Introduction
The war between Iraq and Iran began in 1980 when Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, hoped to take advantage of the Iranian Revolution chaos to invade Iran, and it lasted until 1988. Iraq feared that the revolution might extend to their country, and hoped to protect the interest they had on oil and gain territory through fighting Iran. The war involved the use of deadly chemical and biological weaponry and is regarded as one of the major human tragedies in the history of the Middle East. The war resulted in the death of millions of people, many casualties and millions of refugees. The resources used in the war was massive and was estimated to exceed what the whole third world spent in a decade on public health.
Even though neither Iraq nor Iran emerged as the winner in the war, research says that there was a possibility of Iranians winning. However, this was not possible because of the support Iraq got from the superpower countries. On this background, this paper will discuss the Iraq-Iran war. The first part discusses the reasons why the U.S. got involved in the war while the second section addresses how the U.S. involvement led to future trouble with Iraq. Finally, a concluding remark from the discussion observation.
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Why the U.S. got involved in the Iran-Iraq War
According to Mearsheimer and Stephen, initially, when the war began, the U.S. position was neutral to both the countries because it had no official diplomatic ties with them. Later, in 1982, the U.S. abandoned the neutrality position and decided to get involved. One primary reason being for the involvement was because the U.S. was not happy with the Iranian revolution and saw it as a major threat to conquer the region of Persian Gulf, which was in the interest of the U.S. due to the oil it exported to the U.S. in moderate prices to sustain the economy. As a result, the U.S. threw all of its support behind Iraq by 1984. The support was because the Reagan administration saw Saddam Hussain to be its surrogate for the Persian Gulf section policy, and to counter the Iranian actions to escalate oil prices and hinder its exports to other Gulf countries if they conquer the Persian Gulf region 1 .
As such, the U.S. removed Iraq from the terrorist state, restored the diplomatic relations which were broken in 1967 after the war with Israel and provided support to Iraq to defeat Iran. The support was in the form of military aid and intelligence, economic assistance and political supported which encouraged the decision to use both chemical and biological weapons. Consequently, the war continued until in 1988 when it came to an end after UN peace negotiations 2 .
How the U.S. involvement Lead to Future Troubles with Iraq
After the end of Iraq-Iran war, the period from 1989 to 2003, the U.S. featured a short and indecisive war with Iraq following some consequential complications. This war came because after offering support to Hussain during the war, Saddam made a mistake to threaten the interest of U.S. when he invaded Kuwait in 1990. The move by Saddam to invade Kuwait made him become a great threat to the U.S. instead of being its ally. As a result, the U.S. president G. Bush administration launched an operation against Hussain in 1991 3 . This followed subsequent operations (wars) which were tailored towards toppling the regime of Saddam until 2003 when Bush decided to invade Iraq. The main reason for the invasion was because Hussain had mass destruction weapons (WMDs), which were at risk of getting into terrorist hands. Until today, the diplomatic relationship between Iraq and the U.S. is not stable, and several attacks including the terrorist attack in the US in September 2011 was linked to Iraq 4 .
Bibliography
Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. "An unnecessary war." Foreign Policy 134 (2003): 50.
Record, Jeffrey. "The bush doctrine and war with Iraq." Parameters 33.1 (2003): 4.
Jacek, Brian. “ US Role in the Iran-Iraq War and its Negative Implications on US-Iran Relations.” Kulna (2011).
1 Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. "An unnecessary war." Foreign Policy 134 (2003): 50.
2 Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. "An unnecessary war." Ibid .
3 Record, Jeffrey. "The bush doctrine and war with Iraq." Parameters 33.1 (2003): 4.
4 Jacek, Brian. “ US Role in the Iran-Iraq War and its Negative Implications on US-Iran Relations.” Kulna (2011).
