English Essay, Research Paper

War between Iran and Iraq, lasting from 1980 to 1988. The

background for the war was disagreements on the borderline between

the two countries, stemming back to 1971, when Iran occupied a

couple of Iraqi islands in the Persian Gulf. Iraq was also concerned

with the Islamist propaganda that was transmitted from Iran to Iraq,

and Iraq’s government feared that there could be a revolution among

the Iraqi Shi’is in the south. In 1980 it was expected that Iran was

weak after the Iranian Revolution, so that Iraq would face little

resistance when occupying Iranian territory.

The war turned out to be a war without progress on either side

for most of the 8 years – it resulted in heavy losses on both sides

with 600,000 Iranian and 400,000 Iraqis dead, and an estimated total

economical loss of 1,2 billion US$.