HistoryMemes.com

Making Sense of History

Iran–Iraq War: A Visual History

Get My 10 Best History Memes:

Visual history of a war

Eight years of trench warfare, human waves, poison gas and missile strikes on cities that killed perhaps a million and changed nothing on the map.

Fought
1980 to 1988
Duration
8 years
Dates
22 September 1980 to 20 August 1988
Deaths
About 500,000 to 1 million; Iran perhaps 200,000 to 600,000, Iraq 100,000 to 400,000
Iraq
Saddam Hussein; arms from USSR, France, China; money from Gulf states; US intelligence and tilt
Iran
Islamic Republic under Khomeini; Revolutionary Guards and Basij; arms from North Korea, China, Libya, Syria; Iran-Contra
Result
Stalemate; UN ceasefire; status quo ante

The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) began when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran on 22 September 1980, hoping to seize the oil-rich Khuzestan and topple the Islamic Republic while it was in revolutionary chaos. Iraq's advance stalled; Iran drove it out by 1982 and Khomeini refused peace, invading Iraq to overthrow Saddam. Six years of static warfare followed, with Iranian human-wave assaults, Iraqi chemical weapons (used also on the Kurds at Halabja), the Tanker War in the Gulf drawing in the US Navy, and the War of the Cities with missiles. Iraqi offensives in 1988 and the US shooting down of an Iranian airliner led Khomeini to accept UN Resolution 598, 'drinking the poison chalice'; the ceasefire took effect on 20 August 1988 with borders unchanged.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Iran-Iraq War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

1500160017001800190020002100Iran-Iraq War (1980 to 1988)Open: Safavid EmpireSafavid Empire (1501 to 1736)Open: British EmpireBritish Empire (1583 to 1997)Open: United StatesUnited States (1776 to present)Open: Qajar EmpireQajar Empire (1789 to 1925)Open: Second French colonial empireSecond French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)Open: Cold WarCold War (1947 to 1991)Open: Arab-Israeli conflictArab-Israeli conflict (1948 to present)Open: Kurdish-Turkish conflictKurdish-Turkish conflict (1978 to present)Open: Soviet-Afghan WarSoviet-Afghan War (1979 to 1989)Open: Gulf WarGulf War (1990 to 1991)Open: Iraqi conflictIraqi conflict (2003 to present)

Estimated military deaths

075150225300Iran: 300300IranIraq: 250250IraqKurdish civilians (Anfal and Halabja): 100100Kurdish civilians (Anfal and Halabja)thousands (mid-range estimates)

Timeline of the Iran-Iraq War

  1. 1980
    Iraq invades22 September.
  2. 1982
    Khorramshahr retaken; Iran invades Iraq
  3. 1984
    Tanker War; Iraqi gas at Majnoon
  4. 1986
    Iran takes al-Faw; Iran-Contra revealed
  5. 1987
    US reflags Kuwaiti tankers; Resolution 598
  6. 1988
    Halabja; Iran Air 655; ceasefire20 August.

Invasion and reversal

Saddam tore up the 1975 Algiers Agreement on the Shatt al-Arab and attacked with 12 divisions, taking Khorramshahr in a bloody month but failing at Abadan and Dezful. Iran, its officer corps purged and hostages crisis ongoing, mobilised the Revolutionary Guards and Basij volunteers, many teenagers, and by May 1982 had recaptured Khorramshahr. Saddam offered withdrawal; Khomeini demanded his removal and reparations and invaded Iraq in July 1982 at Basra.

Attrition

Iranian offensives at Basra and in the marshes (Majnoon islands, 1984; al-Faw peninsula, 1986) gained ground at enormous cost; Iraq used mustard and nerve gas from 1983, dug fortifications and turned to superior air power. Both sides attacked oil exports: Iraq struck Kharg Island and tankers, Iran mined the Gulf and hit Kuwaiti tankers, and the US reflagged and escorted them (Operation Earnest Will), fighting Iran's navy in 1988. Iraq's missiles and Iran's fired at Tehran and Baghdad in the War of the Cities. The Iran-Contra scandal revealed US arms sales to Iran even as Washington backed Iraq.

1988

Iraq's rebuilt army retook al-Faw in April 1988 and won a series of victories with massive gas use; Halabja's 5,000 Kurds were gassed in March. The USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air 655 in July, killing 290. Exhausted, Iran accepted Resolution 598 on 18 July; Khomeini called it worse than poison. The ceasefire held; prisoners were exchanged over a decade. Iraq emerged with a huge army and 80 billion dollars of debt, which led Saddam to invade Kuwait two years later.

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

Wars of the same era and region

8 surprising things about the Iran-Iraq War

  1. It was the longest conventional war of the twentieth century and the only one since 1945 fought with the tactics of 1916.
  2. Iranian child soldiers were reportedly given plastic keys to paradise before clearing minefields.
  3. Iraq was the first state since World War I to use poison gas on a large scale, and the first ever to use nerve gas in battle.
  4. The US gave Iraq satellite intelligence while secretly selling missiles to Iran; Donald Rumsfeld shook Saddam's hand in 1983.
  5. The oil price crash of 1986 hit both belligerents and prolonged the stalemate.
  6. Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor was bombed by Iran in 1980 before Israel destroyed it in 1981.
  7. The war's most decorated Iranian pilots flew US-built F-14s bought by the Shah.
  8. Iran still commemorates the war as the 'Sacred Defence' with murals of teenage martyrs across Tehran.

Sources

Back to all empires and wars