U N The Iran Iraq War

From 1980 to 1988 Iran and Iraq fought the longest conventional war of the century. It included tragic slaughter of child soldiers, use of chemical weapons, striking of civilian shipping, and destruction of cities. Pierre Razoux offers an unflinching look at a conflict seared into the region’s collective memory but little understood in the West.

The final index entry of "zero-sum game" aptly encapsulates much about the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War (or Gulf War I as the author terms it) and its spinoff of the 1991 Gulf War II, particularly from the perspective of the US. Torock (whose background is unspecified except for the Melbourne signoff on the preface) views Saddam Hussein as a Frankenstein monster created by, and later turning against, the superpowers in a familiar pattern of their contest of political intervention in the Third World. Includes 16 pages of references. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A comprehensive account of the Iran-Iraq War through the lens of the Iraqi regime and its senior military commanders.

This volume offers a wide-ranging examination of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88), featuring fresh regional and international perspectives derived from recently available new archival material. Three decades ago Iran and Iraq became embroiled in a devastating eight-year war which served to re-define the international relations of the Gulf region. The Iran–Iraq War stands as an anomaly in the Cold War era; it was the only significant conflict in which the interests of the United States and Soviet Union unwittingly aligned, with both superpowers ultimately supporting the Iraqi regime. The Iran–Iraq War re-assesses not only the superpower role in the conflict but also the war’s regional and wider international dimensions by bringing to the fore fresh evidence and new perspectives from a variety of sources. It focuses on a number of themes including the economic dimensions of the war and the roles played by a variety of powers, including the Gulf States, Turkey, France, the Soviet Union and the United States. The contributions to the volume serve to underline that the Iran–Iraq war was a defining conflict, shaping the perspectives of the key protagonists for a generation to come. This book will be of much interest to students of international and Cold War history, Middle Eastern politics, foreign policy, and International Relations in general.

This book is a major reinterpretation of the Iran-Iraq War and is a source for reexamining the U.S. involvement in the Gulf. Pelletiere demonstrates that the war was not a standoff in which Iraq finally won a grinding war of attrition through luck, persistence, and the use of poison gas. Instead, Iraq planned the last campaign almost two years prior to its unfolding. [The Iraqis] trained extensively and expended enormous sums of money to make their effort succeed. What won for them was their superior fignting prowess and greater commitment. Gas--if it was used at all--played only a minor part in the victory.' Pelletiere concludes that the key to understanding the war is the Extraordinary Congress of the Ba'th Party held in July 1986. It was there that the initial planning for the final campaign was done, and this campaign is what decided the fate of the conflict. The study centers around the last Iraqi campaign, which Pelletiere argues was based upon World War II blitzkrieg tactics, but he also treats the background, the politics, and the history of the conflict, and analyzes the significance of the war to the Middle East and to the position of the United States there.

Discusses relations between Iran and Iraq throughout their conflict from 1980-1986. Introduction by Gary Sick and Brian Urquhart, authors of "Douse the Spreading Iran-Iraq Flames", an article which is reprinted at the end of the book. Includes articles about the U.N. and the war, covering the initiation of the fighting, the U.N. Security Council, the shift to the U.N. Secretariat, questions and conclusions.

Eighteen months after Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, hundreds of thousands of the country’s women participated in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) in a variety of capacities. Iran was divided into women of conservative religious backgrounds who supported the revolution and accepted some of the theocratic regime’s depictions of gender roles, and liberal women more active in civil society before the revolution who challenged the state’s male-dominated gender bias. However, both groups were integral to the war effort, serving as journalists, paramedics, combatants, intelligence officers, medical instructors, and propagandists. Behind the frontlines, women were drivers, surgeons, fundraisers, and community organizers. The war provided women of all social classes the opportunity to assert their role in society, and in doing so, they refused to be marginalized. Despite their significant contributions, women are largely absent from studies on the war. Drawing upon primary sources such as memoirs, wills, interviews, print media coverage, and oral histories, Farzaneh chronicles in copious detail women’s participation on the battlefield, in the household, and everywhere in between.

An examination of how Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) view their history and their roles in the Iran-Iraq War.