8 years long war

>US and the Soviets supporting the same side
>Israel backing Iran
>Kurds actually supporting Saddam fighting their fellow Kurds
>80's North Korea supporting Iran
>Romania
what a hilarious clusterfuck

Daily reminder that Saddam's party protected Christians and the Baathists were basically the Nazi's of the latter half of the 20th century.

Yes...Jesus..that's insane

Iraq underestimated how much Iranians were into Islam at the time
Iran underestimated how far Iraq was willing to go to not fall under an Islamic theocracy

Iran utilised massive human wave attacks because "muh Islamic crusade against Iraqi non-believers"

Iraq used chemical weapons because at the time most Iraqis were secular and didn't want to be ruled by an Islamic theocracy which Iran wanted to implement in Baghdad.

Saddam's right hand man and deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz was a Chaldean Catholic from Tel Keif and the Ba'ath party was founded by a Christian from Damascus named Michel Aflaq.

Also since Saddam was both president and prime minister officially, Tariq Aziz effectively served the role of prime minister

Khomeini used this in propaganda against Saddam saying Iraq was basically an infidel regime and Christians were whispering in his ear.

>Kurds actually supporting Saddam fighting their fellow Kurds

If you knew anything about Kurds this wouldn't surprise you at all. Right now Barzani is backing Erdogan and fighting the YPG.

The Iram-Irap war was ez money for every country that produced weapons.

>Israel

Wat

Searching source right now but wat

A small return for Cyrus.

???

But otherwise

>Primarily, Iran needed Israel’s assistance in procuring American weaponry and spare parts for Iran’s American-built air force. Iran’s behind the scenes dealings with Tel Aviv accentuated the continuation of Iran and Israel’s geo-strategic commonalities, in spite of Iran’s Islamic rhetoric and anti-Israeli ideology.

>The extent of these dealings came to light through the Iran-Contra Affair (q.v.), in which Israel lobbied the United States to arm Iran in its war efforts against Saddam Hussein in order to achieve a “broader strategic relationship with Iran” (Segev, p. 249). Unconfirmed reports claim that Israeli military advisors even visited the Iranian frontline to evaluate Iran’s capabilities and needs. All in all, according to Aḥmad Ḥaydari, a Iranian arms dealer, roughly 80 percent of the weaponry bought by Tehran immediately after the onset of the war originated from Israel (Entessar, p. 7). Israel’s motivations for supporting a state that officially called for its destruction also lied in the continuity of these geo-strategic realities.

Israeli were just trying to be friendly ? that's what it says ?

> Israel believed that the Revolution and Iran’s Islamic orientation was a historical parenthesis; the real, geo-strategically oriented Iran would resume and the shah’s cooperation with Israel would soon reemerge.

>From Israel’s perspective, it was Iraq and not Iran that constituted the greatest threat to its security. Tel Aviv was very concerned about Baghdad’s rise and looked toward Iran as a potential partner to contain Saddam’s ambitions (Alpher, p. 155). Iran continued to be viewed as a non-threat due to its lack of offensive capabilities. “Throughout the 1980s, no one in Israel said anything about an Iranian threat—the word wasn’t even uttered,” according to David Menashri of Tel Aviv University

iranicaonline.org/articles/israel-i-relations-with-iran

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera

Also am I reading wrong or we had Iraqui kurdistan on iran's side and Iranian kurdistan on Iraq's side ?

Nah, Iraqi Kurds were divided, some were with Iran (against Iraq) and some were pro Iraq. Iranian communists were largely on Iraq's side, so where some Iranian Arab separatists.

DESU Kurds are an Iranic people, that's why they've never really tried hard to separate from Iran. They just migrate to Arab and Turkish lands and then call that area "Kurdistan"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Karbala-4
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Basra

Yeah it was pretty hellish. Even if I'm a huge Iranaboo, gotta admit that continuing the war past Iraq's proposal of a status quo ante peace in 1982 was stupid on Iran's part.

Also it's worth pointing out that since Iranians used the symbology of Karbala during the war (like in the above operation codename) that makes them pretty much the only warring nation in world history to use a lost battle as a positive example in propaganda. Sure, there were plenty of countries that said "let's avenge our loss during battle of X", but Iranians said "Yeah, remember that battle our side lost 1300 years ago? Let's do that again, it will be glorious."

Funnily most of the Iraqi Army in Al Anfal were Kurdish yet Kurds obsess over Some Assyrian General to justify annexing Assyrian Land

You white peace after getting your opponent to 20 wat exhaustion so it doesn't go down and they get fucked by rebels. Basic strats.

/pol/ history revisionist detected. You couldn't write a single sentence without "muh islamic Iran", could you? Are you by any chance from Iraq? Or Israel?

Electrocution doesn't work that way.

why are you triggered by a word?

wtf are you on about? Iran was ruled by a fundamentalist madman who literally claimed he was the mahdi or messiah or whatever. He didn't give a shit who won or lost or how many died, as long as he did his "islamic duty" and he said he'd put in place the same system of islamic revolution in Iraq. Why are you so upset by these facts? Dumbass.

Iraq was ruled by a madman as well. And the general population of Iran was and still is secular. Why are you so upset by these facts? Dumbass.

Any good book recommendations for this war? Reading Fisk's Great War for Civilization atm but keen on something more detailed about this war specifically

Most Russians weren't communists.
Most Itallians weren't fascist.

I just got done reading Williamson Murray's book on it; I thought it was pretty good.

Couldn't you say the same thing about the Tet Offensive? Didn't the Vietnamese lose it on the battlefield, but manage to turn it into a political victory?

Cheers mate, I'll give it a look

Israel claim is fake/unreliable/contrarian. It's based on some 'RELIABLE' sources made by the senior staff of hareetz and a us-located anti-IRI cuck who allege that IRI traded weapons with Israel.

To be fair, I don't think the actual Iranian Army was drinking the fundamentalist kool-aid quite as much as the Pasdaran was.

iraq was ruled by a secular nationalist dictator. iran was ruled by an islamist theocrat.

iraq didnt care what government iran had, they just wanted the shat al-arab. Meanwhile Iran insisted that baghdad must be governed by an islamic regime like in Iran and iraqis ruled by strict sharia law.

And Iraqis didn't want that, they wanted to keep their secularism and religious freedom rather than be ruled by a crazy madman like khomeini.

shi'ites have a hard on for martyrdom and death and self-flagellation. Modern Iran isn't the glorious "Achaemenid Empire" you persiaboos like to imagine it is, its basically a shi'ite pakistan where religious identity replaces any national identity and people proliferate like ants.

the iranian army lost most of their tanks early on, the pasdaran and their fanaticism is what won most of iran's victories in the war. just wave after wave of suicidal fanatics, basically like what the soviets did in rzhev.

Additionally IIRC, Saddam wanted to display Iraqi military prowess and assert himself as head of the Arab World by achieving a quick and decisive victory over a very unstable Iran. Didn't work out so well when Khomeini used the invasion to rally the various factions vying for power in post-revolution Iran.

Religious Iraqis didn't want Iranian rule either and wanted to defend their "Wattan" against people who they saw as "Ajam"
Even today you have people like Sadr who is a Shia Ayotallah who is fed up with Iran's influence on Iraq

Most Iranians aren't the ones from LA

I'm aware, I'm simply stating that Iran's regular army wasn't as radicalized, as the Basiji/Pasdaran was. I'm aware they got benched because the Iranians weren't able to maintain or replace the Western tanks and vehicles they lost during the war.

yeah that's hypothetical, he mainly wanted the shat al arab, because its basically Iraq's only access to the sea, even though they were leasing Bubiyan from Kuwait at the time.

There was also the reason that Ahwaz is legit Arab clay since Iran had taken a campaign of persianisation like renaming Arab cities like Muhammerah to persian names Khorammshahr.

by 1988 Saddam was the undisputed head of the Arab world anyway since Egypt was a paraiah during the 80's, and Iraq had the largest army and second largest oil reserves.

Well, that's what they get for signing the Camp David Accords I guess, and you're 100% right on that.

Khomeini had Stalin'd most of his officer corps., well the ones that hadn't fled to america anyway so there was also that.

lol where are you even getting your info from? There are two main Iraqi islamist groups, the Dawa party and Supreme council for Islamic revolution. The SCIR pretty much wants a replica of the Iranian system in Iraq with rule by clergy, the dawa party wants rule by civilians but still the same islamic law.

Sadr tries to paint himself as nationalist recently but he's still very close with Iran, his problem is more with the other shi'ite parties because of internal disputes over power sharing than with Iran. All the shi'ite parties pretty much suck iranian dick at the time being.

The US backed both sides just for the fun of it.

*that you are a terrorist organization

almost as pathetic as Chaldean christcucks thinking they waz the only descendents of mesoptamian

the American media turned the Tet Offensive into a victory. The Vietnamese thought it was an utter failure and were preparing to go to peace talks because of it

All Saddam had to do was not fucking invade Kuwait and he would still be alive and Iraq would still be a functional, secular state.

He invaded Kuwait and painted a big fucking easy target on his back, survived once due to the liberal media complaining the US bombed looted cars (and tanks but don't talk about how all the Iraqis were still armed that's bad for our agenda)

And then Bush2 went full retard after 9/11 desperately looking for an enemy to fight.
And now Iraq is a fucking shithole beyond shitholes. It was never great, but the entire Middle East is a clusterfuck right now and it's all from a chain of events set in motion by Kuwait.

Soviet US proxy war

Iraq never was landlocked

>Barzani is backing Erdogan
Correct to an extent
>and fighting the YPG.
Wrong

>He invaded Kuwait

SADDAM DINDU NUFFIN. The Jewaitis wanted him to repay the money they lent during the Iran-Iraq war and were allegedly pilfering oil from Iraqi fields.

Look up Iranians using "Nader" weapons on their AKMs. Shit's crazy

Wew

They had shit port though, isn't that why they needed kuwaiti ports?

>And the general population of Iran was and still is secular.
Lol

[Citation needed]

Yes, but that's a bullshit excuse. They created a deepwater port in 1993.

Not that guy, but the Tet offensive was repelled and the North Vietnamese suffered heavy casualties in the offensive (more than the Americans).

Overall it was a tactical failure.

However, because of its ferocity and suprise the American media spinned it as something amazing.

>owe people money
>don't pay them
>invade them instead
WOOOWWWWW HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW I'D INVOKE AN INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE IF I WENT ON A WARMONGERING SPREE DESTABILIZING THE REGION

The Tet Offensive was one of the most disastrously failed offensives in history. It was expected that the South would rise up and crush the Americans and the country would be united as a result.

Instead, the VietCong were completely destroyed as a fighting force and every single offensive was not only stalled but repulsed. They failed to take and hold a single objective and lost the bulk of their heavy weaponry.
But because the US had been saying Vietnam was almost won, the North is about to collapse! The media and the American public realized that they had been lied to quite badly.

Even though all the US generals were saying what a resounding victory it was, the populace was looking at it as the fact the war was far from over, it was going to continue and the bodies were going to continue to pile with no end in sight.
Yes, the offensive was a failure, it was a resounding victory for the US, but when you've been telling your population for a year the war is winding down the shock of such a well planned attack destroys any credibility and good will you still had left.

Not a citation

>the American media spinned it as something amazing.

Or maybe because it proved the US and South Viets didn't have effective control over much of the nation.

...

iraq isn't landlocked, just has a really fucking short coastline, maybe 15 miles next to kuwait

>clusterfuck right now and it's all from a chain of events set in motion by Kuwait.
I feel it's been a clusterfuck for a lot longer than that (maybe back even further than British Palestine), but I get your point.

But the thing people forget is taht it was a win-win for the NVA. Either the Americans get hammered, so great; or, as happened, the the VC get wiped out, and the NVA rids itself of a potentially uncooperative/hostile rival.

>that makes them pretty much the only warring nation in world history to use a lost battle as a positive example in propaganda. Sure, there were plenty of countries that said "let's avenge our loss during battle of X", but Iranians said "Yeah, remember that battle our side lost 1300 years ago? Let's do that again, it will be glorious."
Isn't Alamo pretty much that?

Sweet how almost all of the thread ignores the role of the US and GB in this war and repeats the brainwashed imperialist propaganda.
Hurr durr Islam, hurr durr landlocked.

Wrong. The Soviets and Americans backed both sides.

>muh librul media
No, the US didn't invade because Bush felt it was beyond the UN mandate to remove Saddam.

The entire Islamic revolution was engineered by the British. Angloscum wanted the shah gone cause he was raising oil prices in collaboration with Saddam. Brits pretty much candidly supported Iran until the end of the war. So did Israel.

Also Islam is a shit religion that tramples over all women's and religious minority rights, there's no two ways about that.

>Turkish lands
They migrate to central Asia?

yes the eternal anglo removed the shah, not the literal millions that took to the streets because they wanted him gone.

Bush didn't invade cause he thought Saddam was finished. He was encouraging the Iraqi people to revolt against the central government. He'd lost over 2 thirds of the countries to Kurdish and Shiite rebels, and Schwarzkopf greatly exaggerated Iraqi republican guard losses. Bush placed all his bets on Saddam being thrown out of power by his own army if by his own people, like had happened to Ceacescu.

Come next year, Saddam is still in power and daddy Bush is out. It's why the entire bush family has been butthurt over Saddam ever since.

I see. My mistake. Thanks user.

>And then Bush2 went full retard after 9/11 desperately looking for an enemy to fight.
He was always planning on invading someone, Iraq just happened to be the most politically isolated large state at the time.

Pretty much every Christian denomination in the Levant area seems to claim ancient Near east descent just to distance themselves from being called Arabs. From Maronites in Lebanon with their Phoenicianism to the Syriac community in Syria and their apparent Aramean and Assyrian ancestry.
Only the Palestinian Christians seems to stay true to their origin and claim descent of the Arabic Ghassanid tribe, that were among the first Arabs to convert to Christianity and become vassals to the Romans.

It's quite a hilarious phenomenon.

Paul Wolfowitz had been advocating an Iraq invasion since 1993. They told Bush "come on, he was mean to your dad, and all the Iraqi people will see you as a hero when you liberate them, there'll be flowers and democracy, I swearz." Bush Jr, being the intellectual genius that he is, actually believed them and went along with it

>what is Michel aflaq, what is Tariq aziz

And who installed the Shah? What made the people literally prefer a religious maniac to that guy?

>billions died bait.

People that pretended that they had Arab interests in mind and helped overthrow rightful Arabic rulers of House Hashem to install Ba'ath memes.

But good thing the true Arabs got the last laugh in the end.

>but Iranians said "Yeah, remember that battle our side lost 1300 years ago? Let's do that again, it will be glorious."

Dude, large portions of Serbian national identity are derived form getting BTFO by the Ottomans in the 14th century.

Was just about to post this

Actually the communists and Qassem overthrew the Hashemites, the Baathists overthrew the communists.

It wasn't even Iranians, it was just a bunch of autistic Arabs from Muhammad's family who wanted to go back to the puritan origins of Islam and didn't realise that Arabs were much better off economically with experienced merchants and businessmen ruling.

>who installed the Shah
The British and Soviets

>what made the people prefer khomeini
The shah did. His appeal was centered among the urban class, not the rural poor who vastly outnumbered them who either thought the shah was pushing reform much too fast or didn't want reform. The shah used secret police to silence dissent. Those methods generally don't endear one to the populace at large.

>poor preferred Khomeini
>"economics is for donkeys"

What did he mean by this?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini#Emigration_and_economy

You forgot the involvement of the CIA.

As a closer neighbour who actually had a history of going to war with Israel and supporting Lebanon in pre-80s wars, it made sense at this point for Israel to support any Iraqi opponents

Kosovo polje?

Their not wrong in claiming that they probably decend from Ancient semetic levantine people other than Arabs- because they do.They are wrong in claiming they are the ONLY people there descended from Phoenicians, Mesopotamians, Egyptians etc. as if the Islamized Syrians and Iraqis aren't just converted from the same ancient people

Hashemites are pathetic meme that deserved to get btfoed for betraying the Ottoman caliphate and being filthy jews

it was just a social experiment bro

made worse by the fact that by the end of the war the Iraqis had been given so much gucci equipment by the western powers and yet achieved fuck all