Middle Eastern head-to-head

In 1980 the longest conventional war of the century began between two countries whose leaders will long be remembered for their single-minded dictatorships. Iran was led by the iron-faced Islamic fundamentalist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Iraq by the iron-fisted secular warmonger, Saddam Hussein. When the war ended in a truce in 1988, having cost billions of dollars and hundreds and thousands of lives, nothing of significance had been gained by either side.

The Iraqi state was created by the British in 1920, and contained diverse ethnic elements, including a Shia Arab majority and a large minority of Christian Kurds. By 1980 Iran was seen as a threat to Iraqi stability: not only did it support the Kurds in their agitation for autonomy, but the fact that Iran's previous ruler, the Shah, had been overthrown by a popular Islamic revolution meant that the Shia Arabs of Iraq might be tempted to follow suit.

Hussein was supported in his invasion of Iran by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the smaller Gulf states for whom Khomeini's brand of populist revolutionary Islam was anathema. He was also supported by the US, which was antagonised by Iran's anti-American stance, and sought to maintain good relations with the oil-producing countries of the Middle East.

After Iraq invaded Iran, the Iranians counter-attacked and drove the Iraqis back, so that much of the war was fought on Iraqi soil. Iraq had an arsenal of Soviet missiles and military aid from France and the US, but Iran's military arsenal - donated by the US to the deposed Shah - was also strong. The Iranian soldiers were fuelled by devotion to protect Islam, and gave up their lives willingly as martyrs to the cause. Old men and boys marched through minefields, opening the way for the regular soldiers to attack the Iraqi positions. Iraq bombed Iranian civilians with poisonous gas. By 1984 Iraq was attacking tankers in the Gulf bound for Iranian ports, in an effort to damage Iran's oil-exporting ability. Iran responded by attacking ships that traded with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Iraq's major Gulf allies. Towards the end of the war, US gunboats were engaged in direct military actions against Iran.

A total of 260,000 Iranians were killed and 1.6 million left homeless as a result of the war. The war meant intense economic hardship, but Iran emerged with a sense of self-reliance. Iraq not only lost 105,000 lives but also owed $80 million, mostly to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The destruction of Iraq's port of Basra and the blocking of the Shatt el-Arab waterway left Iraq landlocked, dependent on pipes for oil export. Instead of paying its debts, however, Iraq proceeded to spend $10 million on arms These conditions paved the way for the Gulf War of 1991. The US had spent the 1980s demonising Khomeini and championing Hussein, in spite of Iraq's human rights abuses and nuclear weapons programme. But when Hussein annexed Kuwait in 1990, there was horror in Washington at the prospect of him controlling 20 per cent of world oil reserves. President Bush responded to an invitation from the Saudis to send troops to defend the kingdom, should Iraq decide to invade Saudi Arabia also. Operation Desert Shield was set in motion and economic sanctions against Iraq put in place.

Hussein refused to withdraw from Kuwait, and on January 16th, 1991, the US began its air war against Iraq for 42 consecutive days and nights, the most intensive air bombardment in military history. The entire infrastructure of Iraq was rendered inoperable and 90,000 Iraqis, mostly soldiers, were killed. The ground war launched in February lasted only 100 hours. Evidence released after the war showed that US reports grossly inflated the power of the Iraqi military to justify the massive force deployed against Iraq (from which less than 200 soldiers died).