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[ 287 ] “Who Started the Iraq-Iran War? A Commentary” was originally published in Virginia Journal of International Law 33, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 69–89. who started the iran-iraq war? A Commentary Since Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the international legal community has rightly condemned Iraq’s aggressive use of military force against its neighboring sovereign state of Kuwait. Considerable discussion has followed about appropriate legal consequences, including sanctions, reparations , and war-crimes trials.1 By sharp contrast, similar legal attention remains glaringly absent regarding an equally flagrant case of aggressive Iraqi employment of military force, on September 22, 1980, against its neighboring sovereign state of Iran. International reconsideration of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War ought to have been kindled by a highly significant report prepared by Javier Perez de Cuellar, in one of his final acts as U.N. secretary-general. The full text of the report is printed herein2 for the first time outside the U.N. Secretariat. This essay outlines the reasons for the importance of this report to the international community from the perspectives of international politics and law. Special focus is given to the secretary-general’s key finding that Iraq’s employment of force against Iran in 1980 deserves the same legal disapprobation as the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait. If this judgment is indeed correct, then the international community cannot in good faith proceed to focus on legal consequences of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait without serious attention to the legal consequences of Iraqi aggression against Iran in 1980. Regrettably, political considerations, media distortions, and personal predispositions have long prevented a reasoned pursuit of fact and principle regarding the events of September 1980. The fact that many readers will reflexively shrink from the suggestion that Iran’s legal case against Iraq may have merit only emphasizes the need for renewed and dispassionate inquiry into the subject. Those who seek to enhance the moral persuasiveness of international law must be willing to consider whether inconsistencies in the case at hand have undermined the legitimacy of international norms. [ 288 ] International Law and Diplomacy the secretary-general’s report: the silent response On December 9, 1991, just three weeks before former U.N. secretarygeneral Perez de Cuellar retired, he delivered to the U.N. Security Council one of the most important reports, if not the most, of his distinguished career. His mandate for preparing the report originates in paragraph 6 of Security Council Resolution 598 of July 20, 1987,3 which provided the framework that eventually facilitated the arrangement of a lasting cease-fire between Iraq and Iran on August 20, 1988. For reasons explained below, the secretary-general was endeavoring to report on critical responsibilities accorded to him by the U.N. Security Council. Given the tremendous human suffering caused by the Iran-Iraq War, any U.N. attention to the subject deserves intense scrutiny. Despite the inherent importance of the secretary-general’s report, the media in the United States, for the most part, ignored or trivialized the report,4 and the scholarly community followed suit. British and French coverage of the report was marginally better.5 Western states have not taken an official position on the secretary-general’s report, and American policymakers have not commented about the report on the record. Among the most telling examples of the American media’s disposition to downplay the secretary-general’s efforts, the Washington Post of December 11, 1991, confined itself to printing a rather jaded Associated Press account of the report without making any attempt at giving it prominent space, let alone providing readers with an appropriate editorial or other commentary.6 Indeed, no major American paper ran an editorial or opinion article on the report.7 The Associated Press’s gratuitous dubbing of the report as “unusually partisan” revealed its inability to rise above the “hate Iran” propaganda campaign that has plagued Washington far longer than it has any other major Western capital. When the secretary-general’s report has been commented upon at all in the American media, the all-purpose “unnamed diplomats” seem more interested in questioning the secretary-general’s motives than in seriously considering the content and merits of his findings. The Associated Press story suggested that the secretary-general’s designation of Iraq as the initiator of the war was motivated by his desire to reward Iran for its help in the release of Western hostages held in Lebanon.8...

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