The Iran–Iraq War and the betrayal of Saddam by the US

The resistance shown by Iran against US imperialism and its ally Israel, as well as the resistance shown by the Iranian-backed Houthis against US-protected Saudi Arabia, has surprised many political scientists, international relations experts, journalists, and commentators. They did not expect such resilience. They thought Iran's stocks of weapons, ammunition, missiles, and rockets would quickly run dry, and that the Houthis would give up in a few weeks. They were wrong.

There are several reasons for this miscalculation. Imperial arrogance and hubris are among them. Ignorance is another.

Unfortunately, a significant portion of international relations experts—a discipline invented by the US—lack the necessary knowledge of history, geography, and political economy, making their miscalculations inevitable. Most of them forgot that Iran is one of the few states in the region with historical experience, national consciousness, and a state tradition, that it has emerged as a regional actor, and that its war experience is extensive.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has not knelt despite heavy economic sanctions. It did not give up even though a significant portion of its political, religious, military, and administrative cadres, including its highest-level officials, were killed as a result of US–Israeli attacks. Even though its economy is poor, its currency value is low, and its unemployment rate is high, it did not take a step back. While reserving their very justified and legitimate criticisms of the regime and the government, the people of Iran showed the maturity and determination to defend their state, their nation, and their homeland.

To better understand how they did this, let us briefly look at history.

In Iran, the regime changed with the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and the war began in 1980 with Iraq's air and ground attacks. The Iran–Iraq War lasted 8 years. In total, more than 1.5 million people died. The total war expenditure of the two countries exceeded 1 trillion dollars.

When the war began, the Iraqi leader of the time, Saddam Hussein, had calculated that he would enter the Iranian capital, Tehran, within 3 days. He was wrong. Iran recovered quickly. By the 2nd year of the war, Iraq was worried about protecting its capital, Baghdad. By the 3rd year of the war, the major Western powers and imperialist states supporting Iraq intervened. In July 1988, the US shot down an Iranian plane carrying 290 passengers heading to Dubai; in August, Iran accepted United Nations Resolution 598, the ceasefire that ended the war.

In 1979, as Imam Khomeini returned to Iran from France and began to govern his country, Saddam Hussein also became the president of Iraq in 1979. He wanted to be the leader of the Arab world. One of the important reasons for his declaration of war on Iran in 1980, and for his invasion of Kuwait in 1990—two years after the war with Iran ended—was his claim to leadership. Of course, there were also rich oil resources, historical and geographical reasons, and geopolitical and strategic justifications on Saddam's agenda.

While Western countries, led by the US, openly supported Baghdad, they also sold weapons to Iran under the table. While Arabs and Persians were killing each other, and while Iran, with its overwhelming Shia majority, and Iraq, with its two-thirds Shia population, were at war, Western arms companies filled their coffers. So much so that at that time, France earned almost half of its export revenue from weapons it sold to Iraq and Iran simultaneously. The US provided chemical weapons to Iraq. At that time, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and Jordan in the Arab world supported Iraq. Syria and Libya sided with Iran.

We know what happened next: after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the US struck Iraq in 1990–1991. It broke the power of Saddam and his army. It paved the way for Iraqi Kurds. Later, in 2003, it invaded Iraq. It took steps to effectively divide the country through ethnic and sectarian quotas, compartments, and allocations, even putting these into the constitution. It established a regional administration in northern Iraq. After a 23-year occupation, it ended the occupation in recent weeks.

When Saddam Hussein attacked Iran, he had trusted the US and received its support. When he attacked Kuwait, he thought the US would remain neutral. He could not foresee that when the day came, the US would invade his country, topple him, and send him to the gallows.

Therefore, one should never forget this quote by the famous US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger:

“It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”