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THE EIGHT YEARS OF WAR WITH IRAQ wereinstrumentalinshapingthecurrent structure and outlook of Iran’s armed forces. Ironically, Iraq’s invasion in September 1980 was a godsend for Khomeini and his allied hard-liners, who were facing waning popular enthusiasm for the new order. The Iraqi aggression ensured the clerical regime’s survival by reviving the public’s nationalism and diverting attention from the country’s slide into tyranny. By bolstering the influence of religious militants on the shape of Iran’s military, the conflict also made permanent the Artesh-Pasdaran divide. The interaction of religion and politics in military strategy and tactics grossly undercut the wartime sacrifice of Iran’s fighting men, who again demonstrated their bravery, patriotism, doggedness, and ingenuity. Finally, the war forced unstable compromises on divisive interpretations of the relative values between religious zeal and technology and between military professionals and popular militias that still resonate in contemporary Iranian military doctrines. In the end, acting on its strong xenophobia and historical tendency to overreach, Iran squandered repeated opportunities to end the war on favorable terms. Instead, the Islamic Republic’s unreasoning fanaticism led to a growing number of enemies aligning with Iraq, debilitating international isolation, and an undeclared war with the United States that virtually guaranteed Iran’s ultimate defeat. Iran’s Provocative Path to War Although Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein deserves most of the blame, the Iranians ’ designation of the hostilities as the “Imposed War” ignores Iran’s sizable role in provoking the conflagration and its even greater culpability in prolonging the conflict after 1983. In the revolution’s first days Iraq tried to accommodate Khomeini, but the Iranians were eager to spread their ideals. They saw their country as a springboard for Islamic revolutions in other Muslim countries , especially those with large Shia populations, such as Iraq, where the Shia 9 Horrible Sacrifice The Iran-IraqWar The Iran-IraqWar 243 comprised as much as 60 percent of the inhabitants. Shortly after Khomeini’s return, the provisional government began to support Iraq’s senior Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, and soon publicly called for the overthrow of the Iraqi regime. In mid-July 1979, Saddam Hussein replaced Hassan Bakr as president of Iraq, and relations took a serious turn for the worse. Saddam viewed Iran with a mix of opportunism and trepidation. The Iraqi dictator, who nursed numerous grievances against Iran, was tempted by his perceptions of Iranian weakness and disarray. Saddam had signed the 1975 Algiers Accord with Iran, which involved major Iraqi concessions on claims to Khuzestan and on control of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, its main trade outlet to the Persian Gulf. In addition, Iranian troops were still occupying territory that was supposed to be returned to Iraq under the accord. Iran’s continuing turbulence presented the newly installed Iraqi president with the chance to recoup his earlier losses. Saddam could grab the leadership role in the Arab world he coveted as well as divert Iraqi Shia attention from their plight under his Sunni-dominated dictatorship. A quick war to humiliate a weakened Iran also would allow Iraq to achieve several strategic objectives. The two most important were the reassertion of control over the Shatt and favorable border adjustments. In a best case, however, Iraq might establish itself as the predominant regional power, gain control over large portions of oil-rich Khuzestan—ignoring declarations in support of local Arab autonomy there—and enhance its stature among the Arabs by forcing Iran to accept humiliating conditions to surrender Abu Musa and the Tunbs Islands. Iran seemed vulnerable to ethnic divisiveness, so Saddam gave additional support to the Kurds already rebelling against Tehran and to Arab nationalists in Iran’s southwest. Of Iran’s estimated forty-five million people in 1980, four million were Kurds and one million Arabs. The main Arab separatist group, the Arabistan Liberation Front, had not been a significant problem since its formation in the 1950s. With additional Iraqi money, arms, and training, the Khuzestan Arabs promised support to invading Iraqi soldiers, which added to Saddam’s conviction that Iran was exposed to swift military action.1 A series of events in Iraq and London in the spring of 1980 signaled that both sides were ready to risk a war. When Shia militants associated with Ayatollah Sadr tried to assassinate Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam’s key lieutenants, the Iraqi dictator arrested Sadr, crushed Shia rioters, and deported tens of thousands of Shia from Iraq to Iran. Saddam...

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