Relations with Iran had grown increasingly strained after the shah was overthrown in 1979. Iraq recognized Iran’s new Shiʿi Islamic government, but the Iranian leaders would have nothing to do with the Baʿath regime, which they denounced as secular. Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Iranian revolution, proclaimed his policy of “exporting the revolution,” and Iraq was high on the list of countries whose governments were to be overthrown and replaced by a replica of the Islamic regime in Iran. In addition, Iran still occupied three small pieces of territory along the Iran-Iraq border that were supposed to be returned to Iraq under the treaty of 1975.

The Baʿath government was highly sensitive to the Islamic threat, not merely because it was a secular regime but because the ruling elite, despite some earnest efforts at enfranchisement, consisted mainly of Sunni Arabs. By the late 1970s Shiʿis made up an overall majority in the Baʿath Party, but members of that sect were a minority in the party’s middle and upper levels. In the late 1980s Shiʿis still constituted only about one-fifth of all army general officers, and Shiʿi representation in the upper echelons of the internal security services was even lower. On the whole, Shiʿis remained aloof from the regime. This estrangement was attributable in large part to the socioeconomic gap between Sunnis and Shiʿis—the vast majority of Shiʿis being poor—but it was also a result of the regime’s desire to control fully every walk of life. This included persistent attempts to control Shiʿi religious life—including education in madrasahs (religious colleges)—a situation objectionable to traditional Shiʿis and to Iraq’s influential Shiʿi clergy, who maintained close ties with colleagues in Iran.

As long as the secular, Westernized shah ruled over Iran, traditional Iraqi Shiʿis remained politically quiescent. When Khomeini came to power in February 1979, however, his example inspired many Shiʿis in Iraq to engage in greater political activism. Mass pro-Khomeini demonstrations and guerrilla activity became regular occurrences. The man who encouraged these activities, and in whom many saw an Iraqi Khomeini, was the young and charismatic Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr. The regime cracked down on the Shiʿi movement with great ferocity, and hundreds were executed, some 10,000 were imprisoned, and tens of thousands were driven across the border into Iran. In April 1980 Saddam ordered the execution of Sadr and his sister; by July demonstrations had ceased, and guerrilla activity had come to a virtual halt.

Still, the Baʿath regime feared that as long as Khomeini was in power, his Islamic revolution could serve as a source of inspiration for Shiʿi revolutionaries in Iraq. Further, Saddam saw an assassination attempt against Tariq Aziz, the foreign minister and the president’s close associate, by a Shiʿi activist as an insult directed against him personally. Under normal circumstances such developments would likely never have led to war, but Khomeini had isolated himself from the international community and had crippled his own armed forces through extensive purges of the shah’s officers’ corps. In addition, when Khomeini came to power in Iran, Iraq had a large, well-organized, and well-equipped military and a fast-growing economy. No less important, it enjoyed friendly relations with most of its neighbours, and all its armed forces had since been recalled to within its own borders.

It was those conditions that convinced Saddam he could win a blitz war against the less-organized and internationally isolated Iran, despite the latter’s greater size and superior natural and human resources. In doing this, the Iraqi leader’s likely goals were to remove Khomeini from power and replace his regime with one more friendly to Iraq, demarcate the border (particularly along the Shaṭṭ al-ʿArab) in Iraq’s favour, secure autonomy for Khūzestān (an oil-rich region in southwestern Iran inhabited largely by ethnic Arabs) under some Iraqi tutelage, and give Iraq hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf.

Beginning in 1979, border clashes began to occur frequently, and Saddam announced in September 1980 that he was abrogating the 1975 agreements because they had been violated by Iran. Within days, Iraqi forces invaded Iran. At the same time, Iraq bombed Iranian air bases and other strategic targets. In the week following the invasion, the UN Security Council called for a cease-fire and appealed to Iran and Iraq to settle their dispute peacefully. The Iraqi president replied, saying that Iraq would accept a cease-fire provided Iran did as well. Iran’s response, however, was negative. The war thus continued and in succeeding years was extended to the gulf area. It has been aptly called the Gulf War. (The hostilities of 1991 and 2003 have also been called Gulf wars.)

The Iraqi advance into Iran was stopped in November 1980. There followed a stalemate that continued until September 1981, when Iran, which had rejected further attempts at mediation, began a series of successful offensives. By May 1982 the Iraqis had been driven from most of the captured territory. Iranian forces, having liberated the Iranian city of Khorramshahr and having lifted the siege of Ābādān, began to penetrate into Iraq’s Al-Baṣrah province. During 1982–87 they threatened the city of Basra and occupied Majnūn Island and the Fāw (Fao) peninsula. In its unsuccessful attempts to liberate the Fāw peninsula during February–March 1986, Iraq suffered horrific casualties. The Iranian attacks on Al-Baṣrah were repulsed with heavy casualties on both sides. Iraq countered in the so-called tanker war by bombing Iranian oil terminals in the gulf, especially on Khārk Island.

In 1987 the military balance began to favour Iraq, which had raised an army of some one million and, while Iran remained largely isolated from the international community, had obtained state-of-the-art arms from France and the Soviet Union, including thousands of artillery pieces, tanks, and armoured personnel carriers and hundreds of combat aircraft. This arsenal (enormous for a country of some 18 million inhabitants) was bolstered by the addition of substantial quantities of chemical weapons, which the regime acquired or produced throughout the 1980s. At the same time, Iraq committed substantial resources in an attempt to develop or purchase other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including biological and nuclear arms.

Relations with the United States, which had resumed in 1984, began to improve. In 1987 the United States agreed to reflag 11 Kuwaiti tankers and escort them in international waters through the Strait of Hormuz. Britain and France also escorted tankers carrying their own flags. Although a U.S. destroyer was inadvertently attacked by an Iraqi bomber in May 1987, the United States supported Iraq, both diplomatically at the United Nations and militarily by providing information about Iranian military movements in the gulf area. In October 1987 and April 1988, U.S. forces attacked Iranian ships and oil platforms.

In July 1987 the UN Security Council had unanimously passed Resolution 598, urging Iraq and Iran to accept a cease-fire, withdraw their forces to internationally recognized boundaries, and settle their frontier disputes by negotiations held under UN auspices. Iraq agreed to abide by the terms if Iran reciprocated. Iran, however, demanded amendments condemning Iraq as the aggressor in the war (which would have held them liable for paying war reparations) and calling on all foreign navies to leave the gulf.

In the northeastern provinces Iranian forces, in cooperation with Iraqi Kurds, threatened the area from Kirkūk to the Turkish border and penetrated to the Iraqi towns of Hājj ʿUmrān and Ḥalabjah. They met with stiff resistance in the north, however. Using chemical weapons, Iraqi forces inflicted heavy casualties on Kurdish civilians in and around Ḥalabjah in March 1988.

Military operations in the gulf resumed, and in April 1988 Iraq—this time using chemical weapons against the Iranian troops—recaptured the Fāw peninsula. Later it liberated the districts of Salamcha and Majnūn, and in July Iraqi forces once again penetrated deep into Iran. It became clear that Iran’s military position in the gulf had become untenable, and it accepted Resolution 598, which came into force on August 20, 1988. The war had been one of the most destructive conflicts of the late 20th century. Hundreds of thousands had died, and large areas of western Iran and southeastern Iraq had been devastated.

When the foreign ministers of Iraq and Iran met for the first time in Geneva in August 1988 and later in 1989, there was no progress on how Resolution 598 was to be implemented. Iraq demanded the full exchange of prisoners as the first step, while Iran insisted that withdrawing Iraqi forces from Iran should precede the exchange of prisoners. (The last prisoners were not exchanged until 2003, as many Iraqi Shiʿis had been fearful of returning home.) The border dispute remained an ongoing point of friction between the two countries, even though Iran eventually allowed Iraq to make limited use of the Shaṭṭ al-ʿArab. In 1990 Iraq implied that it was ready to return to the 1975 agreement, but nothing came of the overture. Occasional diplomatic initiatives were afterward interlaced with small-scale military incidents along the border. Each country supported opposition groups that worked against the rival’s government. Iraq sheltered the Mojāhedīn-e Khalq—an Iranian extremist group—and Iran lent support to various Iraqi Shiʿi groups. Guerrilla attacks and terrorist incidents were frequent in the years after the war.

Postwar policies

Articles 47 to 56 of the interim Iraqi constitution provided for a legislative assembly, and—in an effort to garner popular support during the war—elections (the first in postrevolutionary Iraq) were held in June 1980. The new National Assembly convened 10 days later, and subsequent elections were held in 1984 and 1989. Regardless, the Assembly was vested with little power. Only those supporting the Baʿath revolution were allowed to stand for office, and in disputes between the Assembly and the RCC, the latter’s decisions were final. Moreover, after Saddam’s rise to the presidency, the RCC itself had become increasingly irrelevant and eventually served as little more than a rubber stamp for the president’s decisions. Within the Baʿath Party meaningful political debate did continue, but only on topics selected by the president, and all presidential decisions were final.

After the cease-fire, Iraq began a program of reconstruction, concentrating on the areas that had suffered most during the war, but the country had little ready cash. Iraq, now deeply in debt, continued to spend large sums on armaments, and inflation and unemployment soared. To relieve social pressures, the government made it easier for people to travel abroad, but few were able to take advantage of this policy. In addition, the government promised to open the political process by allowing multiparty elections and greater press freedoms. The draft constitution prepared in late 1989 was scrutinized by the RCC before it reached the National Assembly for approval and was about to be submitted to a public plebiscite when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Thereafter, the entire democratic plan was shelved.

To enhance Iraq’s position in the Arab world, Saddam had begun to negotiate a set of bilateral agreements with his neighbours. Early in 1989 he had concluded nonaggression pacts with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He also had established the Arab Cooperation Council with Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen to promote economic and cultural development.

Peace negotiations with Iran had not brought about a settlement, and Saddam—despite Iraq’s overwhelming military edge over Iran—continued to purchase weapons. Iraq’s rearmament program included expensive programs to develop missiles and chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Criticism in the West of Iraq’s record on human rights and the county’s acquisition of sensitive military technology prompted Saddam to make highly inflammatory speeches about the hostile Western attitude. In April 1990 he warned that if Israel ever again attacked Iraq (as that country had attacked and destroyed Iraq’s Osiraq-Tammuz nuclear plant in 1981), he would retaliate with chemical weapons. This threat was later extended to include an attack by Israel on any Arab state, and Saddam soon began to suggest that Iraq’s eventual goal was to defeat Israel and capture Jerusalem. These declarations were the first indications that the Iraqi regime had wider territorial aspirations and portended the invasion of Kuwait less than a year later.