 "The Iranian frigate IS Sahand after being hit by 20 US air launched missiles and bombs, April 1988")
THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR
Author: Pierre Razoux [Translated by Nicholas Elliott]
Publisher: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Pages: 640
Price: $39.95
So many catastrophes have befallen West Asia in the past 25 years that the war that started almost all the current conflagrations has faded from public memory. Pierre Razoux's monumental work on the Iran-Iraq war (September 1980-August 1988) has brought back images of major cities ruined by bombings, refineries blazing for several days, embattled warships, thousands of child soldiers mowed down by heavy artillery, the shooting down of the Iranian civilian aircraft with 300 passengers and, above all, the chemical weapons used in different theatres, leaving pictures of contorted bodies and disfigured soldiers.
As Razoux has pointed out, this war had the major aspects of all the principal conflicts of the last century: trench warfare, human waves and chemical attacks of World War I; the use of armoured vehicles and bombings of cities of World War II; the aerial dog-fights and missile-use of the Arab-Israeli conflicts; and the ambushes and infiltrations across marshlands of the Vietnam war.
The war lasted eight years, in which two million soldiers were mobilised, along with 10,000 armoured vehicles, 4,000 artillery pieces, and 1,000 aircraft at one time. About 680,000 people were killed, nearly half a million on the Iranian side, while about a million and a half were wounded or maimed. Contrary to the popular impression, about 85 per cent of those killed were soldiers, says Razoux. All told, about 9,000 armoured vehicles, including 4,600 tanks, were destroyed, along with 950 aircraft and 30 warships. The total cost of the war was $1100 billion, with Iran bearing 60 per cent.
The war was triggered by the threat of the export of the Iranian Revolution to the neighbouring Arab regimes, which saw in it doctrinal and military challenges. Saddam Hussain, the authoritarian ruler of Iraq, viewed it as an opportunity to assert his leadership over the Arab world after defeating the Arabs' historic enemy. He planned a quick and sharp assault, using the maximum land and air power to seize Iranian territory and then dictate terms from a position of strength.
The war is a long litany of miscalculations on both sides which extended the conflict and encouraged both countries to expand the theatre of war and resort to increasing ferocity and mutual abuse. Most of the eight-year conflict was a war of attrition made up of offensives and counter-offensives, expansion of the fight to the waters of the Gulf and the bombings of cities, with long periods of lull when exhausted supplies were recouped, new divisions with new commanders were raised and new war-plans were put in place.
Razoux is perhaps the first writer to provide so much detail relating to the different battles, the strategies of the commanders and the political context in which these developments were taking place. This horrendous war was constantly influenced by deep-seated personal animosities on the part of the leaders of the two countries and the power play among the protagonists of the nascent Islamic regime, as also by the machinations of regional and global players who sought to manipulate the course of the war to their advantage.
The last phase came quickly: from early 1988, it was clear that Iran had little capacity for further fighting, with its treasury empty, its population restive and its military commanders certain that major successes against the enemy were not possible. Iraq, on the other hand, rebuilt its forces, took back the lost territories and, in July 1988, began to make gains in Iran as Iranian forces retreated all across the battle front. On the advice of the commanders and the political leadership, Ayatollah Khomeini accepted the ceasefire, "drinking the cup of poison" proffered to him.
The war left Iraq with the most powerful army in the region: enthused by the victory achieved on the battle-field, Saddam re-asserted his country's old claims on Kuwait and set in motion a series of events that reverberate in regional politics today - the first Gulf War, the sanctions-inspections regime and the no-fly zones, his regime's assault on the Shia after the war, which aggravated the sectarian divide in the country, and the western encouragement to Kurdish autonomy.
These events culminated in the second Gulf war of 2003 and the destruction of the Saddam regime, and the subsequent empowerment of the Shia majority in the country under US occupation. Now, with Iranian influence deeply embedded in Iraq, the results of the Iran-Iraq war have been dramatically reversed.
The war served to consolidate clerical rule in Iran, strengthened nationhood and rallied the people around their leaders. The latter took the opportunity to re-build their nation in the face of continuous western hostility, but their resilience has paid off in that the world powers are now in the process of lifting the sanctions that have retarded Iran's progress. Iran, defeated, demoralised and bankrupt after the war, is now the principal power centre in the region.
The war also sowed the seeds of the sectarian divide in West Asian politics, which is now in full bloom and defines the Arab competition with Iran in different theatres: Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and even Iraq. And though the Cold War is over, the US and Russia continue to be on opposite sides and compete for influence just as they had done in the 1980s.
Not surprisingly, the pace of developments in West Asia is such that some of the author's assertions, written just two years ago when the first French edition came out, have already been overtaken by events. Thus, contrary to what Razoux says, Iran is today not radicalised but has adopted a moderate and accommodative approach in its interactions with the international community. In Iraq, there is no contentious divide with Iran; instead, it is the Kurds who are now most vociferous in demanding autonomy and stronger links with their compatriots across the region. The Gulf Cooperation Council, which looked so solid just two years ago, is today a deeply divided house.
But none of these arrangements is cast in stone: they are just ephemeral episodes in the complex, even tortuous, narratives of West Asia which, like a kaleidoscope, which continues to throw up new and bewildering forms that taunt the short-lived vanities of powerful leaders who seek to manipulate the region's varied patterns to their advantage.
The author is a former diplomat
