So the Iran Iraq War. Why did it happen? Who started it? Contrary to popular belief, it was Iran who started it. Baathist Iraq, together with the USSR, had been a huge supporter of the Iranian Revolution and Khomeini. The Shah of Iran was a sworn enemy of the baathists. He had invaded Iraq and annexed territory and regularly funded separatist and terrorist groups in Iraq. In fact, Baathist Iraq had given political asylum for years to Khomeini, and while they were forced to stop helping him after an agreement was reached with the Shah in 1975 (in exchange of which Iran would stop attacking Iraq and funding terrorists), they still allowed him to leave freely, they didnt turn him over to the Shah. For these obvious reasons, Saddam praised the iranian revolution. He said “we see in the heroic struggle of the iranian students against oppression the spirit of the Baath Party”.

Both Iraq and the USSR were enthusiastic about the revolution, since it wiped out one of the strongest US allies in the region (the Shah), and were ready to invite Khomeinis Iran into the antiimperialist bloc. But Khomeini, being the dumbass religious fanatic he was (im sorry but its the truth), he refused. He started persecuting the iranian communists and hanging them in public. These were the same iranian communists who had called on all communists to vote yes to the Islamic Republic in the 1979 referendum and who had always supported Khomeinis government. Many of these communists remained loyal to Khomeini while they were being hanged. Khomeini persecuted his own supporters just because they were “infidel secularist atheists” (as he called them). Thats how much of a fanatic he was. And no, im not saying the Shah was better than Khomeini. Khomeini was definetely progressive compared to the Shah, but his reactionary anticommunist and antisecularist policies cannot be forgotten.

So Iraq and the USSR got the same treatment as the iranian communists, since they were “infidel secularists”. Khomeini started denouncing “soviet imperialism”, which was “just as bad as american imperialism”. He started executing iranian leftists under the charge of “being soviet spies”. The USSR did everything to appease Iran and ally with Khomeini, but Khomeini categorically refused. With Iraq, it was even worse. Khomeini started saying that shias were oppressed in Iraq. This was absolutely ludicrous. Most of the baath party was shia (which makes sense since shias are the majority in Iraq) and the Iraqi Foreign Minister during the Iran Iraq War, Sadun Hammadi, who was very opposed to Khomeinis policies towards Iraq, was a shia. Nevertheless, Khomeini called on the iraqi shias to revolt and overthrow the “infidel secularist baathists” to bring to power an islamist government loyal to him. In what world is this acceptable? You just got to power and you start calling for regime change in your neighbour country, the same antiimperialist socialist country that had given you asylum before?

Iran started funding islamist terrorist groups like the Dawa Party. These groups started bombing sunni and shia mosques, hoping to create a sectarian religious division (that had not existed before mind you) so as to divide and conquer Iraq. Iran also started shelling iraqi border posts. This alone would be enough to declare war. But Saddam didnt. He knew that a war with Iran would benefit only the imperialists and would be unwinnable. He went to the Non Aligned Movement (of which both Iran and Iraq were part of) and asked Cuba to mediate a negotiation. Khomeini refused to negotiate with “infidel secularist baathists”. Saddam went to the UN and asked the USSR to mediate. Same result. Iran also started blockading the persian gulf, Iraqs only access to the ocean which they use to trade a lot. At this point, what options did Iraq have? Khomeini refused to negotiate and was stubborn of overthrowing the iraqi baathists. They had no option.

So on the 22 September 1980 Saddam Hussein declared war on Iran and launched a full scale invasion. The invasion aimed at the oil rich and arab majority Khuzestan region, where they knew local resistance to the iraqi forces would be lower (since the population is arab). The objective of this was to weaken Iran and force it to negotiate, since Iran was much stronger than Iraq and it was impossible to just go to Teheran and overthrow Khomeini. Contrary to popular belief, Saddams main supporter during the war wasnt the US, but the USSR. The vast majority of weapons used during the war were USSR and east bloc. Most socialist countries supported Iraq, including the USSR, East Germany, Czeckoslovakia, Cuba and Yugoslavia. Romania remained neutral and China sold weapons to both sides, while Libya, Syria, DPRK and South Yemen supported Iran (for different reasons). Contrary to popular belief, the US didnt suppport Iraq against Iran, it supported both sides (which makes sense since both sides were antiimperialist and antizionist). The US sold chemical weapons and satellite intelligence to Iraq while secretly selling tons of weapons to Iran (see Iran Contra scandal). Iran also bought many weapons and replacement parts from Israel (Iran was fully stocked with israeli weapons from the shah). The Mossad also trained special forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The objective of the US here is clear, to weaken both Iraq and Iran who were US enemies by supporting both sides, thus prolonging the war.

I hope this explains why the war happened. Ill do Kuwait now.