Persian Gulf Security and the Iran-Iraq War

Gulf Security Key Factors

• regional subsystem within the international state system

• subsystems have their own greater and lesser powers and alliance patterns

Contemporary intl poiltics of Gulf shaped by which 2 events in the 1970s?

1. British withdrawal

2. rise in oil prices

• before 70’s, these states had limited power and influence beyond their borders

  • after Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia vastly increased their military and economic power, their foreign policy became much more ambitious

British protectorates in Persin Gulf

• Oman

• Kuwait

• Trucial States

balance of power

• theory: states will seek to match perceived threats from rival states by increasing their military and economic strength and by forming alliances

• Balancing power requires states to match an opponent’s strength

• try to block any state that pursues an aggressive foreign policy/seeks to disrupt the existing equilibrium

• regime security and traditional security concerns both continue to determine foreign policy choices

• in Gulf region, realist and balance of power approaches provide a necessary but NOT sufficient framework → domestic issues must also be considered

international powers and domestic security

• Iraq launched wars in 1980 and 1990: to solidify claim as a major regional power, but also in fear of regime security

• 1979: post Saddam’s rise to power, Iraqi Shi’a groups call for government's overthrow; Iran calls for exporting Islamic Revolution

• Iran-Iraq War (1980-88): Saddam Hussein chose war: domestic unrest in Iraq seen as orchestrated in Tehran in wake of Iranian revolution (1979)

• Gulf War (1990-91): Hussein’s regime saw an international conspiracy against it: rising Kuwait and Emirati oil exports and US-Israeli plans to strike Iraqi WMD targets

Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) (Takeyh)

• post 1979, Iran lacked a backing from a superpower, reliable source of arms, and dependable allies

• Iran new regime still managed to consolidate democratic political power and mobilize society

• Takeyh comments how Iranian elites didn’t see it as an interstate conflict fought for territorial adjustment or limited political objectives, but a contest of ideologies

• The war became an extension of the 1979 Islamic revolution: ideological fervour against Iraq’s tecchnological superiority

Lead up to war

• 1975 Algiers Agreement: Iraq agrees to the Iranian definition of borders, Iran agrees to stop supporting Kurdish insurgency in Iraq

• before war, multiple border skirmishes sustained Iranian propaganda against Saddam

• in addition to his fears, Saddam coveted Iran’s oil-rich, ethically Arab Khuzestan province

misperception and war

• misperception by key decision makers often explain failed offences

• Saddam in 1980 made some key miscalculations

  • expected Iranians in border ares to rise up against Islamic Republic (they didn’t)

  • expected his military to smash through Iranian defences and quickly win (they didn’t)

  • he thought new Iranian government would lack resolve when faced with iraqi army’s might (they didn’t)

Iran’s ideological resolve

• Khomeini: You are fighting to protect Islam and [Suddam Hussein] fighting to destroy it

• Saddam’s secular regime was portrayed as an infidel invader

• Iranian leadership had “maximalist aim” of defeating Iraq and overthrowing Ba’athist government

• Martyrdom and collective sacrifice portrayed as a means towards spiritual elevation of Iranian body-politic

• this culminated in use of human-wave tactics for attacking Iraqi positions, clearing minefields

goals and international dimentions

• speaker of parliment Hashemi Rafanjani in 1980: see as an American war, thus why natural for Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others to support Iraq

• iran demonized Gulf Sheikhdoms, why Western European states supported Iraq

• Saddam Hussein saw war as chance to establish Iraq as leader of the Arab world

• both sides rejected efforts of mediation, cease-fire, compromise, by UN, PLO, and others

ideology, misperception, and prolonging war

• Mar1982: losing, Saddam suggests both sides withdraw to pre-war borders

• June 1982: Iran expelled Iraqi forces from its territory

• Rafsanjani: Imam commanded that no one should speak of a cease-fire and war must achieve its goals

• Takeyh: goal of exporting the revolutions of the war became a consensus position within the Islamic Republic

• Iran leadership thought could win swift victory, wanted to overthrow Saddam, saw war as a unifying principle for new regime

escalation and endgame

• 1984: first recorded use of chemical weapons in Iraq

• 1985: “War of the Cities”: both target each others population centres with surface to surface missiles

• Feb 1986: Iraq bombs Iranian oil-loading ports

• Aug 1986: Iran seizes ultra-strategic al-Faw peninsuala and western bank of Shatt al-Arab river

• April 1988: Iraq launches massive attack to retake al-Faw

• Aug 1988: both agree to implement a cease-fire

• final death toll estimated to exceed 1 million