The Iran–Iraq War, the "Sacred Defence"
Saddam Hussein's Iraq invades Iran; eight years of trench warfare, missile attacks on cities and chemical weapons kill several hundred thousand people.
- The Iran-Iraq War — Pierre Razoux, Harvard University Press (2015)
- Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic — Michael Axworthy, Oxford University Press (2013)
- A History of Modern Iran — Ervand Abrahamian, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja — Joost R. Hiltermann, Cambridge University Press (2007)
- Blood-soaked secrets: Why Iran's 1988 prison massacres are ongoing crimes against humanity — Amnesty International (2018)
On 22 September 1980, Saddam Hussein, hoping to exploit revolutionary chaos and seize the oil province of Khuzestan, invaded Iran. Iraqi forces took the port city of Khorramshahr after weeks of street fighting, but the expected collapse never came. Volunteers, the new Revolutionary Guards and the purged regular army held the line, and on 24 May 1982 they retook Khorramshahr, a day still celebrated.
- The Iran-Iraq War — Pierre Razoux, Harvard University Press (2015)
- Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic — Michael Axworthy, Oxford University Press (2013)
Iran then pushed into Iraq, demanding Saddam’s fall. Six more years of stalemate followed: human-wave assaults by young Basij volunteers, many of them teenagers, across minefields; a “war of the cities” with missiles falling on Tehran and Baghdad; and attacks on tankers in the Gulf. Iraq, backed with money and arms from the Gulf states, the Soviet Union, France and, quietly, the United States, used mustard gas and nerve agents against Iranian soldiers on a massive scale, and in June 1987 against the Kurdish town of Sardasht.
- The Iran-Iraq War — Pierre Razoux, Harvard University Press (2015)
- A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja — Joost R. Hiltermann, Cambridge University Press (2007)
- The Iran-Iraq War — Pierre Razoux, Harvard University Press (2015)
That month Khomeini accepted a UN ceasefire, saying it was more deadly to him than drinking poison. Neither side had gained anything. Estimates of the dead vary widely, but several hundred thousand people were killed, most of them Iranian, and many more were wounded or disabled.
- The Iran-Iraq War — Pierre Razoux, Harvard University Press (2015)
- Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic — Michael Axworthy, Oxford University Press (2013)
In the summer of 1988, after an armed incursion by the Mojahedin-e Khalq from Iraq, the regime secretly executed thousands of political prisoners, many already serving sentences; Amnesty International estimates around 5,000, and others give higher numbers. Families still mourn at unmarked graves such as Khavaran in Tehran.
- Blood-soaked secrets: Why Iran's 1988 prison massacres are ongoing crimes against humanity — Amnesty International (2018)
- A History of Modern Iran — Ervand Abrahamian, Cambridge University Press (2008)
The "Imposed War" and "Sacred Defence": Iran, alone and under sanctions, defended its land and revolution against an aggressor armed by both superpowers and the Gulf states, at enormous cost.
- The Iran-Iraq War — Pierre Razoux, Harvard University Press (2015)
- Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic — Michael Axworthy, Oxford University Press (2013)
Iran was the victim of aggression until 1982, but Khomeini then chose to carry the war into Iraq to topple Saddam, prolonging it by six years and sending waves of young volunteers to their deaths. The war was also used to crush opposition at home.
- The Iran-Iraq War — Pierre Razoux, Harvard University Press (2015)
- A History of Modern Iran — Ervand Abrahamian, Cambridge University Press (2008)
Why it matters today
Almost every Iranian family over forty has a story from the war: a martyr on the wall, a veteran with gas-scarred lungs, a childhood of air-raid sirens. The war forged the Revolutionary Guards, gave the regime its language of martyrdom and resistance, and taught many Iranians that the world would stand by while they were gassed. It also underlies Iranian determination to have deterrent weapons of their own.