Two Wars — The Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War

When revolution transformed Iran into a religious state, a single dictator watched the turmoil with cold eyes from Iraq, the neighbor sharing its western border. His name was Saddam Hussein.

In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Iran’s army and society alike were in the depths of chaos. Saddam saw it as “the chance of a lifetime.” Fear that the revolution’s fire might leap across to his own Shia population, and the ambition to seize territory and supremacy amid the disorder — these two impulses drove him on. From here, the Middle East would be engulfed in the flames of war for more than a decade.

Eight Years in the Mire — The Iran–Iraq War

In September 1980, Saddam’s Iraq invaded Iran. The immediate spark was a long-running dispute over control of the Shatt al-Arab, the river that flows between the two countries. This waterway was a vital artery for oil shipments emptying into the Persian Gulf, and rich oil fields stretched along both its banks. Saddam reckoned that with Iran weakened by revolution, he could win quickly.

But his calculation was wrong. Attacked from outside, Iran instead saw its unity behind the revolution and its patriotism flare up. Iraq pushed in during the opening battles, but Iran drove them back, and the front lines stalled. Trench warfare, human-wave assaults, and the use of poison gas — a ghastly war of attrition reminiscent of the First World War — would drag on for eight long years.

This war has another side that should not be overlooked: the surrounding great powers backed Iraq, each for their own calculations. Countries wary of revolutionary Iran’s “anti-American, anti-Western” stance, and the oil-producing Gulf states that feared the spread of the Shia revolution, indirectly propped up Saddam’s Iraq with money and supplies. As a “breakwater” against the runaway revolution, Saddam was being used. Yet this arrangement would produce an unexpected backlash after the war.

When the Strait of Hormuz Trembled — The Tanker War

As the ground war stalled, the stage of battle shifted to the sea. Seeking to sever the oil exports that were each other’s economic lifeline, the two countries began attacking the oil tankers sailing the Persian Gulf. This was the “Tanker War.”

The trigger came in 1984, when Iraq struck Kharg Island, Iran’s largest export terminal, along with its tankers. Saddam’s aim was blatant: by making the passage of oil dangerous, he hoped to drag the oil-hungry consuming nations into the war and force a settlement on terms favorable to Iraq.

Every time a tanker burned, the crude market shuddered. Unable to bear it, shipowners demanded protection, and the United States launched an operation to reflag Kuwaiti tankers under its own flag and escort them. The warships of the great powers gathered in the Persian Gulf, and tension reached its peak. In 1988, the two countries at last accepted a UN ceasefire resolution, and the long war ended with no victor.

An Invasion Born of Debt — The Gulf War

After eight years of war, Iraq was buried under enormous debt. Much of it came from the Gulf oil producers wary of revolutionary Iran — Kuwait and Saudi Arabia above all. Even with the war over, the treasury was empty, and there was no prospect of recovery.

Saddam turned his sights on the small neighbor of Kuwait. “Kuwait is boosting its oil output to drive prices down and strangle Iraq.” “From the oil field in the border zone, Kuwait is stealing Iraqi oil.” Making such claims, he sought to wipe out his debts and seize the oil fields all at once. On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi army poured into Kuwait and overran the entire country in mere hours.

A sovereign state annexing its neighbor whole by force — this was an outrage the post–Cold War world could not tolerate. If Kuwait fell, then the vast oil fields of Saudi Arabia beyond it would be threatened too. With the very foundation of the world’s oil supply at stake, the international community moved in unison.

The UN Security Council condemned Iraq and imposed economic sanctions. When it became clear that Saddam would still not withdraw, U.S. President Bush took the lead in forming a “multinational coalition” that brought together the armies of many nations. In this period just after the Cold War’s end, the great powers of East and West — once adversaries — standing on the same side was hailed as a symbol of a new international order.

In January 1991, the coalition launched Operation Desert Storm under the banner of liberating Kuwait. After days of missiles and air strikes pounded Iraq’s chain of command, ground forces advanced all at once. Before overwhelming firepower, the Iraqi army collapsed in short order and withdrew from Kuwait. It was also the first large-scale war whose images television broadcast to the world in near real time.

The Flames That Turned the Sky Black

But Saddam left one last, ghastly parting gift. As the Iraqi army retreated, it set fire to oil fields all across Kuwait. Hundreds of wells blazed at once, and the billowing black smoke turned day into night. Soot mixed with the rain to fall as black rain, and the crude that gushed out polluted the Persian Gulf. Extinguishing the fires is said to have taken more than half a year.

The two wars showed that the Middle East had become a land where “people shed each other’s blood over the wealth of oil.” Wealth bred not unity but suspicion and strife, and that in turn invited the intervention of the great powers. This chain did not end here.

The Gulf War left another heavy legacy. The American forces that had deployed to Saudi Arabia to defend Kuwait continued to be stationed in the land even after the war. The army of an infidel great power planting itself in the land that holds Islam’s holy sites — this fact, it has been pointed out, gave a certain radical faction a pretext for “anti-Americanism,” and led on to the international terrorism of later years. Here lay a dead-end structure in which a military presence meant to protect oil bred new tinder for hatred.

Kuwait was liberated, but the Saddam regime remained in Baghdad. And the mood that regarded him as “a threat to the world” went on smoldering quietly within the United States. The next war would begin more than a decade later, under the banner of “weapons of mass destruction.”