
ing states. Iran began directing an extensive media propa-
ganda barrage against the conservative Gulf regimes. In
November 1979, for example, the Iranian Broadcasting service,
beamed in Arabic to the Gulf, incited and exhorted the Muslim
faithful to rebel and overthrow the reactionary and oppres-
sive and anti-Islamic regimes of the Gulf.56
Iran established and harbored both the Islamic Front for
the Liberation of Bahrain and the Islamic Revolution Or-
ganization of the Arabian Peninsula.57 For all these
reasons, this group (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain)
became fully supporting of Iraq in its war with Iran.
The second group, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, is
conservative and neutral regarding the conflict. There is a
good relationship, both diplomatic and economic, with this
group for both Iran and Iraq. This group unsuccessfully
attempted to mediate the conflict. However, all the Gulf
states did not welcome the Khomeini revolution from the
beginning because this revolution is a threat to all of the
Gulf states regimes without exception.
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper shows that the Iraqi-Iran conflict has
historical roots which go back to the Ottoman Empire. We saw
that a number of treaties were signed in an attempt to solve
this conflict throughout the history of these two countries.
This historical conflict formed the base for this recent war
along with more specific reasons which contributed to its
outbreak. These other reasons included conflicting ideolo-
gies, the internal situation in each of the two countries,
and the personal factor concerning the two leaders involved.
One cannot look to any one reason as the sole cause of the
war. Rather, all the reasons discussed in this paper, along
with the historical context, form the cause of the war.
If we take a look at the position of the superpowers it
is obvious that at the beginning that the U.S. did not think
that this war constituted a major threat to its interests in
the Gulf. But after the attack of U.S. ships by both Iraq
and Iran, the U.S. saw that danger and as a result it became
more involved in solving this conflict to protect its
interests. The U.S.S.R., on the other hand, took a neutral
position towards the war because it supported the Iranian
Revolution and at the same time Iraq was its main ally in the
region. This caused the Soviets to be very careful in their
policies.
Within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States were
two groups with different stances on the war. The first
group (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain) fully supported Iraq
because of its fear of the exporting of the Iranian revolu-
tion to their countries and the fear that a victory to Iran
would prove to be a disaster for them. The other group, the
United Arab Emirates and Oman, was very conservative because
it wasn't sure that Iraq would hold up against Iran. The
nations of this group did not want to loose the good rela-
tions they enjoyed with both Iran and Iraq.
ENDNOTES
1. W.O. Staudenmaier. "A Strategic Analysis." In Kheli
and Ayubi (Eds.). The Iran and Iraq War: New Weapons,
Old Conflict. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1983, p.
28.
2. Ibid., p. 28.
3. Richard Frye. Quoted by Jasim M. Abdulghani, Iran and
Iraq: The Years of Crisis. Baltimore, Maryland: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.
4. Dilip Hiro. "Chronicle of the Gulf War," MERIP Reports.
July-Sept. 1984, No. 125, Vol. 14, pp. 3-14.
5. Ibid., p. 4.
6. Ibid., p. 4.
7. Ibid., p. 10.
8. John F. Derlin. The Ba'ath Party: a History from its
Origins to 1966. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford
University, California, 1979.
9. Abdulghani, Jami. Iraq and Iran: The Years of Crisis.,
p. 170.
10. Ibid., p. 179.
11. Ibid., p. 179.
12. Ibid., p. 180.
13. Ibid., p. 181.
14. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, "Islamic Government," AL-
ANBA Newspaper - Kuwait, April 26, 1982, p. 13.
15. Mangol Bayat. "The Iranian Revolution of 1978-79,
Fundamentalist." Middle East Journal, 37, No. 1, Winter
1983, pp. 30-41.
16. Hamin, Enayat. Iran: Khomeini's Concept of the "Guar-
dianship of the Jurisconsult", in James P. Piscatori
(Ed.), Islam in the Political Process. London: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1983, p. 164-165.
17. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Middle
East Journal, 34, No. 2, Spring 1980, pp. 184-204,
Principle [Article] 10.
18. Ibid., Principle 91.
19. Ibid., Principle 162.
20. Hamid Algar (transl. and ed.). Islam and Revolution:
Writings and Declarations of Imman Khomeini. Berkeley:
Mizan Press, 1981, pp. 48-9.
21. Washington Post, April 13, 1982.
22. Cited in the Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Repub-
lic: Conference Proceedings. Washington, D.C. Middle
East Institute, 1982, p. 196.
23. Dilip Hiro. "Chronical of the Gulf War." MERIP Reports,
July-Sept. 1984, No. 125, Vol. 14. pp. 3-14.
24. Nikki R. Keddie. Roots of Revolution. 1981, p. 258,
Yale University Press.
25. Ibid., p. 88.
26. Shaul Bakhash. Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the
Islamic Revolution. 1984, p. 225, New York: Basic
Books, Inc.
27. Ibid., p. 69.
28. Ibid., p. 71.
29. Ibid., p. 77.
30. Asaf Hussain. Islamic Iran: Revolution and Counter-
Revolution. London: Frances Pinter Publishers, p. 118.
31. Amir Taheri. The Spirit of Allah, Khomeini and the
Islamic Revolution. Bethesda, Maryland: Adler and Adler
Publishers, Inc., 1985, p. 111.
32. Samir al-Khalil. Republic of Fear: The Politics of
Modern Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989, p. 264.
33. Ibid., p. 265
34. Majid Khadduri. The Gulf War: The Origins and Implica-
tions of the Iran Iraq War. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988, p. 76.
35. Shaul Bakhash. Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the
Islamic Revolution, p. 34.
36. Ibid., p. 35.
37. Ibid., p. 49.
38. "Review of U.S. Policy in the Middle East," Document
292, American Foreign Policy Current Documents, Dept. of
State, Washington, D.C., 1984, p. 677-679.
39. William D. Bajusz and David Lonscher. Arms Sale and
U.S. Economy: The Impact of Military Restraint Re-
stricting Military Exports, Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1988, p. 21.
40. Staff Report, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S.
Senate. War in the Persian Gulf: The U.S. Takes Sides,
Washington, D.C., November 1987.
41. "Our Policy in the Gulf," Document 225. American
Foreign Policy Current Documents, Department of State,
Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 523.
42. "Secret Diplomatic Initiative to Iran," Statement by the
President. American Foreign Policy Current Documents,
Department of State, Washington, D.C., 1987, p. 404-407.
43. Ibid.
44. New York Times, May 20, 1987.
45. New York Times, May 22, 1987.
46. New York Times, June 16, 1987.
47. See New York Times, "Blood and Oil" by James Cashman,
Jr. Week in Review, and Steven Roberts "Congress and
White House at Odds Over Growing Presence in Gulf," May
21, 1987 and Barry Robin "Drowning in the Gulf" Foreign
Policy No. 69, Winter 1987-88, p. 120-134.
48. "U.S. Policy in the Persian Gulf," Special Report No.
166, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 1987.
49. Edward Morse, "After the Fall: Politics of Oil," Foreign
Affairs, Vol. 64, No. 4, Spring 1966, p. 792.
5O. Richard Halloran, "Superpower Maneuver at Sea Off Iran
Coast," New York Times, May 3, 1987.
51. For further treatment of this topic, see Karen Dawisha,
"Moscow and the Gulf War," The World Today, 37, No. 1
(January 1987).
52. Ibid., p. 11.
53. Quoted in Alvin Z. Rubinstein, "The USSR and Khomeini's
Iran," International Affairs, 57, No. 4 (August 1981):
610.
54. James Buchan. "Secular and Religious Opposition in
Saudi Arabia," in Tim Niblock (Ed.) Society and Economy
in Saudi Arabia, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982),
p. 124.
55. Ibid., p. p. 126.
56. New York Times, November 25, 1979.
57. Charles G. MacDonald, "Iran as a Political Variable:
Patterns and Prospects," in Enver M. Kouy and Charles G.
MacDonald (Eds.) Revolution in Iran: A Reappraisal,
(Maryland: Institute of Middle East and North Africa
Affairs, 1982), p. 56.
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