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Flashcards in The Iran-Iraq War Deck (50)
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0
Q

The Background

A
  • 637 A.D. the Arabs destroyed the Sassanian Empire in the Battle of Qadisiyya.
  • Persians adopted Islam, but did not accept the Arab-Bedouin culture as superior to their own culture.
  • In the 16th century, after the Safavids took power in Iran, the Gulf became a battleground between the Ottoman Empire and the Shiite Persian Empire.
  • Present day Iraq (or parts of it) exchanged hands several times in the past.
1
Q

How to describe the conflict?

A
  • The Iran/Iraq War “was a thoroughly modern inter-state war for thoroughly modern reasons of national interest and regional hegemony in which ideology, ethnic rivalries and religious fervor played their part, but were not central to the main issues.”
  • The aforementioned contentions regarding ideology, ethnicity and religion should be examined.
2
Q

The Background2

A
  • In the late 1960’s and early 1970s the Iranian Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was not aspiring, at least not overtly, to conquer the whole of Iraq, a feat that Ismail Shah succeeded at in 1510. However, Iran was determined to subvert the Pan-Arabic Ba’th regime in Iraq and to alter the status-quo along the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which was under complete Iraqi control following a 1937 agreement.
  • Moreover, Iran and Iraq were in dispute about water and oil resources along their shared border, the control of oil rich Khuzistan/Arabistan, and the future of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the newly established United Arab Emirates
3
Q

The Background 3

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  • In 1968 Britain announced that it would withdraw its forces from the GUlf in 1971. The British withdrawal mostly affected the Trucial states, Bahrain and Qatar. It left a huge vacuum to be filled after 150 years during which Britian acted as an important balancer in the region.
  • The US did not inted to replace Britain as the new heavy weight in the region, at least not directly
  • At that time Nixon’s doctrine and his retrenchment policy dicated American reliance on regional allies to ensure the balance of power and American interests. From that perspective, Iran was to serve, in Kissinger’s own words, as “the eastern anchor of our Mideast policy.”
4
Q

The Background4

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  • Kissinger Further explained: “our choice in 1972 was to help Iran arm itself or permit a perilous vacuum” Such Vacuum might have allowed Iraq (which was a Soviet protege) to achieve hegemony in the Gul.
  • During his May 1972 visit to Iran, Nixon promised to sell Iran “any US conventional weapon system the Shah desired,” to include F-14 tomcats and F-15eagles.
5
Q

The Background5

A

-In 1970, a year before the British pullout, Iran’s defense budget stood at $880 million, by 1976 and 1977 it surged to $8,8925million and $9,400million respectively-more than fifteen percent of Iran’s GNP-making it the seventh largest defense budge in the world to be topped only by that of the five permanent members of the Security Council and West Germany.

6
Q

The Power balance-early 1970s

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  • An IISS evaluation of the military balance in the gulf shows that as early 1972 Iran’s defense budge ($915million) was almost double the defense budgets of Iraq ($237millon) and Saudi Arabia ($383million) combined together.
  • Iran’s military forces (191,000men) were far greater than those of Iraq (101,800men) and Saudi Arabia(40,500men).
  • Moreover, Iran’s military advatage over its neighbors was qualitative as well as quantitative.
7
Q

The power balance-early 1970s (2)

A

-Other indicators of hard power also showed Iran’s supremacy in the region. Its 1971 GNP ($12.1 billion) was almost four times bigger than that of Iraq($3.66billion) and three times bigger than of Saudi Arabia($4.3billion). And, Iran’s population (30,500,000) far exceeded those of Iraq (9,750,000) and Saudi Arabia (7,960,000).

8
Q

Iranian sense of entitlement

A
  • In 1969 Iranian warships escorted an Iranian vessel in the waters of the Shatt al-Arab.
  • Immediately after Britain annouced its descision to leave the Gulf, Tehran renewed its claim to the predominatly Shiite Bahrain, which was an intergral part of Iran until the late eighteenth century. Furthermore, Iran objected to the creation of an Arab federation of the emirates. Eventually, in 1970, Iran surrendered its claim to Bahrain and in 1971 both Bahrain and Qatar became independent states whil the other seven emirates formed the United Arab Emirates(UAE). After the ayatollahs seized the power in Iran in 1979 they reclaimed not only Bahrain but the UAE as well.
9
Q

Iranian sense of entitlement (2)

A
  • On the eve of the British withdrawal from Oman, asserting its dominace in the gregion, Iran landed forces (30 November 1971) on three Arab Islands (Abu Musa and the Tunbs) that were under UAE jurisdiction.
  • Although these islands were tiny and uninhabited, they were located at an important geo-strategic position, close to the Strait of Hormuz, and held the prospect of hosting massive oil resources on ground and in the waters around.
10
Q

Iranian sense of entitlement (3)

A
  • The Shah explained that “as a successor to Britain in the role of protector of the gulf, he had to control the islands.”
  • This was a refined version of his Sept 1971 statement that “No power on earth will stop us.. I have a war fleet, Phantom aricraft and brigades of paratroopers. I could defy Britain and occupy the islands militarily.
  • There was no need to defy Britain. London that had just concluded a 100million pounds worth military deal with the Shah’s gov’t clarified to the UAE Sheikhs that Britain would not intervene on their behalf and advised them to pursue conciliation with the Shah.
11
Q

Iranian sense of entitlement (4)

A
  • Baghdad, the principal proponent of the idea of an Arab Gulf, cut its relations with Tehran as a result of the Iranian takover of the three islands.
  • However, Iraq could not do much in the face of what it perceived as Iranian aggression. Between 1970 and 1975 it was torn and weakened as a result of a civil war.
  • The smaller Gulf monarchies were caught between the hammer (Iranian ambition) and anvil (Iraqi demands for Kuwait and socialist revolution in the monarchies)
12
Q

Iraq-Iran and the Kurdish Revolt

A
  • Iraq: An artificial creation of the British Empire-is an amalgam of diverse ethnic, cultural and religious communities.
  • In the 1970s around sixty percent of the Irqis were Shiites living mostly in the southern part of the country. The remaining thirty-five to forty percent were SUnnis-divided evenly between Arabs in the northwest and Kurds in the northeast.
  • Notwithstanding, since its creation the Sunni Arabs, merely one-fifth of the population, had been dominating Iraqi politics.
13
Q

Iraq-Iran and the Kurdish Revolt (2)

A
  • Kurds nationalism and Arab nationalism collided time and again since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
  • During the reign of the Hashemite family in Iraq the premier, Nuri al-Sa’id, considered giving the Kurds limited autonomy. However, strong opposition of other Arab politicans, who feared a domino effect that would bring about a similar Shiite deman, killed the ida.
  • In March 1970 it seemed as if the fierce fighting between Kurds and Arabs that had severly taxed the Iraqi economy since the late 1960s would come to an end as the Ba’th regime offered the Kurds local autonomy.
14
Q

Iraq-Iran and the Kurdish Revolt 3

A
  • However, the Kurds demanded that oil rich Kirkuk would be within their jurisdiciton. They also insisted on the right o have an independt Kurdish milita and to receive budgetary allocations to commensurate the size of their population in Iraq. These demands blew the opportunity for Kurdish autonomy. Later the Kurdish leader, Barzani, would claim that Iran, the United States and Israel pushed him to reject the Iraqi offer.
  • The fierce figthing in northeren Iraq continued. The Shah, who collbared in the past with the monarychy in Iraq agaisnt the Kurds, fully suppported his lost and found “Aryan” brothers in arms.
15
Q

Iraq-Iran and the Kurdish Revolt 4

A
  • Iraq tried to pay back Iran in Iran’s own currency. In 1969 the Ba’th blamed Britain for not stopping Iran from annexing Arabistan in 1925.
  • In June 1969 Iraq established the Popular Front for the Liberation of Arabistan. Baghdad also supported the Baluchi rebellion on the Pakistani side of the Iran Pakistan border, hoping that it would spill over to Iran.
16
Q

Iraq-Iran and the Kurdish Revolt 5

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  • The tension between Iraq and Iran resulted in skirmishes along their mutal border. For example, in February 1974 Baghdad requested an urgent mettin of the UN security Council, claimin gthat the Iranian Army had seized five kilometers of Iraqi territory.
  • In response Tehran accused Iraq of shelling Iranian border posts and supporting Arab dissident groups in Ahvaz(Arabistn).
  • On 7 March 1974 the United Nations managed to broker a cease-fire along the disputed border. It was to last less than six months.
17
Q

Iraq-Iran and the Kurdish Revolt 6

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-Tension reached its climax between Dec 1974, and March 1975. On 14, 15 Dec1974, Iran used Hawk missles to down Iraqi planes that were flying over the Kurdsh region in Iraq. A month later two Iranian regiments crossed the border into the Kurdish region. Iran and Iraq were on the bring of war.

18
Q

Iraq-Iran and the Kurdish Revolt 7

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  • However, war did not breakout. THe Shah realized that war would play havoc with the Iranian oil industry along Shatt al-Arab.
  • Moreover, war would have invited the superpowers, including the Soviet Union, to intervene in the GUlf, merely four years after the British pulled out.
  • This could have worked to the disadvantage of Iran, especially at a time when the Shah wanted to prove that Iran could fulfill the role of hegemon and balancer in the region. “The English were packing their bags… The safety of the Persian Gulf had, however, to be guaranteed, and who but Iran could fulfillthis function?
19
Q

The March 1975 Algiers Agreements

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  • Iraq was also eager to reach a settlement with Iran. The fighting in the Kurdish region severly taxed the Iraqi economy and worn down the Iraqi military. Iraq was in urgent need of respite, and feared tha without such it might lose its territorial intergrity.
  • That and the growing Iraqi disappointmen of Arab and Soviet apathy in the face of Iran’s belligerency encouraged Baghdad to cede in the March 1975 Algiers Agreement to Tehran’s demands for control over half of the shatt al-Arab waterway, making the thalweg the new border line between the countries.
20
Q

Iraq-Iran and the Kurdish Revolt

A
  • In return for Iraq’s concessions, the Shah and the United states stopped providing aide to the Kurds and soon after the Iraqi army manged to suppress their rebellion.
  • Significantly, the shah never wished for the Kurdish rebellion to result in the establishment of a Kurdish autonomy that might have aroused sentiments for liberty among the Kurds in Iran.
  • Thus, as far as Iran was concerned, the Kurds who aspired for self-governance, had to be sacrificed. The Algiers Agreeent provided Iran with the opportunity to do so.
21
Q

Iranian-Iraqi detente (1)

A
  • The Algiers Agreement ushered in an era of detente between Iran and Iraq.
  • Both the Ba’th and the Shah were watching with suspicion the Soviet incursion to the Horn of Africa. They backed militarily Somalia in its struggle agaisnt Marxist Ethiopia, opposed the pro-Soviet coup in South Yemen, and feared of the implications to the region of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After becoming president, in 1979, Saddam futher distanced himself from he Soviet Union by clamping down on Iraqi communists.
  • Moreover, the two states collaborated with each other in OPEC, where they supported, in the face of a Saudi opposition, a gradual and smaller increase in oil prices.
22
Q

Iranian-Iraqi detente (2)

A
  • Iran/Iraq relations took a further step forward in 1977 when an agreement for establishing direct fligths between Tehran and Baghdad and for connecting the countries rail systems was signed.
  • Still, Iran’s territorial achievement int he Shatt al-Arab waterway, its presence on the Abu Mus and Tunbs islands, and its vehement rejection of Baghdad’s claim for Kuwait, continued to be a thron in the side of Iran-Iraq relations.
23
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (1)

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  • The accession to power of the ayatollahs and their supreme leader, ayatollah Khomeini, following the Febuary 1979 revolution, was fraught with even more grandiose dreams of regional hegemony than those of the Shah.
  • As Efraim Karsh astutely remarks, the new regime was obsessed with extending “its hegemonic claims from the geopolitical to the spiritual (or ideological) domain… evnsioning Iran’s supremacy as taking place within an entirely new, and hitherto unprecendeted system. that of an islamic order.
24
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (2)

A
  • To achieve both geopolitical and spirtual/ideological hegemony it was not enough to merely subdue the Ba’th regime in Iraq and the Sheikhs of the Gulf to recognize Iran as the predominant power in the region and to accept the Shah’s limited territorial claims.
  • If Iran were to successfully export its revolution and the rule of the ayatollahs and Islam to other Gulf States, the secular and monarchical oppressing Sunni regimes had to be toppled.
  • For that purpose the ‘Pax Irana’ and the stuatus quo in the region since the March 1975 Algiers Agreement had to be challanged.
25
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (3)

A

-Agian, just as in the late 1960’s and early 1970s it was Iraq that was percieved as the key to fulfilling Iran’s aspirations. While Iraq’s Shiite majority and ethnographic division made it an ostensibly easy target, its secular Sunni regime, sheer size and dominance in the region, second only to that of Iran, presented it as the main obstacle in the face of Thran’s aspirations.

26
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (4)

A
  • Tehran’s proclamations and actions immediately following the revolution clearly evinced its resolve to bring down the Ba’th regime. For example, on Oct 19 1979 ayatollah Montazeri said that the Iraqi people of which three-quarters are Shiites opposed Saddam. He added that if Khomeini were to instruct the Iraqis to overthrow their leadership “the entire Iraqi nation would rise.”
  • In April 1980, in an interview to the Turkish daily Milliyet Iran’s foreign minister, Sadeq Qotbzdeh, said: “There is no other way out than the complete collapse of the Ba’th party. These people have nothing in common with Islam. WORST THAN ZIONISHT.”
27
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (5)

A
  • on April 17 1980 Khomeini called upon the Iraqi people and army to “turn their back on the Ba’th regime and overthrow it… because this regime… is attacking the Koran and Islam.”
  • These proclamations were followed by renewed Iranian assistance to the Kurds in Iraq, with the hope of reviving their rebellion, and to anti-goverment Shiite groups, and by increasing number of skirmishes along the Iran-Iraq border.
28
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (6)

A
  • Additionally, in the spirt of Khomeini’s teachinggs, which problaimed “monarchy and hereditary succesion wrong and invalid,” Iran not only refused to withdraw its forces from Abu Musa and the two Tunbs (UAE territory) but claimed that historically all Gulf States were part of Iran. IN this context, ayatollah Sadeq Rouhani declared (June 17 1979) that the 1970 imperial decree surrendering Irans claim to Bahrain “was null and void”.
  • Subsequently, Iran’s fingerprints were found on almost any attempt to subvert the monarchial dynasties in the GUlf, either as the instigator or as an enthusiastic supporter. Be it in Bahrain, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia Khomeini’s special emissaries tried to stir up the local population agaisnt the regime, benefiting from the momentum of the succesfful revolution in Iran.
29
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (7)

A
  • In March 1979 London exposed thwarted an Iranian plot to land volunteers in Bahrain and topple the regime. In December 1981 the Bahraini authroties managed to uncover and foil another Iranian secret plan to topple the regime.
  • Unsurprisngly, the Iranian revoluton and the aforementioned Iranian inspired subversion activites facilitated rapprochement between the monarchies of the GUlf and Iraq, which was perceived by them hitherto as a radical and revisionist power in the region.
30
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (8)

A

-However, Iraq, which benefited much in terms of economic and military development since the 1975 Algiers Agreement, was not interested in taking advantage of the Iranian throes of revolution and in increasing the tension with Iran. Thus in the spring and summer of 1979 Saddam tried to engage with Khomeini, whom he had expelled at the Shah’s request from Iraq to Paris less than six months earlier.

31
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (9)

A

On Feb 14, 1979 Saddam, relating to the victory of the revolution, “stressed that Iraq has no aims in Iran…(and) supports whatever expresses the national interests of the Iranian people… Iraq is anxious to deal on a sound basis with the choice of the Iranian people… This must be done on the basis of nonintervention in domestic affairs and respect for each other’s sovereignty… A regime which does not support the enemy agaisnt us and does not intervene in our affars, and whoe world policy corresponds to the interests of the Iranian and Iraqi people, will certainly receive our respect and appreaciation.

32
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (10)

A
  • Moreover, Iraq welcomed Iran’s break of relations with Israel and its withdrawal from CENTO(Centeral Treaty Organization). Baghdad also offered to assist Iran in joining the Non-Aligned Movement, and in the summer of 1979 it officially invited the Iranian premier to visit Iraq and discuss ways to improve the bilateral relations.
  • By spurning Baghdad’s gestures of good will and marking the deposal of Saddam and his regime as the primary target of the ongoing revolution, Khomeini left Saddam with little choice but to seize the moment and prempt while Iran was still suffereing from the after affects of the revolution.
33
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (11)

A
  • The 1975 Algiers Agreement gave Iraq ample time to recover, both economically and militarily, from the taxing Kurdish rebellion. Moreover, in 1978 new oil reseerves exceeding 100 billion barrels were discovered in Iraq. Only Saudi oil resources surpassed this amount.
  • Thus, while oil production in Iran decreased by 38.5 percent between 1978 and 1979, and by 53.1 percent between 1979 and 1980, and stood on 1.5million barrels perday, Iraq’s oil production increased between 1978 and 1979 by 34.6 percent and stood in 1980 on 2.6million barrels perday.
34
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (12)

A
  • 1980, quantitative and qualitative indicators of military capabitly showed a dramtic change in the balance of power. Iraq 200k, Iran 150k.
  • Armed Plane, Vehicles in Iraq was superior.
35
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (13)

A
  • Saddams army loyal/Iran situationw as worse.
  • ayatollah’s regime purged thousands of officers in their army.
  • Khomeini established ‘Revolutionary Guard Corps’(Pasdaran) hence power struggle between army and Pasdaran.
  • Iraq had well organized, on the eve of war.
36
Q

Revolution: the end of detente (14)

A
  • Significantly, it seems as if the Iranian leadership was oblivious to the aforementioned startegic changes as it persistenly kept coutring war. This had much to do with Iran’s conviction in the prowess of its soft power stemming from the spirit of the Islamic revolution and its ideology.
  • For example, April 29 1980, Iranian Defense Minister Mustafa Chamran said,”If they attack us, iraqi shiites will turn againsnt their own army, and if we attack them they will receive us.”
37
Q

War (1)

A

-Eventually, Iran’s continuous defiance of the regional status quo and the increasing number of skirmishes along the border with Iraq resulted in the Sept 22 1980 Iraqi air-strike on Iran’s major military airfields in a futile attempt to eliminate its entire air force on the ground. The next day five Iraqi divisions invaded Iran. The Iran-Iraq war had begun.

38
Q

War (2)

A
  • From the outset of the war, Iraq and Iran’s strategic objectives were very different in Clausewitzian terms.
  • Iraq planned to conduct a limited war and concentrated its main effort in Khuzistan with the purpose of separating the Shatt al-Arab from the rest of Iran. Saddam named his campain “Battle of Qadisiyya” after the Arab victory over the Saddanid Empire in 647.
  • On Sept 28 1980 Saddam announced that Iraq had achieved its territorial aims. Subsequently he tried to initiate negotiations with the aim of stopping the hostilities and reaching a settlement.
39
Q

War (3)

A
  • Iran was figthing a total war.
  • Capturing Baghdad, was merely a step to liberate Jerusalem.
  • Mid 1982 Basij Militia(volunteers) pushed Iraqis to their border.
  • Khoemeini’s desicion was to capture city of Basra (predominantely Shiites) in hope it will bring downfall of Baghdad and Ba’th Govt.
40
Q

War (4)

A
  • Others opposed to the idea of invasion of Iraq.
  • Most of them were military leaders, President Sayyed Ali Khamenei, and Premier Mir Hussein Musavi.
  • Casualities high, and doubtful that it would be success.
  • By Oct 1983 Iran occupied 800 square km of Iraqi territory.
41
Q

War (5)

A
  • Iranian forces success in 1984 and success of Febuary 1986 (Shatt al Arab waterway & port city of Fao, boosted confidence. Convinced Journalist that its only a matter of time.
  • However merely a mirage that faded away. Failed to seize Basra
42
Q

War (6)

A
  • Ideational zeal and fighting spirit was not enough to win in war. The costs in terms of materials and human lives proved to be difficult obstacles for the Iranian forces and public to bear.
  • Global powers helped Iraq with economic, arms, and poitically.
  • ex) Soviet and France important source of arms and military equipment to Iraq throughout the war.
43
Q

War (7)

A
  • Moreover, both the US and the USSR took an active role in the ‘Tanker War’ betwen the two belligerents when, in March and April 1987, they granted Kuwait’s request to protect its tankers agaisnt Iranian naval attacks. France, Britian, Italy and the Netherlands also assisted in this naval policing activity. (The Armilla Patrol) Permanent navy presence in the the gulf
  • International intervention nullified Iranian naval superiority. Kuwat was serving as a transshipment point for arms destined to Iraq and was subsidizing the Iraqi war effort. (Iraqi owe $15billion to kuwait by end of war)
44
Q

War (8)

A
  • Other major sources of support were Arab world were Saudi Arabia, lowered the oil prices in order to reduce Iran’s oil revenues. Egypt. Iraq purchased over a billion dollars woth of military equipment during the war. (Some Egyptian soldiers fought under Saddam)
  • Iraqi owed Saudi Arabia $34 billion by the end
  • Aqaba in Jordan became Iraq’s largest se port, becuase their own Basra and Umm-Qasr were under threat.
  • So while Iran was depleting their recourse Iraq enjoyed regular supply of arms equipments. From 1984 Iraq used their areial advantage over Iran.
45
Q

War (9)

A
  • Lack of sufficient air power and modern armor was the disadvatange of Iranian troops.
  • Iraqi Shiites failed the ayatollahs when they did not join the Iranian forces.
  • In 87&88 US directly invovled in fighting. Ex:Aug 10, 1987 American F-14 fired on an Iranian F-4, and in the following months American naval forces attacked Iranian boats and oil platforms
  • Fasanjan, depicted the Iraq successful effort to recapture Fao (17-18 April 1988) which was conducted in tandem with an increased US naval activity agaisnt the Iranian flet, as a plot.
46
Q

War (10)

A
  • Although Iraq used chemical weapons, still recieved support from superpowers.
  • Effective. After Feb 1988, Iraq chemical attack on Halabja, 1/3 dropped to only 300,000 of Basij.
  • Iranianian population were in panic, and was afraid that Iraq will use Chimical Missles in big cities.
47
Q

War (11)

A
  • Iran’s continuous isolation, Irag’s chemical weapons, costs that Iraninian had paid, only reinforced within the Iranian leadership realistic notions that conflictedwith Khomeini’s ideological perception.
  • 1982 President Khamenei, warned agaisnt Khomeini’s decision to invade Iraq, in Feb 1986, immediately after the capture of Fao, by Iranian forces the Speaker of the Pariliament Rafsanjani, was willing to accept the status-quo established by the Shah in the Algiers Agreement.
48
Q

War (12)

A
  • Rafsanjani: “We accept half of Shatt al-Arab belongs to Iran and other half to Iraq. We accept thalweg, which is international law. We seek nothing more”
  • This stance was direct defiance of Khomeini’s total war. Significantly, it came in a moment of Iranian triumph.
  • Series of loses. (Majnoun:May 1988)(Shalamche&Mehran:June1988)(Dehloran:July1988) brought fear to the public.
  • First time for Iraqis to set foot on Iran.
  • Khomeini in July 1988 to accept UNSC resolution 598 (of July 1987). Immediate cease fire between two country.
49
Q

War (13)

A
  • The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, Iraq’s main creditors, pressured Saddam to end the fighting and so did the interantional community.
  • The War ended on Aug, 20 1988.