The War over the War (Iran-Iraq War)(Very interesting analysis)

AEI ^ | September 30, 2010 | Ali Alfoneh

[nuconvert]

Thirty years after the end of the war between Iran and Iraq a fierce battle is being fought amongst statesmen, military commanders and scholars about the war. Three questions remain contested: Why did the war began in the first place? Why did the war continue after Iran's liberation of territories occupied by Iraq? And why did the war with Iraq end?

-excerpt-

Thanks to the Iraqi invasion of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini and the revolutionary regime managed to rally a fragmented nation around the revolutionary leadership. The revolutionary leadership also managed to keep the remains of the Imperial Army busy at the fronts and effectively out of politics. The invasion also gave the regime the necessary excuse of suppressing popular demand for political freedoms with reference to the state of emergency.

[nuconvert]

So sad to think how many hundreds of thousands of lives were wasted May of 1982

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

30 years? The war ended in 1988, which is 22 years.

[nuconvert]

yeah, he didn’t phrase that correctly....30 yrs after the start of the war in 1980.
Then again, i didn’t do much better in my initial comment above either. lol. I was referring to the 6 yrs of war between 1982 & 1988.

More coffee...Stat!

[Senator John Blutarski]

I highly recommend the book “The Longest War” by Dilip Hiro. It provides very interesting and important insights into the Iran/Iraq war and, although published prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, reveals what was very likely Saddam Hussein’s true motive for doing so.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Yep, Hiro's book is in my military history library.

I've always found the Iran-Iraq War very fascinating since it essentially was fought using a combination of ground tactics from both World Wars coupled with modern technology.

In the air war, the use of SCUDs by both sides was reminiscent of Hitler's V-2 strikes on Antwerp and London, while the Iranian F-14A Tomcats wreaked havoc with the Iraqi Air Force.

Good reading and worthy of far more research and analysis than has previously been done.

[bayouranger]

Add to that the amount of children the Iranians employed as mine field martyrs for frontal attacks against Iraqi positions.

Blew em up to allah.

Sweet of those koranimals to use the power of inshallah to get them airborne.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks to the Iraqi invasion of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini and the revolutionary regime managed to rally a fragmented nation around the revolutionary leadership. The revolutionary leadership also managed to keep the remains of the Imperial Army busy at the fronts and effectively out of politics. The invasion also gave the regime the necessary excuse of suppressing popular demand for political freedoms with reference to the state of emergency.

The fanatics were fed to the guns -- and that's true on both sides, but the Iranian dead were far more numerous, and they didn't father a generation of fanatics; this will be better in the middle term. Thanks nuconvert.