revolution and war: saddam's decision to invade...
TRANSCRIPT
Revolution and War: Saddam's Decision to Invade Iran
Chad Nelson Brigham Young University
There are two main motives ascribed to Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade Iran in 1980. One motive is that he invaded for geopolitical gain when international factors worked in his favor. The other is that he invaded to prevent Iran from fomenting revolution in Iraq. I argue that the decision to invade Iran was primarily due to the fear of spillover effects from the Iranian Revolution, and consider the implications for why revolutions can sometimes lead to war.
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Why did Saddam Hussein invade Iran in September of 1980? The Iran-Iraq war resulted
in probably around 400,000 deaths, cost hundreds of billions of dollars in destruction and
forgone revenue and yet ended in the status quo ante bellum.1 It also played a role in
consolidating the Iranian revolution, and it shaped the strategic landscape of the Persian Gulf,
leading directly to the 1990 Gulf War and subsequent conflict. There are two predominant
explanations for Iraq’s invasion of Iran. One explanation claims that Saddam struck Iran while it
was weak in order to gain geopolitical concessions. The other is that Saddam feared a spillover
effect from the Iranian Revolution was destabilizing his regime, and saw war as a means to
alleviate the problem. Some scholars argue for one factor or the other; many argue that both
motivations played a role.2
These motives coincide with two of the leading explanations for why revolutions often
lead to interstate war, which are rooted in different perspectives about what factors drive
relations between states. One tradition in the study of international politics, dating back to
1 It is commonly asserted that there were a million deaths in the Iran-Iraq war, but this is unlikely. For a discussion of the casualty figures, see F. Gregory Gause III, The International Relations of the Persian Gulf (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 45 ft. 1. 2 For accounts that stress the opportunistic motive, see Michael Axeworthy, Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013), 188-89; Andrew T. Parasiliti, "The Causes and Timing of Iraq’s Wars: A Power Cycle Assessment," International Political Science Review 24, no. 1 (January 2003): 183-84; Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1998), 262-76; Keith McLachlan, "Analyses of the Risks of War: Iran-Iraq Discord, 1979-1980," in The Iran-Iraq War: The Politics of Agression, ed. Farhang Rajaee (Gainsville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1993); Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004), 182-83; Shireen T. Hunter, Iran and the World: Continuity in a Revolutionary Decade (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), 105; Daniel Pipes, "A Border Adrift: Origins of the Conflict," in The Iran-Iraq War, ed. Shirin Tahir-Kheli and Shaheen Ayubi (New York, NY: Praeger, 1983). For those that emphasize domestic threat, see F. Gregory Gause III, "Iraq’s Decisions to Go to War, 1980 and 1990," The Middle East Journal 56, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 63-69; Efraim Karsh, "Geopolitical Determinism: The Origins of the Iran-Iraq War," The Middle East Journal 44, no. 2 (Spring 1990). For accounts that assert both factors, see, for example, Hal Brands, "Why Did Saddam Invade Iran? New Evidence on Motives, Complexity, and the Israel Factor," The Journal of Military History 75, no. 3 (July 2011); Shaul Bakhash, "The Troubled Relationship: Iran and Iraq, 1930-1980," in Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War, ed. Lawrence G. Potter and Gary G. Sick (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian, 2004), 21-22; W. Thom Workman, The Social Origins of the Iran-Iraq War (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994); Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War: Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 31-33; R.K. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 62-69.
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Edmund Burke’s response to the French Revolution, asserts that heterogeneous systems, where
“the states are organized according to different principles and appeal to contradictory values,”
are more conflict prone.3 Revolutions affect international politics, and increase the probability
of conflict, by changing the ideological composition of the international system. There are a
variety of pathways by which clashes of ideologies can occur, but a principal one is when it is
hoped and feared that an ideology, a new way to legitimate power and organize domestic
politics, is on the march. For the realist tradition, international relations is driven by the
distribution of capabilities. Revolutions can affect this factor by changing the power of the
revolutionary state. There are also a variety of pathways by which the change in power of the
revolutionary state can prompt conflict, but the principal one is that revolutions can cause wars
because the weakening of the power of the revolutionary state precipitates opportunistic
invasions.4
What then caused war in 1980? Can the two potentially complimentary motives be
distinguished? There is not only an inherent interest in explaining the origins of the Iran-Iraq
war, but a larger theoretical significance.5 And new primary sources have emerged that shed
more light on the subject. Iraqi records that were captured by American forces in 2003,
including recordings of Saddam Hussein’s deliberation with his advisors, have become available
to scholars.6 There are also revelations of American intelligence regarding Iraqi preparations of
3 Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations, trans. Richard Howard and Annette Baker (Garden City, NY: Fox Doubleday and Company, Inc, 1966), 100. The most developed account from this perspective is Mark L. Haas, The Ideological Origins of Great Power Politics, 1789-1989 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). 4 Paul Ewenstein, "Revolution, War, and Offensive Realism" (PhD diss., Boston University, 2011); Stephen M. Walt, Revolution and War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 32. 5 Some of the main works on why revolutions can lead to war provide case studies on the Iran-Iraq War. See the sources in ibid, as well as Patrick J. Conge, From Revolution to War: State Relations in a World of Change (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996). 6 The captured records analyzed in this paper are from the Conflict Records Research Center (CRRC) at National Defense University in Washington, D.C. They are cited by CRRC number, title, and date. For more about these
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war pertinent to the question of Iraqi motivations, as well as interviews with former Iraqi
generals.
I argue that the cause of the war was primarily because Saddam feared the spread of the
Iranian Revolution would threaten his own regime rather than that he was using the opportunity
of the weakening of Iran, caused by the Revolution, to further his geopolitical aims. I first
examine the possible motives Saddam had for invading Iran, and then assess the empirical
evidence for the two motives. I conclude by examining the implications this case has for the
broader issue of why revolutions can cause war.
Motives for War
One motive for Saddam’s invasion of Iran stems from the ideological change in Iran
which brought a new regime in power that threatened the internal stability of his regime. In the
Algiers Accord between Iran and Iraq in 1975, the parties agreed not to interfere in the internal
affairs of the other state, which paved the way for good relations between the two regimes.7 In
the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, interference in their internal affairs was a major concern
for the Ba’thist Regime. The Arab Shia, a majority of Iraq’s population, had been historically
marginalized throughout modern Iraqi history. The 1970s witnessed the rise of political Islam in
the region. In Iraq, Shia opposition groups embracing political Islam grew in strength, number,
and radicalization. Most significant was the al-Dawa party. Even before the Iranian Revolution,
in 1977, there were large-scale protests against the Ba’thist regime, bordering on revolt.8
records, see Kevin M. Woods, David D. Palkki, and Mark E. Stout, The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant's Regime, 1978-2001 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011), xi-xiv; Lawrence Rubin, "Research Note: Documenting Saddam Hussein's Iraq," Contemporary Security Policy 32, no. 2 (August 2011). 7 This is the third clause of the agreement. The shah ceased his support for the Iraqi Kurds in a rebellion that Saddam had thus far unsuccessfully attempted to tame. The insurrection promptly collapsed. 8 On the Shia political movements in Iraq during this period, see Faleh A. Jabar, The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq (London, UK: Saqi, 2003), esp. 208-34; Amatzia Baram, "Two Roads to Revolutionary Shi'ite Fundamentalism in
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The new regime in Iran acted as both a model and a platform in spreading revolution
abroad. The revolution served as a model – a lesson in how to overthrow a dictator, but also a
source of inspiration particularly for Shia Islamic movements. Iraq even had a Khomeni-like
figure, the Ayatollah Muhammed Baqir al-Sadr, a high-ranking politically active cleric who had
a close relationship with Khomeini from the latter’s thirteen years of exile in Najaf. In addition,
the Iranian leadership made clear their aims. They increasingly called on Iraqis, including
members of the military, to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein, which was beamed to Iraq in
Arabic radio broadcasts. And their activities were thought to go beyond just talk. Most
spectacularly, Iraq saw Iran’s hand in an attempted assassination of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq
Aziz.
The aim ascribed to Saddam Hussein is that, to preserve the security of his regime given
the ideological threat he faced, he initiated a conflict with Iran as a means to alleviate that threat.
This could be accomplished by coercing Iran stop interfering in their internal affairs. In the face
of Iraqi military superiority, the Iranian regime would be forced to back down. Better yet, the
invasion could lead to a collapse of the regime, perhaps by politically discrediting the regime
given an Iraqi victory.
The opportunistic motives for Saddam’s invasion of Iran stem from the dramatic decline
in power of revolutionary Iran. The rivalry between Iran and Iraq had been characterized by
Iranian predominance. Iran had a significant advantage over Iraq in every indicator of power. It
Iraq," in Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994); T. M. Aziz, "The Role of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr in Shii Political Activism in Iraq from 1958 to 1980," International Journal of Middle East Studies 25, no. 2 (May 1993); Joyce N. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi’as (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992), esp. 45-60; Hanna Batatu, "Shi'i Organizations in Iraq: Al-Da'wah Al-Islamiyah and Al-Mujahidin," in Shi'ism and Social Protest, ed. Juan R. I. Cole and Nikki R. Keddie (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986); Ofra Bengio, "Shi’is and Politics in Ba’thi Iraq," Middle Eastern Studies 21, no. 1 (January 1985); Hanna Batatu, "Iraq's Underground Shī's Movements: Characteristics, Causes and Prospects," The Middle East Journal 35, no. 4 (Autumn 1981).
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had a population base and economy over three times the size of Iraq, and a military over twice
the size of Iraq. Moreover, geography blessed Iran with strategic depth, while Iraq’s population
centers were more vulnerable to Iranian attack. And, at least before the onset of protests of 1978
in Iran, that country was more politically stable.
Iraq’s internal instability and the imbalance in power between the two countries was
evident when Iraq conceded in 1975 to settling the territorial dispute over the Shatt al-Arab in
Iran’s favor. The Shatt al-Arab is the name for the river formed by the confluence of the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers, the last 65 miles of which is the border between Iran and Iraq. It was
Iraq’s only waterway into the Persian Gulf. The dispute concerned where exactly that border
exists – whether it is in the median of the navigable channel (the thalweg principle) or on the
Iranian shore of the Shatt, a debate that stretched back to the 19th century, predating the modern
states of Iran and Iraq.9 A 1937 treaty between the two countries had granted Iraq sovereignty
over the Shatt, with the exception that the thalweg principle would apply across from the Iranian
cities of Abadan and Khorramshahr. But the shah looked to renegotiate the boundary in the
aftermath of the British announcement in 1968 that they were withdrawing from the Gulf.
Frustrated with the negotiations, he unilaterally abrogated the 1937 treaty and backed the Iranian
right to navigate the river with a display of force.10 Given Iran’s strength, Iraq had little
recourse. In the Algiers Accord of 1975, Saddam formally agreed to accept the thalweg
principle as the border.
9 An overview of the dispute is in Richard N. Schofield, Evolution of the Shatt Al-'Arab Boundary Dispute (Cambridgeshire, UK: Middle East and North African Studies Press, 1986). 10 Hussein Sirriyeh, "Development of the Iraqi-Iranian Dispute, 1847-1975," Journal of Contempory History 20, no. 3 (July 1985): 485-86; Rouhollah K. Ramazani, Iran's Foreign Policy, 1945-1973: A Study of Foreign Policy in Modernizing Nations (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1975), 416-18; Shahram Chubin and Sepehr Zabih, The Foreign Relations of Iran: A Developing State in a Zone of Great-Power Conflict (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Californial Press, 1974), 185-86, Farzad Cyrus Sharifi-Yazdi, Arab-Iranian Rivalry in the Persian Gulf: Territorial Disputes and the Balance of Power in the Middle East (London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2005), chap. 7.
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The Iranian Revolution rapidly reversed this imbalance of power. The economy started
staling in 1977, and continued to slide in the wake of political instability that escalated
dramatically in the fall of 1978. The shah fled Iran in January of 1979. There was political
turmoil in the capital, uprisings in the periphery, and large-scale desertions in the military. One
of the first actions of the revolutionary committee appointed by Khomeini was a purging of the
armed forces.11 Though initial accounts of their total collapse were exaggerated, the armed
forces were significantly weakened by the revolutionary chaos. Iraq was in an unprecedented
state; its armed forces were probably superior to Iran.12
This was Iraq’s chance to reverse its territorial loss and perhaps expand. There are
several geopolitics aims ascribed to Saddam Hussein. He could now assert full control of the
Shatt al-Arab. More ambitiously, Saddam could take the neighboring Iranian province of
Khuzestan, or “Arabistan,” the long-standing Arab term for the province, because the majority of
the population had historically been Arab. The province had significant oil deposits, and
occupying it would also provide Iraq a less vulnerable access to the Gulf. A third possible aim is
that Iraq could use a victorious war with Iran as a means to advance his aggressive agenda in the
region. He could use a victory to bolster his prestige, which would help him assert his
dominance in Arab politics, now that Egypt was marginalized because of the Camp David
11 Accounts of the purges include Nikola B. Schahgaldian and Gina Barkhordarian, The Iranian Military under the Islamic Republic (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1987), 15-27; Sepehr Zabih, The Iranian Military in Revolution and War (New York, NY: Routledge, 1998), 115-35. Iraqi intelligence assessments were noting this precipitous decline. See CRRC SH-GMID-D-000-842, “General Military Intelligence Directorate report on the political, economic, and military situations in Iran”, January 1980 to June 1980. 12 A detailed comparison of their forces and military advantage at the time is found in Williamson Murray and Kevin M. Woods, The Iran-Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 65-84; Cordesman and Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, 56-70. For a visualization of the power shift between Iraq and Iran, see the charts in Jerome Donovan, The Iran-Iraq War: Antecedents and Conflict Escalation (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011), 57-61, 74-77, 91-94.
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Accords. More specifically, it would inspire Arabs and prepare the Iraqi military for its eventual
war with Israel.
The motives recounted above are both plausible. Is there evidence that suggests one
motive was more compelling than the other? What ultimately made Saddam decide to escalate
the border skirmishes to an outright invasion? I assess each motive in turn.
Assessing the Case for an Ideological Conflict
One of the main points of evidence for the claim that Saddam’s initiation of war was
driven by fear of the spillover of revolution from Iran, rather than geopolitical opportunism, is
the timing of when Hussein decided to invade Iran.13 The basic argument is that the weakness of
the Iranian regime did not prompt Iraqi aggression, as one would expect given the offensive
realist opportunistic argument. Instead, the decision for war corresponds not with the weakening
of Iran, but with the radicalization of the Iranian Revolution, specifically their attempts to export
the revolution. It was only when Saddam became convinced that the Iranian regime was taking
direct action to overthrow him that he took action against them. This is indeed the pattern of the
evidence.
From 1978 to the summer of 1979 Iran’s capabilities first gradually and then rapidly
decreased. Large protests rocked Iran beginning in January 1978. After a lull in early summer,
there was an escalation in the fall so that by the end of the year cities were beginning to fall from
the government’s control. A dual government developed in several senses: between the shah’s
government and the revolutionary coalition, and then between the provisional government and
13 Both of the scholars that put a primacy on Saddam’s fear of spillover from the Iranian Revolution emphasize this logic: Gause III, "Iraq’s Decisions to Go to War" and the misleadingly titled article by Karsh, "Geopolitical Determinism: The Origins of the Iran-Iraq War."
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the revolutionary committees. The military suffered increasing desertions in the fall and winter
of 1978-1979.14 Yet Hussein showed little signs of taking advantage of this weakness. Iraq
maintained the good terms that had existed with the shah since the Algiers Accord of 1975,
cooperating on Gulf security measures and abiding by his request to expel the Ayatollah
Khomeini in October of 1978.15 There were no attempts to exploit the shah’s difficulties to, for
example, renegotiate the Algiers Accord.
After Khomeini returned in February, the armed forces waffled before finally committing
to the new regime. Desertions continued and the initial wave of purges began. In March and
April, revolts began on the Iranian periphery, most importantly, in the Kurdish areas and among
the Arabs of Khuzestan.16 Following the shah’s ouster, though, Saddam made clear that he was
willing to work with the new regime provided the relationship was on the basis of
nonintervention in domestic affairs and respect for each other’s sovereignty. Saddam publicly
announced, “A regime which does not support the enemy against us and does not intervene in
our affairs, and whose world policy corresponds to the interest of the Iranian and Iraqi people,
will certainly receive our respect and appreciation.”17 Privately, he told his advisors at the same
14 One estimate from Iranian military intelligence is that the desertion rate “rose from 3 percent per week to 8 percent in September-December 1978, and by February 1 the rate was up to 20 percent.” John D. Stempel, Inside the Iranian Revolution (Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press, 1981), 151. On January 23, 1979, Chief of Staff Abbas Gharabaghi “estimated that the armed forces were only at 55 percent of their strength, though the tone of his comments suggests that this number may have been picked more for effect than for accuracy.” Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 115. 15 Official Iraqi sources later implausibly stressed that Khomeini left on his own free will. FBIS/MEA-5-116, 14 June 1979, E4-5. Hussein had an interest in minimizing his role in an event that generated considerable resentment among Iraqi Shia. Hussein and the shah shared an interest in the quashing the Islamist movement. It is commonly reported that Hussein offered to the shah to kill Khomeini, though this was never substantiated. 16 Exactly how weakened Iran was by these events is not clear even in hindsight, but it was obviously significant. Iraq was no doubt aware what was going on, although there do not appear to be surviving records of their assessment of Iranian political and military developments from this period, besides a report from the Iraqi military attaché in April of 1979 that observed the low morale of the Iranian soldiers. See Murray and Woods, The Iran-Iraq War, 78. 17 FBIS-MEA 79-33, 15 February 1979, E1 (emphasis mine).
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time that Iran’s “stability and unity will be something positive for us, if Iran is not hostile to the
Arab nation.”18
In the early days of the revolution, there were uncertainties as to the character of the
regime that would emerge, but the Iraqi government was willing to work with it, and said so,
both publicly and privately. Iraqi leaders dismissed Khomeini as an old man that would have a
largely ceremonial role in the new regime. Iraq welcomed the new government of Prime
Minister Mehdi Bazargan, particularly their withdrawal from CENTO, and invited Bazargan and
his foreign minister to visit Iraq during the Non-Aligned conference of 1979.19 But this
honeymoon was to be short lived. While Hussein drew a distinction between the Bazargan
government and clerical forces, the former did not control the latter.20 After an initial period of
dual sovereignty, the Bazargan government from the spring of 1979 on was increasingly
marginalized. As clerical forces gained an upper hand in Iran, and their revolution had an effect
on Iraqi domestic politics, relations deteriorated.
A remarkable increase in the hostility between the two countries occurred in June of
1979, which was not the product of Iraq capitalizing on Iranian weakness, but Iraqi fears of the
spillover of the Iranian Revolution. There had been a smattering of protests since Khomeini had
returned to Iran in February. Ayatollah Muhammed Baqir al-Sadr was soon the focus of
attention, by the opposition and the regime. Word of his communications with Khomeini
prompted demonstrations in support of both men in Najaf and elsewhere. Khomeini sent a
18 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-851, “Meeting Between Saddam Hussein and Military Officials Regarding al-Khomeini, Iranian Kurdistan, and Iranian Forces with Iraqi Diplomats,” February 20, 1979. 19 Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 58; Majid Khadduri, The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iraq-Iran Conflict (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1988), 81. 20 Saddoun Hamadi, the foreign minister of Iraq, in a speech before the Security Council of the United Nations in October of 1980, detailed Iraqi efforts to reach out to the Bazargan government, only to be rebuked by the Khomeini faction that was actively working to undermine the Ba’th regime. See Tareq Ismael, Iraq and Iran: Roots of Conflict (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1982), 203-12.
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message to Sadr, urging him to stay in Iraq. In June, Sadr issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims
from joining the Ba’th Party. He was arrested, which prompted riots in several cities. Sadr was
released but subsequently put under house arrest. Shia groups within Iraq formed the Islamic
Liberation Movement with the goal of overthrowing the Ba’th regime.21 Also at this time key
Kurdish insurgent figures crossed into Iran and received aid.22
These activities had a clear effect on Iraqi-Iranian relations. In a meeting in May or June
between Saddam and his advisors, relations were already clearly tense. However, they ruled out
war with Iran and considered the possibility that Iran was beginning a fragmentation that could
break the country apart in the next several years.23 Hopefully the problem would solve itself.
Despite the consensus against war, the first military confrontation between the two regimes
began in early June when, in the context of the protests, Iraqi planes attacked several Iranian
border villages, killing six.24 The attack was presumably on Iraqi Kurdish guerrillas, but they
were also perhaps attempting to send a message to Iran. The Iraqi state newspaper warned Iran
against “playing with fire.”25 Khomeini protested the arrest of Baqir al-Sadr and the border
incidents and prayed for the “independence” of Islamic countries.26 The Tehran International
Service in Arabic was more explicit. It issued a call to rise up against the “Takriti gang.”27 The
Iraqi state newspaper warned Iran of “the consequences of repeating the game played by the shah
21 Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi’as, 54. 22 Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, 182. These were the Barzani brothers and their Kurdish Democratic Party. They were mostly consumed with battling the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the Kurdish organization demanding autonomy in Iran, although they did attack the Ba’thist regime. See David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (New York, NY: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 346-348; FBIS-MEA-79-231. 29 November 1979, R21. 23 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-001-404, “President Saddam Hussein Presiding Over a Meeting with the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council to Discuss the Arabistan crisis.” 24 FBIS-MEA 79-111 7 June 1979, R1. 25 FBIS-MEA 79-115 13 June 1979, E1. 26 FBIS-MEA 79-117 15 June 1979, R3. 27 FBIS-MEA 79-118, 18 June, 1979, R14-15; FBIS-MEA 79-119, 19 June 1979, R11; FBIS-MEA 79-120, 20 June 1979, R13-14.
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against Iraq,” i.e., interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq, and, seemingly to back up that
message, Iraqi aircraft strafed several Iranian villages at the border.28
Hussein responded to the Shia community with a carrot as well as a stick. He poured aid
to the Shia areas and began incorporating Islamic symbols that cut across sectarian lines in his
rhetoric. He even resurrected the idea of a popularly elected national assembly (which would
obviously be Shia dominated) mentioned in the 1970 constitution but never convened.29
Tensions remained high, however, with more arrests, executions, and sporadic guerilla activity.
Islamist groups formed military wings. The al-Dawa party received an influx of members, one of
whom tried to assassinate Saddam Hussein.30 Attempts by the Iraqi regime to coerce Ayatollah
Baqir al-Sadr into denouncing the Iranian Revolution failed. Instead, he smuggled messages to
his followers that called for a violent uprising against the regime.31
Relations between Iran and Iraq somewhat simmered after the border clashes in June,
though in October Hussein began to call into question the Algiers Accord. He complained about
territory that had not yet passed into Iraqi hands as per the agreement and demanded a
renegotiation of the Shatt al-Arab. Hussein was now demanding full sovereignty, though he
continued to abide by the agreement. In a token effort to gain support among the Arab states, the
Iraqi regime also called for the return to their rightful Arab owners three disputed islands the
shah had claimed in the Strait of Hormuz.32
28 FBIS-MEA 79-117 15 June 1979, E1 (From Ath-Thawrah, 14 June 1979); FBIS-MEA 79-122, 22 June 1979, R29. 29 Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (London, UK: Grafton Books, 1989), 34-35. 30 Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi’as, 54-55. 31 Aziz, "The Role of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr in Shii Political Activism in Iraq from 1958 to 1980," 216-17; Amatzia Baram, Saddam Husayn and Islam, 1968-2003, (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 142. 32 See, e.g., FBIS-MEA 79-193, 3 October 1979, E2; FBIS-MEA 79-199, 12 October 1979, E1. In the meeting in May or June mentioned above, one of Saddam’s advisors mentioned raising the issue of the Iranian claim on these islands as a means to convince other Arab states of the danger of the Iranian regime. See SH-SHTP-A-001-404.
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After the Bazargan government fell in November 1979 and clerical strength increased,
the rhetoric in Iran heated up, and by 1980 some Iranian government officials were again
explicitly calling for the Ba’th regime’s overthrow. In March, Iraq expelled the Iranian
ambassador for interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq.33 The Iraqi government passed a law on
March 31st sentencing all past and present members of al-Dawa and its affiliates to death. A day
later, a member of a Shia opposition group attempted to assassinate Deputy Prime Minister Tariq
Aziz as he spoke at a university in Baghdad. During the funeral procession for those that were
killed in the attempt against Aziz, a bomb was thrown, according to Iraqi reports, from the
window of an “Iranian school.” The response from Iran was hardly conciliatory. Commentary
on the Tehran International Service radio in Arabic noted that the assassination attempt “was not
an isolated incident, but part of the general national struggle against imperialism and the criminal
regime in power. It is not a bomb that missed its target, but part of a big explosion in Iraq these
days that is bound to hit all its targets soon and uproot imperialism and that dictatorship.”34
Hussein responded with the unprecedented step of executing a Grand Ayatollah,
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, as well as his sister, Bint al-Huda, a Shiite activist. The regime began
to expel tens of thousands Shia (and their families) that were considered disloyal from the
country.35 Gregory Gause notes that Hussein’s rhetoric underwent an immediate change, from
warning the Iranians not to interfere in Iraqi internal affairs to verbally attacking the Iranian
leadership and threatening war.36 This was matched by a chorus of Iranian senior political and
religious leadership, from Khomeini on down, calling on Iraqis and members of the Iraqi military
33 FBIS-MEA 5-48, 10 March 1980, E1. 34 FBIS-SAS 8-68, 7 April 1980, I24. 35 Ali Babakhan, “The Deportation of Shi’is During the Iran-Iraq War,” in Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq, ed. Faleh Abdul-Jabar (Saqi Books, London: UK, 2002), 192-200. 36 Gause III, "Iraq’s Decisions to Go to War, 1980 and 1990," 66. See also the official biography of Saddam Hussein: Fuad Matar, Saddam Hussein: The Man, the Cause and the Future (London, UK: Third World Centre, 1981), 135.
13
to rise up, and that they would get Iranian assistance.37 The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
which had been the voice of relative moderation in the Islamic Republic in 1979, was no
exception. In a statement confirming the martyrdom of Sadr, it declared: “we will not rest until
the final overthrow of the criminal, imperialist and Zionist-agent regime of the treacherous
Saddam Husayn… it is up to the Muslim nation of Iran to assist and render succor to the Muslim
Iraqi nation with all its might.”38 Iranian radio was also broadcasting calls from al-Dawa to
rebel.39
These series of events seem to have convinced Saddam Hussein there was an orchestrated
attempt to overthrow his regime, and that he had to strike back at Iran. Even though they had no
internal Ba’thi sources, most scholarship on the issue of the timing of the Iraqi decision to go to
war with Iran place the decision in the aftermath of these events in April.40 It was only at this
stage that Saddam told the Iraqi military to start preparing for war.41 This is also when Saddam
appears to have consulted with several Gulf countries about his intention to invade.42 The
captured records do not speak to when exactly Saddam decided on war because coverage of this
37 For Khomeini’s call for revolution in Iraq, see FBIS-SAS-80-070, 09 April, 1980, I6-7; FBIS-SAS-80-078, 21 April, 1980, I9. 38 FBIS-SAS-80-080, 23 April 1980, I18. The Iranian foreign minister had declared earlier in the month that Iran was “determined to overthrow the Ba’thist regime of Iraq.” FBIS-SAS-80-070, 9 April 1980, I6. 39 See FBIS-SAS-8-71, 10 April 1980, I16-17; FBIS-SAS-8-76, 15 April 1980, I16. 40 See Murray and Woods, The Iran-Iraq War, 46-47; Amatzia Baram, "Saddam Husayn, the Ba’th Regime and the Iraqi Officer Corps," in Armed Forces in the Middle East: Politics and Strategy, ed. Barry Rubin and Thomas A. Portland (Portland, OR: Keaney Frank Cass, 2002), 214; Gause III, "Iraq’s Decisions to Go to War, 1980 and 1990," 67; Ofra Bengio, Saddam's Word: Political Discourse in Iraq (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), 145; Hiro, The Longest War, 36; Shahram Chubin and Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War (London, UK: I.B. Tauris & Co, 1988), 26. 41 Iraqi generals report that they were notified in early July to plan for an invasion, although some were not aware of the decision for war until it broke out. See the interviews of several generals in Kevin M. Woods et al., Saddam's Generals: Perspectives of the Iran-Iraq War (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2011), 55, 115-16, 155, 190-91; Kevin M. Woods, Williamson Murray, and Thomas Holaday, Saddam's War: An Iraqi Military Perspective of the Iran-Iraq War, Mcnair Paper 70 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2009), 32; and Staff Lt. General Raad Majid al-Hamdani, "Memoir," (2003), 22. The memoir is housed in the Saddam Hussein Collection at the Conflict Records Research Center. Edgar O’Ballance reports that General Jabbah al-Shemshah, Saddam’s chief of staff, was ordered to plan for an invasion in May of 1980, although he does not provide a citation. Edgar O'Ballance, The Gulf War (London, UK: Brassey's Defence Publishing, 1988), 48. 42 Cordesman and Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, 38-39, ft. 25, 26; Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran, 60.
14
period is fragmentary. It is clear, though that, as discussed, in a meeting in May or June of 1979,
Saddam and his advisors had explicitly ruled out war and that in mid-September 1980 the
discussion that provided Saddam with the leadership’s approval took place.43
There is a significant source that asserts Saddam decided to go to war, and made
preparations for war, shortly after the date of the aforementioned 1979 meeting. CIA officer
George Cave has revealed that he was given intelligence in the form of satellite imagery of troop
movements in the summer of 1979 that Saddam was planning on invading Iran, and that he,
along with Bruce Laingen, the Chargé d’Affaires in Tehran, briefed Iranian foreign minister
Ibrahim Yazdi and Abbas Amir Entezam with this information on October 15, 1979. This
intelligence on the supposed Iraqi preparation for war has been repeated in print and in several
“critical oral history” conferences on the Iran-Iraq war.44 It is one of the major new “facts” to
emerge concerning the origins of the Iran-Iraq war.
There are, however, several reasons to suppose that this intelligence was fabricated, even
just based on American sources. The first reason is that few American government officials
seem to have been aware of this information.45 A June 1979 American National Intelligence
43 The September meeting is in CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-835, “Saddam and His Advisors Discussing Iraq’s Decision to Go to War with Iran,” September 16, 1980, discussed below. 44 Mark Gasiorowski, "US Intelligence Assistance to Iran, May-October 1979," The Middle East Journal 66, no. 4 (Autumn 2012); James G. Blight et al., Becoming Enemies: US-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2012), 71. See also remarks at the conferences hosted by The Woodrow Wilson Center: “Towards an International History of the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988,” July 19, 2004 (Reported in "The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War: A CWIHP Critical Oral History Project," Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 16 (2007/2008), 536); “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis,’ 1977-1981,” July 25-26, 2005; “The Iran-Iraq War: The View from Baghdad, October 26-27, 2011, Panel I: Origins of the Iran-Iraq War.” (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/cwihp-hosts-international-conference-iran-iraq-war-the-national-defense-university-conflict). 45 It appears the only officials on record as having been aware of the intelligence are the two anonymous CIA officials interviewed by Gasiorowski and Cave and Laingen, who passed the information on to the Iranians. Cave reports that David Newsom, the Under Secretary of State, was also aware of the intelligence. Gasiorowski conjectures that Newsom was the official behind the initiative to share intelligence with the Iranians, though Newsom told Malcolm Bryne that he could not recall it. Gasiorowski, "US Intelligence Assistance to Iran, May-October 1979," 618, ft. 14; 620, ft. 19; 621, ft. 20.
15
Estimate, “Iraq’s Role in the Middle East,” did not even mention the possibility of an Iraqi
invasion of Iran, despite the superiority in capabilities it enjoyed over Iran, and characterized the
regime as “cautious and pragmatic.”46 In the same month, the US interests section in Baghdad
suggested that one option available to Iraq was a “quick punch-out of an infeebled [sic] Iran,”
but concluded that the Iraqi government will probably “search for a means to avoid conflict with
Iran.”47 Officials that should have had access to information that Iraq was preparing for war
with Iran, like Gary Sick, the National Security Council official over Iranian matters, and Harold
Saunders, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, have asserted they knew nothing
of such intelligence.48 Howard Teicher, an analyst for the Pentagon, had been trying to raise the
alarm bells about Iraq as early as March of 1979 based on growing Iraqi capabilities and Ba’thist
ideology. He was unaware of the intelligence when he wrote a report in November of 1979 that
predicted an Iraqi invasion of Khuzestan. Both Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski rejected Teicher’s predictions, apparently unaware of
intelligence the CIA had that Iraq was preparing for an invasion of Iran.49 If there was such
information, it is implausible that, in a region closely watched in the aftermath of the Iranian
revolution, none of these figures knew about it. In fact, even when the Iraqis readied themselves
for an invasion, Americans were caught unaware of the impending invasion. The Director of
46 Director of Central Intelligence, “Iraq’s Role in the Middle East,” National Intelligence Estimate 36.2-1-79, June 21, 1979, 11. http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0001115785/DOC_0001115785.pdf. 47 “Iraqi-Iranian Relations,” Baghdad cable 1362, June 21, 1979. The document can be found at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/104034796/us-intel-assistance-to-iran. 48 Sick and Saunders reported they were not aware of such intelligence when Cave discussed the exchange with the Iranians at a critical oral history conference at The Woodrow Wilson Center on July 25, 2005: “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis,’ 1977-1981.” At the conference both Sick and Henry Precht, who in 1979 was the State Department Director of Iranian Affairs, expressed skepticism about the intelligence. Precht’s interpretation was that the intelligence was cooked up to help establish a relationship with the Iranians. Cave responded that if that was the case he was misled. 49 Howard Teicher and Gayle Radley Teicher, Twin Pillars to Desert Storm: America's Flawed Vision in the Middle East from Nixon to Bush (New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993), 59-71.
16
Central Intelligence himself at a National Security Council meeting ten days before the war
broke out predicted that Iraq would not invade Iran.50
In addition, the CIA intelligence is disputed by another American source. Wayne White,
who was then an Iraq analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department,
asserts that in the satellite intelligence he was monitoring it was clear that there was no
preparation for war with Iran until after the events of April of 1980. According to White, it was
apparent that in 1979 Saddam’s top priority was maintaining an ability to quickly transport armor
to the Golan battlefront rather than Iran. Even through the spring of 1980, most all of Iraqi
military movements continued to follow routine yearly exercise schedules for key units in
training areas far from the Iraqi-Iranian border.51
Moreover, there was a motive for fabricating evidence. In the aftermath of the Iranian
revolution, American officials recognized that the shah was gone for good, and were straining to
ensconce themselves with the relatively moderate Bazargan government.52 Providing valuable
intelligence to the new government was a means to this aim. When Laingen cabled Harold
Saunders in June asking him to supply intelligence to the Iranians, he included an example of
what might be provided – the analysis of the US interests section in Baghdad mentioned above
that suggested that a “quick punch-out” was possible. In September, the CIA headquarters sent a
cable to the Tehran station concerning Soviet support for Iranian Kurdish guerrillas. “The
station chief replied that he was not aware of any evidence of this, but that if such evidence
50 Summary of Conclusions of National Security Council Meeting, “Soviet Military Threat to Iran,” September 12, 1980, Jimmy Carter Library, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Geographic File, Box 16, “Southwest Asia-Persian Gulf,” 9/80 folder. 51 Wayne White, e-mail message to author, April 13, 2013. 52 See Christian Emery, US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution: The Cold War Dynamics of Engagement and Strategic Alliance (New York City, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 73-130, esp. 124-30; James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 277-93.
17
existed, it would be ‘ideal’ for use in discussions with Entezam.”53 It is not hard to fathom that
someone in the Carter Administration decided that such “evidence” did not need to exist at all.
And in fact, given the evidence against the claim that Iraq was preparing for war in 1979, it
seems highly probable. Cave may have briefed the Iranians on Iraqi developments as an attempt
to curry favor with the Iranians, who had serious suspicions of the Americans,54 but the
intelligence does not appear to have been based in reality.
From the spring of 1980 on, both Iran and Iraq called for the downfall of the other side,
accompanied by a long string of incursions into each other’s airspace and then border
skirmishes.55 And Iraq’s domestic opposition continued. In May of 1980 Iraq notified the
secretary general of the United Nations that members of Da’wa had met with Iranians in Qom,
and were plotting to overthrow the Iraqi regime. There was a smattering of attacks against
government officials, including a June 1980 attempted assassination of Hussein by Iraqi airmen,
led by a Da’wa member, who shelled an air force reviewing stand.56 The suppression continued.
The director of intelligence declared that the government would deport any Iraqi who supported
the Islamic revolution in Iran.57 It was, however, not until September that Iraq unleashed a full-
scale invasion, a delay attributed to the war planning process and also the wait to see if the
53 Gasiorowski, "US Intelligence Assistance to Iran, May-October 1979," 619. The United States several months later considered providing Iraq with intelligence regarding the Soviets, for the same purpose – to improve relations. Jimmy Carter Library, NLC-43-124-8-2-9. 54 There is evidence that the Iranians did not find the American claims credible, either. Entezam’s meeting with Cave on October 18th did not follow up on their claims about an Iraqi invasion, but instead said that the briefings “were not precisely what the Bazargan government needed.” What they wanted was “tactical information on the Kurdish situation and political intelligence on who was supporting Kurds and why.” Yazdi also did not appear to follow up on the matter when he met with the Americans on October 16th. See the memos in Asnād-I Lānah-ʾ i Jāsūsī [Documents of the Nest of Spies], vol. 10 (Tehran, IR: Dānishjūyān-i Musalmān-i Payraw-i Khaṭṭ-i Imām, [1980?]). Cave reported in the critical oral history conferences of 2004 and 2005 cited above that Yazdi’s response to the assertion that Iraq was preparing for in invasion was: “they wouldn’t dare.” Yazdi indicated to James Bill that he and the other Iranians later speculated on the hidden agenda for the meeting. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 292. 55 Murray and Woods, The Iran-Iraq War, 90-92. 56 Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shi’as, 57-58. 57 Khalil Osman, Sectarianism in Iraq: The Making of State and Nation Since 1920 (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), 233.
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Nuzhih coup – an attempt by Iranian exiles in Iraq to overthrow the regime in July – would
succeed.58 Saddam was backing this coup, in contrast to his caution toward Iran in 1979.
Some scholars have specifically argued that the fear of revolutionary spillover
destabilizing the Ba’thist regime was not a motivation of Saddam in invading Iran. Their
strongest argument is that Hussein invaded Iran after the threat had subsided – Saddam had
already dealt with the bulk of the subversion and the Iraqi Shia by and large remained loyal (or at
least not openly subversive) for the remainder of the Iran-Iraq war. 59 The problem with this
argument is hindsight bias. It assumes Saddam knew that the threat had passed.
Basing himself on al-Dawa’s own admissions, Amatzia Baram has noted that, indeed, the
Ba’thist regime had at least temporarily suppressed the opposition so that street protests were not
viable, as evidenced by the lack of demonstrations following the execution of Ayatollah Baqir al-
Sadr in April.60 However, clandestine opposition continued, such as the assassination attempt
mentioned above and others.61 The regime could not be confident that these covert attempts
would not be successful and that more overt, large-scale, demonstrations would not emerge.
Their continued concern is evident in the fact that it was after the events of early April 1980 –
the assassination attempt against Aziz and subsequent execution of Baqir al-Sadr – that the
regime began to deport tens of thousands of Iraqis deemed disloyal. Saddam in speeches in
58 The coup of course did not succeed, although it perhaps further weakened the military in the resulting purges. Mark J. Gasiorowski, "The Nuzhih Plot and Iranian Politics," International Journal of Middle East Studies 34 (November 2002). 59 Makiya, Republic of Fear, 265. 60 Amazia Baram, “The Impact of Khomeini’s Revolution on the Radical Shi’i Movement of Iraq,” in The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, ed. David Menashri (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,1990), 144; Baram, Saddam Husayn and Islam, 143-145. 61 There were unconfirmed reports of aborted coups and a network of senior Shia officers was uncovered that was said to be responsible for five attempts on Saddam’s life. Twelve officers and 200 others were executed by firing squad. See Colin Legum, Haim Shaked, and Daniel Dishon, eds., Middle East Contemporary Survey, vol. 5, 1980-81 (New York, NY: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1982), 585.
19
February and June even openly raised the possibility that Iraq could split into different parts.62
As Baram states, “the Shi’i opposition in Iraq had burned out, but with Khomeini as a source of
inspiration” (and, one might add, direct Iranian aid) “it could rise from the ashes.”63
It was this perception of threat that was the catalyst for the Iraqi invasion, as indicated by
the timing of the war. Each of the two major steps that ratcheted up Iraqi hostility towards Iran,
in June of 1979, when Iraq first took military action against Iran and began openly threatening it,
and in April of 1980, when Saddam decided on war, was associated with domestic turmoil that
Iran was perceived to be culpable of. Saddam had said back in 1975 that the greatest strategic
threat to Iraq was when an external power backed a “local power,” that is, a group within Iraq.64
Given the influence Iran could exercise in Iraqi politics, it is clear that Saddam saw such
interference as intolerable.
Why did Saddam decide on war in April 1980 rather than in June of 1979? One possible
answer is that the Iranian regime was more diplomatically isolated by April. Iran’s relationship
with the United States was particularly strained given the hostage crisis, though Saddam
perceived the United States as a habitual enemy that had backed Khomeini. Another possibility
is that the Iranian regime was weaker militarily in April, though it is not clear just how much
more Iran was weakened, or how much the Iraqi leadership had perceived they had weakened
since June. These may have been facilitating factors, but a more notable difference was that the
62 See Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1991), 148. A scholar noted in 1985 “That the regime’s fears of al-Dawa have not subsided [since the 1980 crackdown] is evident from the discussions during the Baath party’s Ninth Congress held in June 1982 which concentrated on this party and attacked it ferociously” Bengio, "Shi’is and Politics in Ba’thi Iraq," 6. Shortly after those meetings there was an assassination attempt against Hussein purportedly carried out by al-Dawa. Hussein responded by sentencing 148 boys and men to death from the town in which it occurred, the action for which the Nuri al-Malaki (al-Dawa) government would later hang him. The intensity of the crackdown on internal opposition during the period in 1980 may be seen as the opposition’s impotence, but it also revealed the fears of the leadership that the threat of the opposition was to be taken very seriously. 63 Baram, Saddam Husayn and Islam, 152. 64 SH-MISC-D-000-508, June 1975.
20
Iranian regime was now united, and not only calling for revolution in Iran, but promising Iranian
assistance to bring that revolution about. That assistance was, from the Iraqi perspective, made
manifest in the assassination attempt against Aziz. What would emerge from the toppling of the
shah was unclear in early 1979, and in May or June, the Iraqi leadership were supposing that the
revolution would lead to the fragmenting of Iran. By April 1980, a clearer picture was emerging
of a more consolidated clerical regime bent on spreading revolution to Iraq.
A limited invasion could coerce Iran to convince them not to interfere in Iraqi affairs.
Better yet, he seems to have hoped for the toppling of the regime by discrediting it.65 He had
strained to have good relations with the shah and the Bazargan government. Had a regime
emerged after the toppling of the shah that respected Iraqi rights and did not act as both a
platform and a model in undermining his regime, there is no indication Saddam would have
chosen to invade Iran.
Assessing the Case for an Opportunistic War
Arguments for the primacy of the opportunistic motive make a case for several
geopolitical goals in the context of the sudden transition in power. One possible geopolitical
goal was Iraq’s long-standing desire to claim the entire Shatt al-Arab waterway. Iraq justified its
invasion of Iran in September of 1980 on the grounds that Iran had violated the Algiers Accord,
and therefore the agreement was null and void. Saddam’s claims to the entire Shatt al-Arab
certainly made it appear that this war was about geopolitical expansion. The strategic
significance of the border change Hussein was demanding, however, is easily exaggerated.
65 This is indicated in CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-835, “Saddam and His Advisors Discussing Iraq’s Decision to Go to War with Iran,” September 16, 1980. Saddam is more explicit about this in a conversation just after the war started. See CRCC SH-SHTP-D-000-574, “Meetings between Saddam Hussein and the General Command of the Armed Forces,” October 1980.
21
Moving the border from the middle of the river to the Iranian shore would not solve Iraq’s
strategic vulnerability. The scholarship that stresses the significance of the Shatt as a reason in
itself for war does so largely on symbolic grounds – that it would reverse the humiliation
Saddam was forced to bear by publicly conceding to the Iranians in 1975, or that he was using
territory as a symbol to achieve other goals, as I will discuss below.66
A more compelling geopolitical goal would be plans Saddam may have had to annex the
Khuzestan province or even larger portions of Iranian territory. However, there is no evidence
that Saddam had any explicit plans to annex the province or was going out of his way to create
the conditions to enable such an annexation. Iraq was widely suspected to have played a role in
the disturbances in Khuzestan by Iranian Arabs demanding autonomy in the aftermath of the
Revolution. There is evidence for this in captured Iraqi documents, but more notable is Iraq’s
relative caution than their aggressive exploitation of the situation. Iraq appears to have played no
role in instigating the rebellion that broke out in Khuzestan in April of 1979. In March, Iraqi
leaders specifically declined to infuse the province with propaganda because it would create
tension with the Iranian government.67 At a meeting with Saddam and his advisors after the
uprising commenced, they clearly stated their lack of involvement up to that point. Taha Yasin
Ramadan, a member of Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council, suggested that Iraq should be
ready to seize “Arabistan” if Iran were to break up, but if not, Iraq should have a presence that
they could use as leverage if Iran started interfering with the Kurds. But the consensus was that
they should proceed cautiously, perhaps sending only volunteer non-Iraqi Arabs and
66 Daniel Pipes strongly states that “The Shatt al-Arab dispute alone is serious enough to induce either party to go to war” though his analysis stresses the importance of national pride over the issue. Pipes, "A Border Adrift: Origins of the Conflict," 23. For territory as a symbol for other goals, see Will D. Swearingen, "Geopolitical Origins of the Iran-Iraq War," Geographical Review 78, no. 4 (October 1988). 67 CRRC SH-GMID-D-000-620, “General Military Intelligence Directorate Regarding the People of Arabistan in al-Ahwaz Area Calling for Independence,” various dates, 1979.
22
unidentifiable light weapons into the province to reduce the chances of war. 68 In November of
1979, Hussein told his advisors that he supported a self-governing Khuzestan, but the initiative
lay with the Arabs there.69
Part of the relative reserve of the Ba’thist leadership was not just the possibility of
inciting conflict with Iran, but also the nature of the population in Khuzestan. The shah had long
realized the vulnerability of the valuable province and had worked to “Persianize” the area. Only
40 percent of the residents were Arab, and those Arabs were Shia. Whether even they would be
loyal to Saddam’s regime was questionable.70
In a meeting Hussein had with a group of advisors a few days before the invasion, there is
no mention of conquering Khuzestan, in contrast to taking the Shatt, but more importantly, their
discussion implies they did not plan to conquer Khuzestan. Shibli al-Aysami stated that
international public opinion would be on Iraq’s side if the regime emphasized that “we’re
retaking what is rightfully ours, that there is no aggression, and that this is not because we’re a
powerful nation or because Iran has a weak military. No. It is all about our rights that were
extorted.”71 Saddam concurred and stated that they needed to quickly resolve the matter – to
force the Iranians’ hand and only escalate if Iran did not concede. Ali Hasan al-Majid even
worried about the implications of having to occupy the Iranian shore of the Shatt to control the
waterway. They surely knew that if they attempted to annex Khuzestan it would not be seen as
anything else but Iraqi aggression and they probably knew that militarily taking Khuzestan
would not be a quick fait accompli.
68 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-001-404. 69 CRRC SH-SHTP-D-000-559, “Saddam and His Inner Circle Discussion Relations with Various Arab States, Russia, China, and the United States,” November 1979. 70 Taha Yasin Ramadan, in the meeting cited above, even went as far as questioning whether the people from Arabistan were Arabs. See CRRC SH-SHTP-A-001-404. 71 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-835, “Saddam and His Advisors Discussing Iraq’s Decision to Go to War with Iran,” September 16, 1980.
23
In fact, from the very beginning of the conflict Iraqi leaders and media explicitly stated
Iraq did not covet any Iranian territory outside the land that was “usurped” by Iran. In a press
conference in Amman on the fourth day of the conflict, September 26th 1980, Tariq Aziz was
specifically asked what would happen if “Arabistan” were liberated. Aziz responded that “Iraq’s
goals were made clear” by Hussein’s speech on September 17th, abrogating the Algiers
Agreement. “Iraq has no designs on a single inch of Iranian soil.”72 Aziz also declared that Iraq
was willing to negotiate with Iran an end to the conflict provided that Iran respect Iraq’s
sovereignty, did not interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq, and end their occupation of Arab
Islands in the Gulf. Saddam Hussein and others repeated these demands and their willingness to
negotiate in the first few weeks of the conflict. The Iranian territory Iraq did seize they were
using as a bargaining chip, and they were willing to negotiate far before they could have hoped
to seize the Khuzestan province. This is consistent with the fact that the internal documents
indicate that they never desired the Khuzestan province in the first place.
What about the claim that Saddam initiated the war to serve his larger ambitions in the
region? One scholar has argued, based on captured Iraqi documents, that a secondary motive for
Saddam’s decision to invade Iran is the Israel factor: “a war on Iraq’s eastern flank would help it
prepare for an eventual turn to the West,” as a “military and psychological preparation for a later
conflict with Israel.”73 There is little support for this perspective. In fact, the evidence seems to
point in the opposite direction. In one conversation Saddam does mention that the Iraqis are
72 FBIS-MEA-80-190, 29 September 1980, E19. See also Baghdad Radio’s justification for the conflict on September 23rd, the Iraqi foreign minister’s communique on September 27th, and Saddam’s speech on September 28th. FBIS-MEA-80-188, 25 September 1980, E10; FBIS-SOV-80-190 29 September 1980, H3; FBIS-MEA-80-190, 29 September 1980, E1-E8. 73 Brands, "Why Did Saddam Invade Iran? New Evidence on Motives, Complexity, and the Israel Factor," 863, 882-83; Hal Brands, "Saddam Hussein, the United States, and the Invasion of Iran: Was There a Green Light?," Cold War History 12, no. 2 (May 2012): 335; Hal Brands, "Saddam and Israel: What Do the New Iraqi Records Reveal?," Diplomacy & Statecraft 22, no. 3 (July 2011): 507-08.
24
gaining valuable experience in warfare, the kind of experience Israel has and fears that Iraq is
getting, but that conversation is several years after the war started. He remarks in the same
dialogue, “countries learn how to fight through fighting in actual wars. Previously I was not
aware of this fact.”74 There is no evidence that gaining such experience in battle so that they
could better face the Israelis was even a subsidiary motive when he was considering initiating
war with Iran.75 There is evidence that there was a concern that conflict with Iran would divert
them from their aims against Israel. For example, in a meeting with Saddam over the uprising in
Khuzestan in 1979, one participant suggested that it might be an American conspiracy to involve
Iraq in a war to exhaust it and keep it from playing a leading role in the Palestine issue.76
Beyond the question of whether the conflict would prepare Iraq to face Israel, there is a
larger issue of whether Saddam initiated war with Iran in order to vault Iraq’s ambitions in the
wider Arab world. In the meeting with his advisors just before outbreak of war, Izzat Ibrahim al-
Douri claimed, “If this action is to be done successfully until the end, it will put Iraq in a
prominent and significantly effective position. Through this, in the future, Iraq can take big
74 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-627, “Meeting Between Saddam Hussein and Senior Military Officials Regarding Arms Imports and Other Issues Relating to the Iran-Iraq War,” undated, circa Fall 1983. 75 Brands cites three documents in addition to the above to support his claims. He quotes a conversation a few days before the Iraqi invasion to say that Saddam predicted the conflict would “inspire ‘all the people who have extorted land,’” which he takes as referring to Palestinians or Arabs more broadly. And he claims Hussein was referring to the Israelis when he said that “getting your land back will scare them” though given the context he seems to be referring to those regimes that are enemies of Iraq who have extorted land but are not retaking it – Syria and Egypt. Brands, "Why Did Saddam Invade Iran?," 883; CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-835, “Saddam and His Advisors Discussing Iraq’s Decision to Go to War with Iran,” September 16, 1980. In another conversation, Saddam remarks that Israel “cannot tolerate [seeing] Iraq walking out [of the war] victorious because there will not be any Israel.” This is several years after the war started and does not suggest Iraq initiated the war in part to strengthen its capabilities to then turn on Israel. CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-635, “Saddam Meeting with His Cabinet to Discuss the 1982 Budget,” undated, circa 1982. In another conversation several months after the war started, Hussein suggested that the war would give Iraq “a lesson in the broadest sense by fighting for two months.” CRRC SH-PDWN-D-000-566, “Meeting Between Saddam Hussein and the General Command of the Armed Forces Regarding the Iran-Iraq War,” October-November, 1980. Saddam suggests that the war will encourage Arabs to defy Israel in CRRC SH-SHTP-D-000-574, “Meetings Between Saddam Hussein and the General Command of the Armed Forces, October 1980. 76 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-001-404. See also CRRC SH-SHTP-D-000-573, “Meeting Transcripts of the General Command of the Armed Forces during the First Gulf War and Correspondence with Other Arab Leaders,” October 1980.
25
strides in accomplishing its goals [within the country] and in the Pan-Arab region.”77 There was
a notion then, at least from al-Douri, that the success in taking the Shatt would not only have a
beneficial effect “on our domestic people”78 but also improve Iraq’s image among the Arab
people. But was this a bonus of a war initiated for other reasons, or a cause in itself? The same
may be said about the acquisition of the Shatt al-Arab. Saddam no doubt desired full sovereignty
over the Shatt al-Arab. But the question is whether this goal was the cause of his invasion of
Iran, rather than a bonus for a war he had decided to launch for other reasons.
In a meeting Hussein had with a group of advisors a few days before the invasion, he
suggested that he was forced to accept the Shatt al-Arab border because of Iraq’s weakness, but
now that they have the opportunity to take it back, they will. “Anyone who takes our land, be it
the Shah of Iran or Khomeini, we would do the same thing against them.” He did so, however,
in the context discussing how to sell the war. “All the Arab people will tell you to get [the Shatt
al-Arab] back. These are facts and the citizens will not disagree on this. However, if we tell
them who started this, that the Shah is one thing and Khomeini is another thing, and why did we
give it up at the time of the Shah, and why do we want to take it at the time of Khomeini and so
on… then surely you would find that the Arab public opinion has some parties that do not
understand the correct historical path regarding what we have to do and regarding what position
we should take.”79 Saddam needed to consider how he would justify his change of course,
because it would bring up his concession to Iran in 1975. At the time, in addition to criticism
77 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-835. I have substituted the phrase “within the country” for “national” to clarify the meaning. The former phrase is used in the translations of this document in Woods, Palkki, and Stout, The Saddam Tapes, 135, and Baram, Saddam Husayn and Islam, 154. 78 This is Baram’s translation of CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-835, cited in Baram, Saddam Husayn and Islam, 154. He says that “our domestic people” “undoubtedly meant the Kurds and the Shi’is, and the latter more than the former.” He assumes that Douri was speaking for Saddam. 79 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-835.
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within the Ba’th Party in Iraq, the rival Ba’th regime in Damascus lashed out against “the Tikriti
regime” for “renouncing… Arab land.”80
And yet, as long as there was hope for good neighborliness, Saddam showed no signs of
pressing either the shah or the new revolutionary government for a revision of the Algiers
Accord. Only after relations deteriorated with the Iranian government, the Algiers Accord came
into question, and Saddam placed an emphasis on the territory usurped by Iran. He had a
domestic political reason to do so – retaking usurped territory provided a justification for the
conflict beyond the desire to prevent Iran from spreading revolution to Iraq. And, just as the
change in the border of their common waterway, though a small change, had symbolized Iranian
dominance in 1975, Iraq changing the border back was used as a symbol. The message was that
Iraq could now coerce Iran. As Saddam said in the meeting shortly before the outbreak of the
war, “we will force their heads into the mud to enforce our political will on them, which can only
happen militarily.”81 Saddam did not explicitly mention the Shia threat and Iranian interference
in Iraqi affairs in that meeting which occurred a few days before the invasion, but he did not
have to. This was not an extensive debate over whether to go to war. That decision had been
made months before.
The main catalyst for the war was not reversing the Algiers Agreement to obtain the Shatt
al-Arab. It was to get Iran to cease interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq, and they would do
so either by coercion or precipitating regime change. A realist emphasis on the shift in power
between Iran and Iraq is important as a necessary condition. Saddam would not have the option
of pressuring Iran via military force if he was in the position he was in 1975. His plan to coerce
Iran obviously depended on Iran not being able to withstand Iraqi military might, and it is clear
80 Amatzia Baram, “Saddam Hussein: A Political Profile,” Jerusalem Quarterly 17 (Fall 1980): 127. 81 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-835.
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in his discussion with his advisors immediately prior to the outbreak of war that he was sure he
could do that given Iranian weakness.82 But although Iranian weakness was a necessary
condition for Iraq to coerce it, Iranian weakness is not sufficient for explaining why Iraq wanted
to coerce Iran. What was driving the conflict was preventing Iran from interfering in the
domestic affairs of Iraq.
My argument that Saddam was motivated to invade Iran because of the threat of the
revolution spreading is not an assertion that he was a status quo player that had no ambitions in
the region outside the security of his own regime. Hussein saw himself as a great historical
figure that would lead the Arabs to unite against the colonial and Zionist powers. The captured
Iraqi records highlight a consistent hostility towards and distrust of the United States.83 And he
viewed his aspirations to correct the humiliations imposed on the Arab peoples – dividing them
into petty states and imposing the Zionist regime – as inevitably involving a confrontation with
Israel.84 But, as the records have also indicated, he was very patient in how long it would take to
achieve his aims.85 Saddam styled himself as a pragmatic revolutionary, like Lenin.86 He would
work methodically towards his goal. He had a vision of upending the status quo to his west – the
Arab lands and Israel – and essentially defensive goals in the east.
82 See the discussion in ibid. 83 Hal Brands and David Palkki, "'Conspiring Bastards': Saddam Hussein's Strategic View of the United States," Diplomatic History 36, no. 3 (June 2012). 84 Hal Brands and David Palkki, "Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb: Nuclear Alarmism Justified?," International Security 36, no. 1 (Summer 2011). 85 In regard to Israel, for example, he outlined a vision that war would not come in the next five years, but at some point Iraq would gain nuclear weapons, march to the border of Israel, and patiently nibble at Israel’s territory. See Brands and Palkki, "Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” and CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-553, “Revolutionary Command Council Meeting Following the Baghdad Conference as a Consequence of the Camp David Treaty,” March 27, 1979. He cautioned his officials on more than one occasion to avoid the mistake made by Nasser of getting into a conflict before one was ready. 86 See the discussion in CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-553, where Saddam asserts that, like Lenin, one has to be flexible and sometimes concede in order to maintain power.
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Conclusion
In an interview with the FBI after his capture by American forces, Hussein was asked
whether his decision for war was based on Iranian threats or to reclaim territory. He responded
with an analogy: A neighbor’s son one day beats up your son. The next day, the neighbor’s son
bothers your cows. Then the neighbor’s son disturbs your irrigation system, damaging your
farmland. A warning to your neighbor is usually sufficient, but with Iran, this approach did not
work. When asked what the objective of the war was, Hussein responded, “Ask Iran. They
began the war.” When the question was repeated, he responded, “to have Iran not interfere in
our internal affairs.” Of course, such a defensive interpretation is self-serving and what we might
expect him to say, but the evidence supports his basic claim.87
I have argued for what is a minority position in the scholarship on the origins of the Iran-
Iraq war – that Saddam’s decision to invade Iran was primarily driven by concerns of the
preservation of his regime given the threat of spillover from the Iranian Revolution. A greater
number of scholars argue that Saddam invaded for opportunistic reasons, and the greatest
number argue that he had both motives. The change in the distribution of power between Iran
and Iraq was certainly a prerequisite to Saddam’s decision to invade, but not a sufficient
condition. The decision to invade Iran is correlated more with the radicalization of the Iranian
regime and subsequent threat it posed to Iraq more than the weakening of the Iranian state.
There is no evidence that Iraq sought to seize the Khuzestan province while Iran was weak; in
fact, there is evidence to the contrary. There is no evidence that Saddam was motivated to
initiate the conflict to prepare for a conflict with Israel. Saddam’s close advisor did claim a war
could catapult Iraq to a position of leadership in the Arab world. And there is evidence that
87 The interviews are posted on The National Security Archive website: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/; Interview Session 2, February 8, 2004; 1, 3.
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Saddam wanted reverse the territorial concession he was forced to grant the shah in 1975. But
that was not what was driving the conflict. They were bonuses for a war launched for other
reasons. Saddam himself emphasized the territory for political reasons. The main cause for war
was upholding another aspect of the Algiers Accord – the noninterference in the internal affairs
of Iraq.
What can be said about how this case relates to the broader phenomenon of why
revolution sometimes causes war? The first larger lesson is that the Iran-Iraq war did not provide
compelling evidence for the opportunistic argument in a case that is cited as an exemplar of this
thesis, which indicates the potential weakness of this factor in explaining why revolutions lead to
war in other cases. There are reasons to suspect that shifts in power alone prompt opportunistic
war, such as the finding that civil wars do not often prompt wars of opportunism.88 Indeed, if it
is only power that keeps states from invading their neighbors, it is a puzzle that states have weak
neighbors. A potential additional condition could be that states with previous territorial disputes
are especially vulnerable to opportunistic invasions. However, in the case of the Iran-Iraq war,
even that was not sufficient to incite conflict. This is not to say that wars caused by opportunism
following a revolution have never occurred.89 But it is not likely to explain many cases of
revolution leading to war.
The most promising mechanism that probably explains much – but not all – of the cases
of wars following revolutions, as well as much of the variance of why some revolutions are
disruptive to international order and some are not, is when it is feared or hoped that an ideology
88 Civil wars make foreign intervention more likely, but for the purposes of affecting the outcome of the civil war, rather than opportunism. See Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, Idean Salehyan, and Kenneth Schultz, "Fighting at Home, Fighting Abroad: How Civil Wars Lead to International Disputes," Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no. 4 (August 2008). 89 A good example is Somalia’s invasion of Ethiopia. See Gebru Tareke, "The Ethiopia-Somalia War of 1977 Revisited," International Journal of African Historical Studies 33, no. 3 (2000).
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will spread. This is distinct from the perspective that similar states will cooperate and unlike
states will conflict. That perspective has not gained a large following in the study of
international politics, in part because there are too many examples of unlike states cooperating
and vice versa. Relations between Iran and Iraq covered in this paper also rebut this general
argument. The Persian monarchy was just as distant to the Ba’thist regime ideologically as the
Islamic Republic. But the Islamic Republic was legitimized by political Islam, which threatened
Saddam’s Iraq in a way that Persian monarchy did not.
Revolutions are often embedded in a larger transnational ideological struggle over how to
organize domestic politics. The Iranian Revolution was both a product of and a bolster to the
rise of political Islam as a revolutionary ideology in the region. The origins of the Iran-Iraq war
are rooted in the response to this ideological challenge rather than changes in the distribution of
power.