Iraq/Iran Quiz

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36 Terms

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Persians

  • Iran used to be called Persia

  • Iranians are not arabs, they are persians; they do not like to be put in the same category just because they both originate from the middle east

  • Originate in Zagros mountains; population mostly lives in mountains

  • Iran is geopolitically self contained, difficult to traverse/control, and made up of multiple different ethnicities with Persians making up the majority 61%

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Nationalization of oil industry

  • Partnership with Great Britain

  • GB in Iran struck a deal to dig for oil; the British had the much better deal (GB helps to pull oil out of the ground and gets the majority profit).

  • 1908; first oil field in mid east (Iran)

  • AIOC: anglo Iranian oil company, changes name in 1954 to British Petroleum

  • Mossadegh

  • Elected and wanted to nationalize the oil industry and remove GB, results in Gb losing its investment

  • Leads to Operation Ajax

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Mohammad Mossadegh

  • First ever democratically elected; 1953

  • Very popular! Cover of Times Magazine as man of the year

  • Attempts to nationalize AIOC and remove GB from Iran

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Operation Ajax (1953)

  • Eisenhower sends Kermet Roosevelt to be CIA leader of Coup of Mossadegh = Operation Ajax

  • GB comes to US under Eisenhower and says Mossadengh is a communist to try and get the US to invade and do a coup so GB can control oil again.GB tried the same thing to

  • US under Truman; he said no and the US would not invade a democracy

  • However Eisenhowever says he will

  • Has large budget for this which was given to Roosevelt by the US government who gets money from taxpayers…

  • Stage 1: Propaganda; US starts propaganda campaign saying Mossadegh was communist (people believed this because Mossadegh had just nationalized oil industry)

  • Stage 2: Shah denounces; US supports and backs Reza Shah and convinces him to go for leader, military partially sides with him and believes mossadegh is a communist; Shah signed decree discrediting/denouncing Mossadegh from office

  • Stage 3: Pay mobs; the CIA hires mobs which leads to street fights and 300 casualties

  • Stage 4: Shah is back: American backed general takes control as Shah, Mossadegh steps down and Reza Shah takes his place, gave foreigners contracts to have access to oil in Iran

  • Shah became a brutal dictator

  • Many americans still don't know about this

  • US overthrows democratically elected leader and puts dictator in place

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Kermit Roosevelt

  • CIA agent that led Operation Ajax

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Blowback from Ajax

  • Hostage Crisis

  • Ayatollah rises to power

  • Creates islamist theocracy

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Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

  • US backed general that denounced Mossadegh and gained power of Iran through US

  • Extremely violent and brutal ruler

  • Friendly with US; good for women, westernize, wear jeans

  • Takes money for himself

  • Iranians don't benefit from oil

  • Industrialization was beneficial in some ways but also produced social inequalities

  • Dictator

  • Viewed as successful and did more coups of democratic leaders (until 1979)

  • US biggest ally in middle east; US sold Iran its first nuclear technology and now say Iran cant have them

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Savak

  • Secret police of Reza shah

  • oppressive

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Basij

  • Recruited young boys/teens as martyrs and sent them into war on the front lines barely armed (Iraqi soldiers wouldn’t shoot at little boys with no weapons running at them).

  • Keys to heaven; little kids were given a key when they went to war and it was advertised that they would go to heaven for becoming a martyr

  • Iran shias; first ever to do suicide bombings

  • Human waves; children on front, second lines of soldiers would shoot/take weapons

  • Effective but terrible

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Iranian Revolution (1979)

  • Shah is overthrown during revolution, forced into exile

  • He is given refuge in the US (Jimmy Carter was president); he originally said no, but was pressured because the shah apparently had cancer

  • Iranians upset by this because they think the US will back the Shah again and put him back into power

  • Shah leaving Iran opens a power vacuum…

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Iran Hostage Crisis (1979)

  • Happened because the shah was in the US

  • Iranians overtook the US embassy in Iran and held the workers there for 444 days

  • Hostages were never killed/tortured

  • Held to ensure the US would not back the Shah again

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Ayatollah Khomeini

  • Khomeini = first -> Khameini = current

  • Came to power post Iranian revolution

  • Ayatollah is a title; Iran/Islamist

  • Nothing happens in Iran without approval of ayatollah, total control

  • Iran is currently a radical theocracy

  • Iran could have been stable democracy today if US had not overthrown democracy

  • Women lost rights; education, clothing, jobs, veiled

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Islamist theocracy (iran)

  • Current state of Iran

  • Extremely unstable; islamist president using the religion to justify actions

  • There is a president but he does nothing; ayatollah has all power

  • Quran is basis of law (interpretation)

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Role of women

  • Shah (pre 1979); women had lots of rights; Shah was big of westernization so women were educated, could wear whatever, had jobs, and pretty much all rights

  • Ayatollah (post 1979); severely oppressed; veiled, no longer educated, no jobs, very heavy restrictions

  • Opinions; some women protest who want change and liberation; some want to return to conservative values

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Arabs

  • Iraq

  • Differs from persians

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Kurds

  • Ethnic group that makes up 10% of Iran

  • Iraq has 3 major ethnic groups; sunnis, shiites, and kurds are the other

  • Minority

  • non arab ethnic group; fighting for autocracy within Iraq for years and have begun attacking Iraqi targets; Iran also had population of kurds and did not give them self rule, yet helped the kurds in Iraq

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Saddam Hussein

  • Sunni leader of majority Shia Iraq country

  • Hated; executed because he used chemical weapons against his people

  • Under him, iraq invaded iran and kuwait

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Why did Iraq invade Iran?

  1. Iran is unstable, Hussein (appointed to power) wanted to take advantage of this

  2. Iran is primarily Shia; Iraq has 3 major ethnic groups (Kurds, sunni arabs (hussein), and shia arabs); Hussein is afraid of Shia uprising because it was destabilize his country

  3. Oil; waterways, territory

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What were the global sides of the war?

  • Iraq is aggressor but Arab nations secretly support Iraq; Sunni countries worried that Shias in Iran would create threat to Shias

  • US sided w/ Iraq and gave Hussein weapons; because Iran HATES US, so US cant let them win

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Key events of Iraq/Iran War

  • Iran encourages Shiites in Iraq ro rise up against Hussein (basij)

  • Iraq initial blitz failed, Hussein poor leadership

  • Oil field destroyed; hussein used chemical weapons

  • US accidentally shot down Iranian civilian plane IR655 (1988); all passengers died

  • Ceasefire in 1988 organized by the UN

  • No territory change post war; 1 million casualties

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Iran/Iraq War

Iraq invades Iran, extremely brutal war

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Persian Gulf

  • Major gulf/water way

  • Good for exporting oil

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Shatt al-Arab waterway

  • Fought over territory between Iraq/Iran

  • Iraq's only access to water (to persian gulf)

  • Bottleneck point

  • Near major oil mines

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First Gulf War (1991)

  • Iraq agrees to withdraw troops from Iran and share shatt al arab waterway; ends the Iran/Iraq war

  • 2 years post war (1990) Hussein invaded Kuwait; many arabs sided with Kuwait, fellow Sunni nation

  • US and allies engaged in military action to restore nation of Kuwait, which Iraq had invaded in a dispute over land and oil reserves

  • Saddam (Iraq) attacked Kuwait; UN called for withdraw from Kuwait and Iraq refused declaring it was annexing Kuwait

  • UN passed resolution 661; trade/financial sanctions of Iraq cutting Iraq off from marketing world

  • Under George H.W. Bush (1924) US organized coalition of countries to help Kuwait

  • Operation Desert Storm; offensive campaign to get Iraq out of Kuwait; defeated within 100 hours

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President George HW Bush (Sr)

  • Should the US remove Hussein?

  • He said no; it would go against UN mandate, the way we want to present ourselves internationally; some administration disagreed and wanted to remove Hussein

  • speech

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Operation Desert Storm

  • For the first time, US troops land on Saudi Arab soil to prepare for attack on Iraq

  • Iraq (Hussein) used foreigners as “human shields”

  • US and allies initiated Operation desert storm; Iraq defeated in 100 hours

  • Iraq set oil fields on fire in Kuwait as they retreated

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sanctions; weapons inspectors

  • Post war, Hussein was forced to comply with UN weapons inspectors to ensure that he was not making mass amounts of nuclear and chemical weapons

  • Periodically he would comply, then throw inspectors out

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Iraq War (2003-2011)

  • Post 9/11; US invades Afghanistan

  • US citizens were told Hussein had links to Osama Bin Laden and that he was harboring large amounts of WMD

  • Rest of the world did not approve of this, meaning US makes unilateral decision (wrong one)

  • US and allies attacked Iraq, claiming that is had WMD

  • George W Bush (jr) as president; rehired some of his fathers administration who believed they needed to take out Hussein

  • Post 9/11; US terrified of threat of WMD, believed Hussein was harboring them, US tried to form coalition but UN said no

  • US and British coalition invaded Iraq; ended Hussein dictatorship; US did not leave Iraq immediately because it had no gov/leader

  • US started to isolate the Sunni; internal issues

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Significance of Iraq War

  1. Rise of ISIS: Bush (Sr) quote; all his fears came true (occupied Iraq for period)

  2. You have to be cautious when deciding to invade countries

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Operation Iraqi Freedom

  • Part of Iraq war

  • US invasion plan of Iraq

  • Initial invasion was success but sectarian violence flared without a stable government, lack of security opened up a power vacuum

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President George W Bush (Jr)

  • Agreed to invade Iraq; something his father was strongly against

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WMD (weapons of mass destruction)

  1. Biological weapons (disease)

  2. Chemical weapons (gas)

  3. Nuclear weapons

  • Believed that Hussein was harboring large amounts of WMD (why US invaded Iraq), however this supposed stockpile was never found

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Iraqi sectarian civil war (2006-2008)

  • US trying to allow Iraq to set up a democracy (good for Shias who are majority population), results in whole country falling apart

  • Majority shias want democracy; tension between Shia, Sunni, and Kurds

  • ISIS filled instability/power vacuum (took over huge sections of Iraq)

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Rise of ISIS (how it formed)

  • Iraqi military officers decide they do not want sunnis in military so make it very difficult for them to participate and get other jobs

  • Most people in ISI are former Iraqi Sunnis who are angry about not having position in government

  • 2007/2008 Iraq Civil War

  • Grew out of power vacuum from US invasion in 2003 

  • Iraq, under US supervision, implements democracy, leading to Shia control of Iraq

  • Disaffected Iraqi Sunnis, who had been leading government and military officials

  • Had been allied with Al Qaeda; but since they targeted fellow Muslims, Al Qaeda declared them too violent

  • Withdrawal of US troops in Iraq and chaos of Syria leads to opportunity

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Rise of ISIS (Arab spring)

  • 2010; pro democracy movement to rid mid east countries of dictators that have been there for a long time

  • Tunisia, then egypt, then libia, then Syria

  • Syria falls into civil war; Iraq/Syria unstable = power vacuum

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ISIS

  • = Islamic State of Iraq & Syria

  • Islamist group; terrorist, goal is to create caliphate (sunni) and restore the islamic empire

  • Sold oil on black market for funding; controlled cities

  • Not as much a threat now