Iran-Iraq War

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Hey man to be fair the CIA was giving/selling weapons and intel to both sides so it's not like Iran was TOTALLY alone.

FPBP

?

More importantly why did Iraq not beat the shit out of Iran despite heavy support and more advance weapons?

Because Iraqi combat doctrine was fucking farcical and its Army lacked a strong operations functions. The whole war was dependent on them seizing Khuzestan in a swift Nazi style blitzkrieg while Iran was still in political turmoil and its military still weak. Instead penetrating deep into Khuzestan, surrounding key objectives and encircling/starving out the Abadan and Khorramshahr garrisons, the Iraqi military put far too much importance in taking the cities. They wanted to show Iranians their firepower (essentially dickwaving) and put the fear of Allah in them.

Iran is a stronger, wealthier, and more populous nation than Iraq.

Also, every country pretty much wanted both of them to lose because a stronger Iraq was a threat to the Saudis and Syrians, so they didn't really give the Iraqis a real strategic edge in terms of materiel.

This board needs more people like you. Post pls

>on /pol/
You need to go back.

There have been multiple almost daily Iran-Iraq War threads over the last couple weeks.

There just aren't many good books on the Iran-Iraq war. Pretty much the definitive title is Pierre Razoux's, and it is problematic in some of its details and translation.

>why did Iraq not beat the shit out of Iran despite heavy support and more advance weapons?

Because the Iraqi army, as are most Arab armies, was geared towards keeping their own civilians in line, as opposed to actually fighting a conventional fight against foreign armies.

The officer corps treated their men like shit, were incompetent as fuck and hired more for their loyalty to the party than any measure of competence, and stole resources that were meant for the troops for themselves at pretty much every level of command. Their troops were little more than untrained cannon fodder, and when you fail to provide realistic, competent training, treat your troops like shit, the way Arab armies do, they're not going to be motivated to perform.

Iranians weren't much better, but they had the motivation of ridding the Sunni invader from their home territory.

>Why the fuck does nobody talk about this war?

Because it was essentially another proxy war between the warsaw pact and NATO, which means NATO countries fueled the fighting with military aid.

Actually Iraq was backed by both the US and the USSR, Iran was a rogue retard nation.

>Iran was a rogue retard nation
Which won, against the entire world

Pretty impressive actually

I guess this does make sense when you look at the terrain, seize and population.

>Iraq was backed by both the US and the USSR, Iran was a rogue retard nation.

Iran was a U.S. proxy prior to the war, and was given military kit and training. Then the U.S. started to firmly back Saddam and Iraq. I believe Iran received aid from the French throughout the war, so the whole thing was an embarrassment to the west as they couldn't get their shit together about who to support.

>Khomeini
>US proxy
Are you retarded?

>Iran was a U.S. proxy prior to the war,
>prior to the war
>PRIOR TO THE WAR
>PRIOR

The Shah was US proxy when he was installed on the throne after US-UK overthrew the democratic government of Iran. Then he turned hostile over time and got himself overthrown by Khomeini.

I mean the Iranian nuclear weapons meme goes all the way back to the fucking Shah turning his back to the US.

>he thinks Khomeini didn't rule Iran prior to the war
Iran revolution was '78, Iran-Iraq war started in '80, dumbo.

The Shah never turned hostile to America. Part of the reason the US hostages were taken was because the Shah was granted entry into America for medical treatment.

Yes, Iran had a whole bunch of equipment going to the Shah's regime, but after a short time that equipment was rendered useless. A lack of replacements or spare parts, maintainance equipment, munitions, etc once American support disappeared.

The Wester quite firmly backed Iraq. French shenanigans and the Iran-Contra affair notwithstanding, the US alone: shot down an Iranian passenger jet, attacked and sunk Iranian navy vessels, bombed Iranian oil platforms and provided Iraq with huge amounts of equipment and munitions. Maybe even the chemical weapons he used, but that I'm not sure of.

>he still can't figure out what the word "prior" means

Dude. Not the user you're replying to, but American support for Iran ended before the war, it ended after the revolution.

Yes prior to the war the ruler was Khomeini

And prior to the revolution it was the U.S. backed Shah.

We're done, sunshine.

Yeah, prior to the revolution. Not prior to the war.

>attacked and sunk Iranian navy vessels, bombed Iranian oil platforms

That's because the Iranians were dumb enough to fuck with our navy escorting tankers. They still do that shit today.

Maybe America shouldn't have been supplying Saddam with everything on his Christmas list

You think?

Our middle eastern policy has pretty much always been fucked up.

Yeah, fair enough.

International relations has always been basically might makes right/if you can get away with it, it's legal.

Most of the war was Iran reversing the tables and attacking the Iraqis (after the summer of 1982). The reason everyone was condemning the Iranians was that the Iranians wouldn't back off after pushing the Iraqis off their turf.
Khomeini was fucking butthurt Saddam tortured and killed one of his dear friends, and because he was super obsessed with realizing his vision for Shia theocratic revolution in the ME in his lifetime. It got so bad, Saddam started using chemical weapons by the fucking ton because Iraq's very existence was threatened (unlike the initial casus belli of the war, where all Iraq wanted was to reassert control of the Shatt al-Arab). Since 1982, the Iraqis pretty much agreed with every UN resolution, while Iran rejected them all.
Full disclosure, I think the Iranians deserve to be condemned because they autistically refused to recognize that they had no international support and that Islamic fervor is no excuse to send 13 year old boys running across minefields.

>It was just a prank, bro!

Kys,

Cry more.

>you will never empty your machine gun into a horde of screaming majoos subhumans charging at you in a human wave armed with plastic knives and then finally pull the pins on your own grenades as the Persian beasts overrun you

m.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGiB7zvk40

Calling it a victory is kind of a stretch.

If someone sucker punches you in the face, would you pull out a gun and try to shoot him in the head? Same principle.

FYI Iran also tried to use chemical weapons but they were really shit quality cyanide types

>Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

A statesman should also be able to recognize the weakness of his state and the futility of struggle against an infinitely more powerful state, and not waste blood and treasure in such a foolhardy way but acquiesce and live to fight another day.
What I'm trying to impress upon you is that there is no fucking way America would have ever let Iraq fall.

>>Saddam then runs electrical wiring through the swamp and electrocutes the Persian soldiers on a scale that would make Mike Pence blush
thats metal as fuck

The issue Iran had was that after 1982 the war turned into a war of attrition, which Iran had no hope of winning, since nobody but the Chinese were actually willing to sell them weapons.

The ability to resupply your armies is a hugely underrated ability, and Iran was screwed in this regard.

there's alot but most of them are written in Arabic

Definitely one of the more interesting wars to me

Strange why the 3rd (iirc) largest war of the last century and if you'd ask most normies about it they would say they never heard of it.

youtube.com/watch?v=ukGL2K9Me4U&t=3s

Also to put into perspective, this was a solo 1-on-1 war in terms of manpower, so all those casualties were from only two countries.

Oh shit Iraq had jets and now it's a complete shithole.

>This war was the only one in history where helicopters fought in the air with other helicopters and shot them down
>One Iraqi Mi-24 literally shot down an Aircobra with it's autocannon

thanks bush, thanks obama

> Ar*b calling Persians subhuman

okay ahmed

That's moronic. If someone invades you then you don't have to stop just after you push them out. It's on their head. Stupid Iraqcuq.

>Calling it a victory is kind of a stretch.
Not really, unless you're stupid.

>If someone sucker punches you in the face, would you pull out a gun and try to shoot him in the head?
Fuck yeah I would, you ever read about niggers playing the 'Knockout Game'?
Shit killed people, how do I know they didn't intend to knock me out and then stomp on my neck and face?
How do I know they're not going to take it further?

I dont remember WW1 having antitank motorcycle cavalry.

I'M OFF TO SWAT SOME BOTHERSOME FLIES

It was like a child with Down's Syndrome and 30 siblings starting a fight with an old guy who lost both legs and most of his family in The War.

Because people dont act like nation states and both the Soviet Union and the United States had an interest in deescalation.
No one was interested in Revolutionary Iran and Ba'athist Iraq emerging as a regional hegemon: Iran was anti-Soviet and anti-American, and the Gulf Arab state shunned them for being Persians and Shia. Iraq didnt have a chance of winning any kind of protracted engagement against Iran which had top tier American tech, almost three times the population, a more homogenous population ethnically and religiously, far more oil and gas wealth, and an actual navy that could strangle all 48 km of Iraqs coastline (which is mostly useless marsh) and cut off Iraqi exports.

Iraq wanted to seize Khuzestan and force heavy concessions from Iran by seizing Irans chief oil refinery at Abadan and prime revenue producing oil fields. From this position of power, I'd presume they'd demand total sovereignty over the Shatt (a reversal of the thalweg principle that Saddam felt was extorted from him by Shah Pahlavi) and "liberate" some parts of Khuzestan which was majority Arab.

why has the Iraqi military always been a fucking joke?

>be T-72
>get BTFO by infantry

And to expand on the thalweg thing, basically the Shah of Iran had grandiose visions of becoming a regional leader, restoring Iran to Achaemenid primacy. He was in a ripe position to do so. The only seriously challenge to Iran in the Gulf was Saudi Arabia and neither were willing to risk fucking up their relationship with the US to fight a war with an uncertain winner. He started by abrogating a 1937 (? 1932?) agreement that Perfidious Albion brokered in Iraqs favor that basically gave Iraq total control over the waterway. That meant you stepped in the Shatt from the Iranian side, you were in Iraqi waters. Shah Pahlavi thought this was bullshit because 80% of the traffic on the Shatt went to Abadan or Khorramshahr. So he told Iraq if you wanna fight over, throw them hands nigga. Iraq, being substantially weaker militarily, got cucked.
But this wasnt enough for Pahlavi. He knew this would be trouble in the future so he wanted Iraq to legitimize the state of affairs. As par course for Middle Eastern politics, he started giving the Kurds heavy military support to fuck with his neighbors, up to and including direct air and artillery support WITHIN Iraq. The Iraqi army was basically beat the fuck up like a housewife after an exhausting COIN campaign that led nowhere. Saddam got forced to the table because he knew he couldnt continue fighting the Kurds without potentially losing even more ground to the Iranians. His Soviet tech army was thoroughly shit all over by Iranian's shiny gadgets courtesy of the USA. He agreed to concede to the thalweg principle if Iran fucked off and stopped supporting Iraqi Kurds. And as usual, the Kurds got fucked over in the end. After they signed the Algiers agreement in 75, the Iranians took back all of their heavy weaponry and abandoned the Kurds to their fate.

Saddam never forgot how Shah fucked with him though and considered signing the Algiers accord deeply shameful.

And yet if it wasn't for the the USA, USSR and Europe and the Persian gulf states stepping in to help Iraq they would have been overrun and defeated by an millita more than an army of semi trained men with Chinese and North korean weapons

Pretty shameful on the part of Iraq what happened to the blitzkrieg what happened to the expectation of Iranians not wanting war having been through a revolution why were the Iranians able to push into Iraq almost capturing Basra why did the Iraqis propose peace just to be turned down

In the end nothing changed except that Iraqis/Arabs once again proved they can't fight a war and win and that Iranians even with the odds mounted against them will fight hard and long to defend their nation

Why did Iraq's army run for the hills when the USA invaded? Seems pretty cowardly

I've also done some reading on French arms sales. The French are pretty fucking mercenary when it comes to selling weapons to people and they just fucking LOVE pissing off America or the Uk, especially if they make a buck doing it. Washington tried hard as hell to get the French to not ship those 5 Super Etendards with the Exocet antiship missiles. Once people found out about the sale, the French being fucking French told Iraq, blamed the US to Iraq that their shipment would be delayed, waited out the news so they wouldnt be perceived as responsible for the escalation of the Gulf conflict, then went through with it anyway.

In fact, France was the 2nd largest supplier of Iraqi military equipment and even sold them a fucking nuclear reactor, which Israel preemptively blew up in a lightning strike with a US-supplied jet, which fucking pissed the fuck out of Reagan because Iraq is anti-Zionist as fuck and the surgical strike just inflamed tensions in the region.

Btw fuck Mitterand.

Iranian courage is fucking superhuman. The sheer volume of human wave attacks penetrated 5 out of 6 of Basras defensive rings. They took fucking horrendous casualties, yet they reformed, and charged across minefields, endured agonizing gas attacks, drowned by the thousands in mud and marsh, again and again. Little boys on bikes peddled to their deaths with grenades in their hands. 18 year old Iraqi boys were forced to mow down battalions of 12 to 16 year olds.

Is this the power of Allah u akbar?

>tfw half my family died protecting their homeland
>tfw women died because of missiles falling on tehran
>tfw cousin died of poison gas. poison fucking gas
why is america the vehicle by which satan enters the world? what the fuck is their problem.

>reading arabic sources on anything that has to do with Iran
enjoy muh crypto fireworshipper bullshit

The Tanker War was honestly one of the more interesting aspects of the war. With the delivery of French Super Etendards, the Iraqis were able to strike as far east as the Bandar-e Abbas on the strait. They blew up Irans biggest oil terminal at Kharg Island and started indiscriminately attacking any tankers loading up on Iranian oil. Saddam knew he could no longer hope to survive without
1. Disrupting the Iranian economy at large, esp. their oil revenues
2. (More importantly) force the Iranians to attack (((neutral))) Gulf Arab shipping and genuinely neutral shipping and escalate the conflict, forcing the US or USSR to intervene.
3. Try to get the Iranians to cross the red line Reagan proclaimed in 1982 that if Iran even fucking tries to blockade the strait of Hormuz, he would remove obstacles with any force necessary.

Good realpolitik by Saddam. Too bad he was like Hitler in that he couldnt run an Army for shit.

>real life Maverick was an Iranian

>Full disclosure, I think the Iranians deserve to be condemned because they autistically refused to recognize that they had no international support and that Islamic fervor is no excuse to send 13 year old boys running across minefields.

>arabshits actually believe this meme

>to those who fought and died for free Iraq
L M A O

Jesus Christ. War is hell.

Hold up there, Ahmedinejad. You shouldnt have tried to spread the Revolution to Shia Northern Iraq. If you just accepted the UN resolutions to ceasefire which Iraq has agreed to since like 1981 or 82, none of that would have been necessary.

You do know that Khomeini allowed a special dispensation to allow young schoolboy volunteers to join the Basij [suicide] battalions? You still had full grown men and you sent the boys to die first.

You do stop when both the USSR and the USA tell you to fucking stop.

>you shouldnt have tried to spread the Revolution to Shia Northern Iraq. If you just accepted the UN resolutions to ceasefire which Iraq has agreed to since like 1981 or 82, none of that would have been necessary.
>you
LARPing is for /int/ and /pol/. please go back there.

Literally not an argument. Come back when you realize how fucking stupid Iran's brand of fundamental Shiite Islam is.

nice meme

>why have all Arab militaries been a joke for the past 600years
Ftfy

Does anyone like Iranian war music? Holy fuck this stirs something in my soul. I dont speak Persian at all, some Irananon posted this on /pol/ before. Inb4 go back to /pol/. The song is damn good.

youtube.com/watch?v=hBxCWsEcQnc

>tfw Iranian army had people dressed as Ali on a horses waving swords to motivate the infantry charges

I believe shia can be way crazier than sunni

...

didn't they also hand out plastic keys to soldiers, telling them that those were the keys to the gates of paradise when they died?

Recommend me some good books on this.

>Why did Iraq's army run for the hills when the USA invaded?

Because they were smart.

>Why did Iraq's army run for the hills when the USA invaded? Seems pretty cowardly

The ones that didn't run wound up dead.

>MFW Muslims blame everybody but themselves for their modern violent history

Would it make you feel better if the Saudi's, or the Egyptians, were the ones propping up Iraq?

We just do not fucking know. The amount of money and time we throw at those camel fuckers boggles the mind, it has literally been over a decade we have tried to train them but in one of the last major battles with ISIS not even 6 months ago half of the Iraqi fighters fled the field. It may be some kind of biological deficiency, on average they're 5'0" and 100lbs in full gear, maybe it's a lack of education like they're the 3rd son in the family with no schooling at the most rudimentary level and they see the army as the only paying job they could get, the possibilities are endless.

The CIA was giving the Iraqi's coordinates of where to launch chemical attacks. No matter how you parse that, its pretty fucked up. t. arabshit

btw you replied to an /sg/ meme good job

It's true that muslims are at fault, but it would help if the US stopped funneling money and guns to the most stupid ones.

It's not like neutral sources are rife on most conflicts buddy. Also there are still a few books that were written by Iraqis who fought in the war that provide a decent perspective with no heavy bias, especially the books written by Iraqi general Ra'ad Al-hamdani, he wrote 4 books I think, one about his experience in fighting the Israelis in the Arab coalition, one about the Iran-Iraq war, one about the invasion of Kuwait, and one about desert storm and 2003. I think they are available in English

>it would help if the US stopped funneling money and guns to the most stupid ones.
We have to support our brothers fighting for freedom to overthrow their oppressive regimes ; )

no that one was a myth

like most exaggerated stories of human wave charges (most of them didn't really happen like the Iraqis described them happening)

>We just do not fucking know.

Iraqi "leaders" are incompetent as fuck, and treat their men as if they were little more than personal servants. Combine that with the Sunni / Shia rift, and the fact that those same leaders steal everything from gas, to the soldiers pay, to enrich themselves, and you'll start to understand why Iraqi "soldiers" have no desire to fight.

Can't argue against saving U.S. cash instead of wasting it in the land of Mohammad. However, if it wasn't us, it would be somebody else. It's not like the Saudi's are fans of Shia Iran, and those niggers are loaded with cash.

>reddit spacing
lol irancucks

Israel also provided the Iranians with backing.

On 7 June 1981 Israeli F15 & 16 aircraft bombed and destroyed the French built Iraqi plutonium research reactor at Osirak/Tuwaitha. Intelligence for this operation came from Iran after their own failed operation on 30 Sept 1980. The Iranians also gave permission for the Israeli aircraft involved in the mission to use the Iranian airbase at Tabriz.

In July 1981 an aircraft carrying arms from Israel to Iran crashed near the Soviet-Turkish boarder. It is estimated that $500 million in arms were supplied by Israel to Iran between 1980-83.

Israel also provided technical assistance with Iran's US built weapons; notably the F1-4 Tomcat. For example supplying tyres and undercarriage brake componentsfor the F-14. In 1985 Israeli technicians worked in Iran on technical adapations of the F-14 for the Iranians.

Despite the hostility between the two nations Israel was probably Iran's most consistent supporter in the war

>Calling it a victory is kind of a stretch.
Is it? Iraq failed its strategic goals and objectives in annexing territory from Iran, and this is despite most of the West supporting them and having the original initiative in the war in the first place.

Which dead leader between Iran and Iraq got executed by their own people again?