Ba’ath Party

Ba’ath Party

The Ba’ath (“Renaissance” in Arabic) was a pan-Arab political party founded by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din Bitar. From Syria, Aflaq (1910–89) came from a Greek Orthodox family; he studied at the Sorbonne and became a teacher in a well-known secondary school in Damascus. Bitar (1912–80), from a prominent Damascene Sunni Muslim family, also studied in France and taught at the same school as Aflaq.

In 1940 they led a small group known as the Movement of Arab Renaissance, or Ba’ath, that professed a pan-Arab, anti-imperialism program. Aflaq was the preeminent ideologue of the party, which published a series of papers dealing with Arab nationalism, Arab union, and Arab socialism, as opposed to a strictly Marxist ideology. The party’s motto was “Unity, Freedom, Socialism.”

In 1947 the group merged with another nationalist party to form the Arab Ba’ath Party. The new party attracted members including nationalistic youth; disaffected minorities, especially the Alawites in Syria; and young army officers.


In 1953 the party unified with Akram Hourani’s Arab Socialist Party to become the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party. A popular nationalist, Hourani had a far wider following than Aflaq, and his participation in the party enlarged its support and membership.

The party was organized into cells on the grassroots level, giving it considerable flexibility. Groups of cells (two to seven) were formed into party divisions that merged into party sections representing entire towns or rural districts and, at the highest level, party branches. At periodic party congresses all the party branches met. The national command was the executive that exercised considerable power from the top down.

In 1958 the Ba’ath strongly supported the creation of the United Arab Republic but became disenchanted with having to take a secondary role to that of Nasser and Egypt. The Ba’ath supported Syria’s withdrawal from the union in 1961, and a military coup in 1963 brought the Ba’ath into power. Bitar and Aflaq both supported the so-called civilian wing of the party versus the military wing, but they were outmaneuvered in 1966.

Although he retained the title of secretary-general of the party, Aflaq held no real power and went into exile. He ultimately moved to Baghdad in 1974, where he enjoyed considerable respect but no real power. In 1989 Aflaq died, whereupon the Iraqi regime announced that he had converted to Islam prior to his death.

After considerable infighting among Ba’athist officers in Syria, Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1970 and proceeded to establish a regime that lasted into the 21st century. Bitar split from the party owing to disagreements with the Assad regime; he went into exile in Paris, where he was assassinated—possibly by Syrian intelligence—in 1980.

The Ba’ath established branches in Jordan, Lebanon, North and South Yemen, and other Arab states. Al-Saiqa was the Palestinian branch of the Ba’ath under control of Syria. Although these separate branches played some limited political roles in their respective countries, Syria and Iraq remained the centers of the party’s power.

In Iraq the Ba’ath Party came to power in 1963 under Abd al-Salem Arif, but internal disputes again led to its loss of power. Under General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, who led a military coup in 1968, the Ba’ath returned to power. Although most Iraqi Ba’athists were not professional soldiers, they attracted considerable support from the military.

Bakr’s main protégé, Saddam Hussein, a committed Ba’athist, ousted his mentor from power in 1979. Assad in Syria and Hussein in Iraq became bitter rivals, but both claimed to represent the real Ba’ath Party. Although both leaders professed their commitment to pan-Arabism, they adopted increasingly nationalistic policies to retain power. The Ba’ath Party in Iraq was dismantled after the U.S. invasion in 2003 but remained in power under Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Baghdad Pact/CENTO

Baghdad Pact/CENTO

The Baghdad Pact, also known as the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO) and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was a mutual defense treaty that aimed to encircle the southwestern flank of the Soviet Union. The United States viewed the treaty, similar to NATO, as a means to prevent possible Soviet expansion into the vital oil-producing region of the Middle East during the cold war. It also enabled the United States to establish a military presence in member nations.

CENTO began with a series of treaties of mutual cooperation between the United States, Pakistan, and Turkey in 1954 and a military assistance agreement with Iraq in the same year. In 1955 Turkey and Iraq signed a mutual defense treaty creating the foundation for the Baghdad Pact. In the same year Britain, Iran, and Pakistan joined the Baghdad Pact, which guaranteed economic and military assistance to any country in the pact that was threatened by communism.

In 1958 a coup in Iraq ousted the pro-Western government, and the following year Iraq withdrew from the treaty, prompting the change of its name to the Central Treaty Organization. The effectiveness of CENTO was lessened during the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971; neither party to the treaty rushed to assist Pakistan even though India was at the time an ally of the Soviet Union.


Following the overthrow of the proWestern Pahlavi dynasty and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, Iran also withdrew from CENTO. Along with the failure of CENTO members to assist Pakistan, the withdrawal of Iran and Iraq from the treaty led to the treaty’s demise.

Iraq Revolution

Iraq Revolution

The Hashemite dynasty in Iraq was overthrown in a bloody revolution in 1958. A group of disgruntled nationalistic army officers headed by General Abdul Karim Qassem and Colonel Abd al-Salam Arif copied the takeover of the Egyptian government by the Free Officers, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, in 1952. On July 14, 1958, the Iraqi forces took over the radio station, post office, royal palace, and government centers in Baghdad.

The royal family was killed. Nuri al-Said, the grand old man of Iraqi politics who had served as prime minister on numerous occasions, was captured trying to escape disguised as a woman and was torn apart by an angry mob.

As violence mounted in the capital, the officers declared martial law and established a three-person sovereignty council of one Kurd, one Sunni, and one Shi’i, in an attempt to include the main sectarian groups in Iraq.


Qassem became prime minister and minister of defense. Show trials were held of members of the ancien régime, and the new government announced its intention to purge the system of corruption and imperial control.

Qassem was a notable champion for the poor and strongly supported eradicating the slum areas around Baghdad and providing low-cost housing. Under a new land reform program, property confiscated from the old ruling class was distributed to the peasants but without the formation of cooperatives or government planning as in Egypt. As a result, there was a decline in agricultural productivity.

The new regime also focused on improving and widening access to education. In a highly popular move most of the oil industry, Iraq’s major source of income, was taken over. Politically Qassem played the Iraqi communists against the Arab nationalist forces, especially the Ba’ath Party.

The new Iraqi regime supported both the Palestinian and Algerian nationalist movements and withdrew from the hated Western-dominated CENTO, or Baghdad Pact. Internationally it drew closer to the Soviet Union. In the era of cold war politics the West, especially the United States, viewed the Iraqi revolution as a victory for the Soviets and blamed Nasser for the overthrow of the old monarchy.

Although Nasser initially supported the new regime and was pleased at the collapse of the Hashemite monarchy, he had not actually been behind the takeover. Hoping to enlarge the pan-Arab movement and convince Iraq to join the United Arab Republic, Nasser invited Qassem to Egypt on several occasions, but Qassem found excuses to refuse, and the relationship between the two nations grew increasingly hostile.

Suspected of plotting a coup, Arif was arrested in late 1958, but Qassem pardoned his old ally and permitted him to leave for Europe. Several attempted coups and an attempted assassination of Qassem by Ba’athists failed in 1959.

Saddam Hussein was one of the plotters behind the failed assassination, and he subsequently fled to Egypt. Relationships between the government and the Kurds, led by Mustafa Barzani, also soured, and by 1961 a full-scale war was being waged between the Iraqi army and Kurdish nationalist forces.

In the face of mounting political instability, Qassem’s personal behavior became more erratic. After Britain declared Kuwait an independent country, Qassem claimed it as an integral part of Iraq in 1961. British and Saudi troops moved into Kuwait to protect it, and Iraq was forced to withdraw its claim and recognize Kuwait as an independent nation.

In 1963 a coup by army officers, including Arif, overthrew Qassem, who was taken prisoner. Although he pleaded for his life, Qassem was executed on orders given by Arif. Abd al-Salam Arif died in 1966, and his brother Abd al-Rahman Arif succeeded him, but the regime was plagued by political instability and the ongoing conflict with the Kurds.

In the summer of 1968 Ba’athists led by Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr took over. To protect the new Ba’ath regime from domestic opposition, Bakr had his protégé Hussein control the internal security forces. Hussein gradually consolidated his power within the party and ruthlessly eliminated potential enemies.

The new regime instituted a more far-reaching land reform program and nationalized the oil industry in 1972. Escalating oil revenues in the 1970s were used to build infrastructure, including road and communication lines, and to modernize the education and health care systems.

The regime also negotiated a settlement with the Kurds, who obtained an autonomous region in the north. Relations with the Soviet Union were also strengthened. In 1979 Bakr, who had been in poor health for some time, stepped down in favor of Hussein, who ruled Iraq until his regime was overthrown in a U.S.-led military invasion in 2003.

First Gulf War

First Gulf War

The First Gulf War was fought by a coalition of forces from 34 countries against Iraq in 1991 in response to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The war began because of several crises stemming from the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88. The Iran-Iraq War ended on August 8, 1988.

Iraq was left with huge debts, largely to other Arab nations that had helped to finance the war, and extensive material damage; however, the Iraqi military had benefited from the war by becoming the strongest military force in the Gulf region.

Immediately following the cessation of the Iran-Iraq War, the Kuwaiti government made the disastrous decision to increase its oil production in violation of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) agreements.


The Kuwaitis increased oil extraction from the Rumaila oil wells, which lay on disputed territory with neighboring Iraq. Iraqi revenues were 90 percent dependent on oil, and the Kuwaiti increase in oil production helped to lower oil prices and slowly began to strangle Iraq economically.

Kuwait’s leaders, the Al-Sabah family, ignored Iraq’s protestations. Until the early 20th century Kuwait had been a semi-independent emirate administered from Baghdad under the Ottoman Empire.

During the 19th century British influence in the Gulf and in Kuwait in particular increased, and after World War I Britain was responsible for drawing the borders between the two nations. Although Iraq ultimately established diplomatic relations with Kuwait, many Iraqis continued to view it as part of Iraq.

Strategic Access

Iraq also owed $14 billion from the Iran-Iraq War to Kuwait; Iraq had expected that Kuwait would cancel the debt since Iraq had fought and suffered during the long war with Iran while the oil-rich nations in the region had helped to finance the struggle.

However, Kuwait not only refused to cancel the debt, it demanded its immediate repayment. During the Iran-Iraq War many of Iraq’s limited port facilities in the Shatt al-Arab were destroyed, leaving Iraq almost landlocked. Kuwait had greater strategic access to the Persian Gulf, which Iraq viewed as essential were hostilities to erupt again with Iran.

From 1988 to 1990, Saddam Hussein increased his threats against Kuwait, asking for cancellation of Iraq’s debts. He also sought help from King Hussein of Jordan to mediate the problems. In July 1990 Saddam met with U.S. ambassador April Glaspie and stated his grievances regarding Kuwait; Glaspie gave him a controversial response that he took to mean that the United States would not become involved in the dispute if he took stronger steps to rectify the problem. On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Kuwaiti oil fields on fire

The Iraqi military quickly overran and occupied all of Kuwait, and the ruling family fled the country. Hussein justified the invasion based on Kuwait’s slant-drilling into Iraqi oil fields across the border, as well as his complaints over debt cancellation.

He also appealed to Arab nationalism, claiming that Kuwait was part of Iraq, calling it the 19th province of Iraq. Immediately after the invasion the United Nations (UN) passed Resolution 660 condemning the invasion and demanding an immediate withdrawal. UN Resolution 661 then imposed economic sanctions on Iraq.

Saudi Arabia was alarmed by the invasion and the mounting power of the Iraqi military, which was within striking distance of the vast Saudi Hama oil wells. In Operation Desert Shield, begun on August 7, 1990, the U.S. military beefed up its forces in Arabia to defend its Saudi ally from a possible Iraqi attack. In addition, the UN placed a January 15, 1991, deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.

The United States and the UN assembled a coalition force of 34 countries to implement this resolution by force should Iraq fail to comply. On January 12, 1991, the U.S. Congress narrowly approved the use of U.S. military force in an operation against Iraq.

When Iraq failed to comply with the January 15 deadline, coalition forces initiated Operation Desert Storm on January 17, 1991, with a massive monthlong air campaign against Baghdad and much of Iraq. The air attacks, over 1,000 in number, disabled military and communication installations and severely weakened the Iraqi military and infrastructure.

Coalition forces launched a ground attack, Operation Desert Sabre, on February 24, 1991; they quickly overwhelmed the thinly stretched Iraqi forces, and after only 100 hours President George H. W. Bush declared a cease-fire.

Iraqi troops hastily retreated back across the border, setting Kuwaiti oil fields on fire as they withdrew. This caused massive environmental damage that persisted into the 21st century. Iraqi troops also dumped approximately 1 million tons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf.

The quick victory was a surprise, and the war ended sooner than predicted. Kuwait City was recaptured, and on February 27, 1991, Kuwait was officially liberated and the Iraq-Kuwait border was restored. However, Saddam Hussein was not captured, and he remained in power.

Allied forces did not pursue him and did not try to occupy Iraq, although they did advance to within 150 miles of the capital of Baghdad. President Bush justified this decision by noting that the goal of the coalition had been to liberate Kuwait.

However, the U.S. administration hoped that continued economic sanctions against Iraq, as well as assistance for resistance groups within Iraq (such as Shi’i and Kurdish factions), would lead the Iraqi people to revolt against Hussein and oust him from power. But Hussein ruthlessly repressed any uprisings.

Although the sanctions caused the deaths of an estimated 500,000 Iraqis, mostly women and children, they had little effect on Hussein’s regime, which actually extended its political control over a nation badly crippled by years of war.

Thus the First Gulf War was a military success, succeeding in liberating Kuwait, but it did not change the Iraqi regime. Consequently the United States, Great Britain, and a small number of other nations moved to oust Hussein and occupy Iraq in the Second Gulf War, beginning in 2003.

Second Gulf War (Iraq War)

Second Gulf War

The invasion of Iraq officially began on March 20, 2003, under the name “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” The stated justification for the invasion was that Saddam Hussein, ruler of Iraq, had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and supported terrorism, and that the Iraqi people were suffering under his tyranny and needed to be freed.

The United States contended that Iraq was in violation of both United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1441 and the terms of the 1991 cease-fire agreement, which ended hostilities after Desert Storm. Both of these documents prohibited Iraq from possessing or researching WMDs.

Saddam’s links to terror were indirect and centered mostly on monetary rewards provided to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and to the families of the “victims of Israeli aggression.” Allegations that Saddam was linked in some way to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were never supported by evidence.


A “Coalition of the Willing” was created by the United States in the time after September 11, 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 though 98 percent of the Coalition troops were British and American. The Coalition forces assembled for the attack on Iraq numbered just under 300,000.

The Iraqi army numbered 390,000 soldiers, plus 44,000 Fedayeen and potentially 650,000 reserves. The 2003 invasion was not preceded by an extended bombing campaign, as was the 1991 attack. The strategy for the 2003 invasion depended on speed and precision strikes to destroy Iraqi command rapidly enough to ensure that the defenses would quickly collapse.

A primary strategic goal of the Coalition was to limit damage to Iraq’s oil production capability; key sites related to the oil industry were to be secured as quickly as possible. The course of the invasion was designed to prevent both the destruction of oil sites and to limit the Iraqi army’s ability to concentrate their defenses.

Iraq War

The U.S. Army moved west through the Iraqi desert and then headed north toward Baghdad while the marines moved directly toward Baghdad along the main Iraqi Highway One. British forces concentrated on securing southeastern Iraq, particularly the Basra area. Major actions took place at Nasiriyah and Karbala where the Iraqis defended important crossroads and bridges over the Euphrates River.

In the third week of the invasion, U.S. forces entered Baghdad. Raids called “Thunder Runs” were launched on April 5 and 7 to test Iraqi defenses in the capital and to capture the key objectives of the Baghdad Airport and Saddam’s palace complex. The city of Baghdad was formally occupied on April 9.

Saddam was declared deposed and went into hiding, and many Iraqis rejoiced by defacing his monuments. The initial invasion had lasted a mere 21 days. Looting followed the fall of the regime, with store goods, museum items, and military arms and equipment being targeted, as did outbreaks of violence between tribes and cities based on old grudges.

Coalition troops began searching for Saddam, Iraqi politicians and leaders of the Ba’ath Party, military leaders, and Saddam’s family members. On July 22, 2003, Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay, along with a grandson, were killed during a standoff at their fortified safe house in Mosul.

Saddam was captured on December 13, 2003, near his hometown of Tikrit. In all, 300 top leaders from Saddam’s regime were killed or captured along with a large number of lower-level troops and government officials.

After the fall of Baghdad and Saddam’s regime, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was formed to run Iraq until power could be turned over to the Iraqis. The CPA was led by Paul Bremer. The CPA officially controlled Iraq from April 21, 2003, until June 28, 2004.

The CPA opposed holding elections in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam and wanted to hand power over to an appointed interim Iraqi government, which would be chosen by the Coalition. A second group formed in early 2003 was the Iraq Survey Group (ISG).

Iraq

The ISG was charged with finding the WMDs that Iraq was alleged to possess. They could not find any WMDs or programs to build them even though Iraq was known to have had nuclear, biological, ballistic missile, and chemical weapons programs prior to the 1991 Gulf War.

The media explored a new format to cover the war by “embedding” journalists inside military units. The war also saw for the first time soldiers instantly reporting their activities by means of digital cameras, cell phones, and the Internet.

Uncensored soldiers’ stories, photos, Web blogs, and movies became available shortly after events took place. Arabic news networks such as al Jazeera provided the Islamic viewpoint and was available worldwide though satellite TV and on the Internet.

On May 1, 2003, major combat operations were declared over by U.S. president George W. Bush. Peace was short-lived, as a disjointed insurgency took hold in Iraq with many factions fighting for control.

They included religious radicals, Fedayeen, Ba’athists, foreign Arabs, and other Muslim jihadis—and Iraqis opposed to the occupation. The insurgency was a chaotic decentralized movement with as many as 40 separate groups fighting for control. The picture was further clouded as each group was splintered into large numbers of semiautonomous cells.

Insurgent attacks increased around Iraq, but especially in the “Sunni Triangle,” home to most of the Sunni population. Insurgents used guerrilla-style tactics, employing suicide bombs, mortars, rockets, ambushes, snipers, car bombs, sabotage of the infrastructure, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

In late 2004 the focus of insurgent attacks switched from Coalition forces to the newly elected Iraqi government and its collaborators, including the Shi’i population. Many of the attacks were carried out by foreign fighters. At the end of March 2004 insurgents in the town of Fallujah ambushed and killed four private military contractors from the Blackwater USA Corporation.

Pictures of their burned bodies hanging from a bridge were distributed around the world, causing outrage among Americans. Blackwater was one of many private companies that provided specialized services and expertise needed by the U.S. military.

The employees or contractors of these companies are typically men with special-forces or police backgrounds. They are paid much more money than they would make in the official armed forces. This has led many to label them “mercenaries.” It is believed that there were more than 100,000 private contractors in Iraq around 2007.

Two fierce battles were fought after attacks were launched by the U.S. Marines to gain control of Fallujah after the Blackwater incident. The first battle in April 2004 was not successful and ended with the Marines withdrawing.

The second battle, fought in November and December 2004, resulted in the death of more than 5,000 insurgents and the complete takeover of Fallujah. The battles for Fallujah are considered to be the heaviest urban fighting the U.S. Marines have done since the battle for Hue fought in Vietnam during 1968.

On June 28, 2004, the CPA transferred sovereignty of Iraq to the Iraqi Interim Government, which was charged with holding national elections. The elected Iraqi government would then draft a new constitution. The Interim Government was also to try Saddam Hussein for his many crimes. At the end of his first trial, Saddam was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity and was executed by hanging on December 26, 2006.

The Iraqi constitution was ratified on October 15, 2005, and a general election was held on December 15 to choose the new national assembly. In a first for Iraq, the constitution stipulated that 25 percent of the assembly seats must be held by women.

An escalation in sectarian violence followed, as the Sunni minority feared their power slipping into the hands of the Shi’i majority. Sunni bombers destroyed a very important Shi’i mosque and ignited a cycle of revenge violence in which both sides used bombs, ambushes, and death squads against both politicians and civilians.

Violence between the Shi’i and Sunni escalated to the point that the United Nations (UN) has labeled it an “almost civil war situation.” Many feared that this sectarian violence could spread to other countries in the Middle East, especially if Iraq was splintered into independent Sunni, Shi’i, and Kurdish states.

Many of the opposition insurgents and suicide bombers were in fact foreign Sunni Arabs who came to Iraq to fight against the United States and against the Shi’i. One of the most notable foreign insurgent leaders was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Born in Jordan, he moved around the Middle East and Central Asia working as a terrorist and jihadi before taking leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. He was killed on June 7, 2006, when his safe house located north of Baqubah was hit by smart bombs dropped by U.S. aircraft. Al-Qaeda has continued its violent campaign in Iraq.

The war continued as 2007 saw a rising death toll. The number of Iraqis killed in the war is not known. Some estimates are as high as 900,000 Iraqi dead from all causes related to the war. In addition, an estimated 2 million Iraqis are said to have fled to Syria or Jordan.

The number of Coalition forces killed is much clearer: more than 4,052 Americans and 309 other forces by April 2008. Private contractors killed and wounded are not included in this figure and have not been published.

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was born in Al Awja near Tikrit, Iraq, to a poor family. He was raised mostly by an uncle and attended school in Baghdad. As a young man he joined the Ba’ath Party. After Hussein was involved in an abortive attempted to assassinate Abdul Karim Qassem, the leader of the 1958 Iraq revolution, he fled to Egypt, where he studied law.

When the Ba’ath seized power in 1963, he returned to Iraq but was soon imprisoned for another attempt to overthrow the regime. He escaped from prison in 1966 and was elected assistant general secretary of the Ba’ath.

Under the patronage of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, to whom he was related by blood, Hussein rose in power following the 1968 Ba’athist-led coup. In 1975 Hussein and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi signed the Algiers Accord, which led to the Iran-Iraq Treaty of International Boundaries and Good Neighborliness, whereby the eastern portion of the Shatt al Arab was ceded to Iran. The agreements were a victory for Iran, and Hussein subsequently argued that Iraq had only signed under duress.

In 1979 Hussein ousted the ailing al-Bakr and assumed leadership of the Ba’ath Party and the nation. He emulated the Stalinist approach to government, establishing a totalitarian state based on a cult of personality.


He ruthlessly purged possible dissidents within the Ba’ath Party, closely controlled the media and communications systems, and had the populace—especially the youth—indoctrinated in loyalty to himself. Although not a professional soldier, Hussein often appeared in military uniform, and he curried favor with the army.

His regime was a secular one, and he closely monitored Shi’i clerics and Islamist movements. He appointed relatives and close associates from Tikrit to key government positions and demanded absolute loyalty. However, his regime also improved education, healthcare services, and the status of women.

Hussein initiated the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) ostensibly to recover the Shatt al Arab but also to contain the Shi’i-led Iranian revolution. The resulting war of attrition led to massive human, military, and economic losses for both sides. Neighboring Arab nations in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, fearing the export of the Iranian revolution, assisted Iraq with loans and aid.

From the Iraqi perspective the Arab regimes were paying for the war with money, and Iraq was paying with the blood of its soldiers. After the war Hussein downplayed his former secularism and adopted a more Islamic approach. He also launched major offensives, including the use of poison gas, against Kurdish forces in northern Iraq.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a major ally, Iraq became more isolated and found it increasingly difficult to obtain loans or assistance to rebuild its war-torn economy.

Hussein also recognized the mounting hostility of his former Arab allies and resented the refusal of Kuwait to forgive wartime loans. He also accused Kuwait of illegally slant-drilling for petroleum into Iraq. In August 1990, he ordered the invasion of Kuwait.

Kuwait quickly fell to the Iraqi forces and was incorporated into Iraq. The international community, including the Arab world, condemned the invasion and after a month of massive aerial bombardment in the so-called First Gulf War, coalition forces, led by the United States, moved into Kuwait.

The Iraqi army crumbled and hastily retreated. The coalition established no-fly zones that essentially created an autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

However, Hussein crushed uprisings, especially among the large and disaffected Shi’i population in southern Iraq. Iraq managed to rebuild much of its infrastructure, and water and electricity services were restored to major cities.

In spite of a decade of international sanctions that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of mostly civilian Iraqis, Hussein clung to power. International diplomacy and arms inspections resulted in the demilitarization and destruction of most of the Iraqi military arsenal, but although severely weakened, the military remained intact. Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay became increasingly powerful during the 1990s, and their erratic behavior and violence terrorized those around them.

Saddam Hussein’s regime was overthrown in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (the Second Gulf War). As U.S. forces entered Baghdad many leaders of the regime, including Hussein and his sons, went into hiding. His sons were found and killed, and U.S. forces ultimately captured Hussein, who was then put on trial for crimes committed during his rule.

During the protracted trial, Hussein adopted a belligerent tone, maintaining that he was still the legitimate ruler of Iraq, but he was found guilty and executed. A new Iraqi regime was established, and the Ba’ath Party was banned from holding positions in government or schools.

The Iraqi army was also disbanded, but the nation continued to face tremendous economic and social problems as sectarian fighting broke out and massive opposition to foreign occupying forces erupted throughout much of the country.

Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)

Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)

The Algiers Treaty of March 6, 1975, signed by Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and then vice president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, was intended to solve long-standing border and waterway disputes between the two neighboring countries.

However, with the overthrow of the shah in 1979, which put Iran in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists, the political dynamics changed. By 1980 Iran’s new leaders started to hint that they did not feel obligated by the shah’s earlier commitments, and Iraqi leaders were complaining that Iran still had not returned certain border areas promised under the 1975 treaty.

In September 1980 Iraqi armed forces moved to reclaim those lands, and on September 22 they crossed the border into Iran. The invasion had consequences that Iraqi president Hussein had not expected.


In launching the attack on Iran, Hussein thought the war would be brief and would lead to the downfall of Iran’s religious leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, whom Hussein disliked. Instead, the power of Khomeini and other Islamic revolutionaries increased as Iranians united and rallied to support the war.

Few had expected Iraq to win the war outright. Although Iraq had better technology, more weapons, and a stronger air force, Iran had three times the population and about four times the geographic area of Iraq. Thus the Iran-Iraq War seesawed back and forth for eight grueling years.

Some methods of World War I were employed; Iran, for example, often conducted useless infantry attacks, using “human assault waves” made up in part by young, untrained conscripts, as in the Kerbala offensives, which were repulsed by the superior air- and firepower of the Iraqis.

Iraq, concerned with the war’s trench warfare and stalemate, had its overtures for a peace agreement undercut when its reputation was tainted by United Nations reports that it had used deadly (and illegal) chemical weapons against Iranian troops in 1984.

Military volunteer of Iran army

Although both Iran and Iraq attacked each other’s oil-tanker shipping in the Persian Gulf, Iran’s attacks on Kuwait’s and other gulf states’ tankers caused the United States and several Western European nations to station battleships in the gulf to protect those tankers.

This in turn led, on July 3, 1988, to the accidental shooting down of an Iranian civil airliner by the U.S. cruiser Vincennes, which killed all 290 crew members and passengers aboard.

As many as 1 million people died in the Iran-Iraq War, approximately 1.7 million were wounded, about 1.5 million were forced to flee as refugees, and major cities were destroyed on both sides. The oil industries of both countries also suffered extensive damage due to the fighting; oil exports, and earnings from those exports, naturally dropped.

More important, the large oil reserves of Iran and Iraq represented the potential for significant international economic power, but both nations had together largely wasted $400 billion on the war and along with that the chance to build up their societies.

The effects of the war clearly reached beyond the two combatants. Iran’s need for additional weapons led to a compromising relationship for the administration of U.S. president Ronald Reagan in 1985. In the secret Iran-contra affair, Iran was able to obtain weapons from the United States (the country that Khomeini had called “the great Satan”) in exchange for the release of hostages in Lebanon.

At about the same time U.S. aid of all types began to appear in Iraq, whereas the Soviet Union supplied about two-thirds of Iraq’s weapons. The Iran-Iraq War also ended Khomeini’s attempts to spread his fundamentalist Islamic revolution abroad.

Although stymied in his ambitions to make Iraq the leading power in the Persian Gulf (and the Arab world), Iraqi president Hussein learned new fighting strategies that he would later use against another neighboring country, Kuwait, which had been his ally during the conflict.

By the time a cease-fire finally arrived on August 20, 1988, the Iran-Iraq War had been the longest and most destructive conflict in the post–World War II era, and none of the basic friction points between Iran and Iraq had been settled.

However, in August–September 1990, while Iraq was busy with its invasion of Kuwait, Iraq and Iran quietly restored diplomatic relations, and Iraq agreed to Iranian terms for the settlement of the war: the removal of Iraqi troops from Iranian territory, division of sovereignty over the Shatt al Arab waterway, and an exchange of prisoners of war.