The war that began all wars in West Asia

THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR
Author:Pierre Razoux [Translated by Nicholas Elliott]
Publisher: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Pages: 640
Price: $39.95

So many catastrophes have befallen West Asia in the past 25 years that the war that started almost all the current conflagrations has faded from public memory. Pierre Razoux's monumental work on the Iran-Iraq war (September 1980-August 1988) has brought back images of major cities ruined by bombings, refineries blazing for several days, embattled warships, thousands of child soldiers mowed down by heavy artillery, the shooting down of the Iranian civilian aircraft with 300 passengers and, above all, the chemical weapons used in different theatres, leaving pictures of contorted bodies and disfigured soldiers.

As Razoux has pointed out, this war had the major aspects of all the principal conflicts of the last century: trench warfare, human waves and chemical attacks of World War I; the use of armoured vehicles and bombings of cities of World War II; the aerial dog-fights and missile-use of the Arab-Israeli conflicts; and the ambushes and infiltrations across marshlands of the Vietnam war.

The war lasted eight years, in which two million soldiers were mobilised, along with 10,000 armoured vehicles, 4,000 artillery pieces, and 1,000 aircraft at one time. About 680,000 people were killed, nearly half a million on the Iranian side, while about a million and a half were wounded or maimed. Contrary to the popular impression, about 85 per cent of those killed were soldiers, says Razoux. All told, about 9,000 armoured vehicles, including 4,600 tanks, were destroyed, along with 950 aircraft and 30 warships. The total cost of the war was $1100 billion, with Iran bearing 60 per cent.

The war was triggered by the threat of the export of the Iranian Revolution to the neighbouring Arab regimes, which saw in it doctrinal and military challenges. Saddam Hussain, the authoritarian ruler of Iraq, viewed it as an opportunity to assert his leadership over the Arab world after defeating the Arabs' historic enemy. He planned a quick and sharp assault, using the maximum land and air power to seize Iranian territory and then dictate terms from a position of strength.

The war is a long litany of miscalculations on both sides which extended the conflict and encouraged both countries to expand the theatre of war and resort to increasing ferocity and mutual abuse. Most of the eight-year conflict was a war of attrition made up of offensives and counter-offensives, expansion of the fight to the waters of the Gulf and the bombings of cities, with long periods of lull when exhausted supplies were recouped, new divisions with new commanders were raised and new war-plans were put in place.

Razoux is perhaps the first writer to provide so much detail relating to the different battles, the strategies of the commanders and the political context in which these developments were taking place. This horrendous war was constantly influenced by deep-seated personal animosities on the part of the leaders of the two countries and the power play among the protagonists of the nascent Islamic regime, as also by the machinations of regional and global players who sought to manipulate the course of the war to their advantage.

The last phase came quickly: from early 1988, it was clear that Iran had little capacity for further fighting, with its treasury empty, its population restive and its military commanders certain that major successes against the enemy were not possible. Iraq, on the other hand, rebuilt its forces, took back the lost territories and, in July 1988, began to make gains in Iran as Iranian forces retreated all across the battle front. On the advice of the commanders and the political leadership, Ayatollah Khomeini accepted the ceasefire, "drinking the cup of poison" proffered to him.

The war left Iraq with the most powerful army in the region: enthused by the victory achieved on the battle-field, Saddam re-asserted his country's old claims on Kuwait and set in motion a series of events that reverberate in regional politics today - the first Gulf War, the sanctions-inspections regime and the no-fly zones, his regime's assault on the Shia after the war, which aggravated the sectarian divide in the country, and the western encouragement to Kurdish autonomy.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

The war that began all wars in West Asia