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GEOPOLITICAL
ORIGINS
OF THE IRAN-IRAQ
WAR*
WILL D. SWEARINGEN
The origins of the Iran-Iraq war are geopolitical in two essential ways.
Territorialissues, including the Shatt al-Arab boundary and five other zones, were a
direct cause of contention. Nonterritorial conflicts also had key roles, but territory has
been the measure in assessing their outcomes. Control of disputed land is the primary
means of demonstratingprevailing power.
ABSTRACT.
* I
thank Amy Budge, Technology Application Center, University of New Mexico, for drafting the
maps.
1 Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iran-Iraq War and Western Security 1984-87: Strategic Implications
and Policy Options (London: Jane's Publishing Co., 1987), 9-10.
* DR. SWEARINGENis a research assistant professor of geography at the Technology Application Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque,
New Mexico 87131. He is
currently a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
406
407
IRAN-IRAQ WAR
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The war has proceeded in five distinct phases. The first was the Iraqi
offensive that began on 22 September 1980 and ended by March 1981. The
second phase consisted of a year-long stalemate during which Iraq held
approximately 14,000 square kilometers of Iranian territory but was unable
to advance. The third phase, beginning in March 1982, was marked by an
Iranian counteroffensive that drove Iraqi troops from the occupied territory
and even penetrated a short distance into Iraq. That counteroffensive was
408
spent by late fall 1983.9The fourth phase, characterized by stalemate, continued to April 1988. The fifth phase, still under way, began with the unexpected Iraqi recapture of occupied territory southeast of Basra. This phase
has essentially shifted the battleline back to the prewar boundary.
During the past five years, the conflict has degenerated into a brutal war
of attrition with resemblances to World War I: trench warfare, long, bloody
battles with minor territorial gains, occasional use of poison gas, and strategic
strikes against cities and vital oil installations. Outmanned, Iraq has been
able to fend off Iran by superior access to new armaments. Neither side
seems able to muster the force to inflict a decisive blow. Yet few analysts
have predicted the turns of events in the war. The only prediction that can
confidently be made is that resolution of the conflict must address its origins.
ORIGINS OF THE WAR
Some analysts contend that the war started primarily over a boundary
dispute, and at least five pieces of evidence support the interpretation. (1)
Iran and Iraq, or their predecessors, have been fighting for centuries over
their border, particularly the Shatt al-Arab waterway. (2) The most recent
boundary treaty, signed in 1975, was a source of deep humiliation to Iraq.
Its government was forced to accede to the treaty by Iranian promotion of
a Kurdish revolt that threatened to dismember Iraq and to deprive it of its
primary oil-producing region. In exchange for Iran's pledge to stop supporting the revolt, Iraq gave up a large portion of the vital Shatt al-Arab
waterway. When Saddam Hussein, the chief Iraqi negotiator, became president of the country in 1978, he vowed to redress the boundary situation.
Hussein saw his opportunity after the overthrow of the Iranian monarchy
brought about a debilitating purge of the military and a paralysis of the
economy. According to this interpretation, the war was an Iraqi attempt to
recover territory ceded in 1975 and to restore national pride. (3) The abrogation of the 1975 treaty by Iraq five days before its invasion of Iran had
the umistakable character of a declaration of war. Hussein vowed, "This
Shatt shall again be, as it has been throughout history, Iraqi and Arab in
name and reality."10(4) After the Iraqi capture of the western part of the
oil-rich province of Khuzistan, a key condition for its return was restoration
of Shatt al-Arab to the pre-1975 status. (5) Iraqi justification of occupation of
Khuzistan emphasized that control of this strategic region would compel
Iran to recognize Iraq's territorial rights and to renegotiate the 1975 treaty.
"The war was an extension of the politics of border negotiations by means
of a military siege."11
Together the evidence that the Shatt al-Arab boundary issue was the
cause of the conflict is compelling. A survey of the historical evolution of
9 Hiro, footnote 6 above, 5-12.
10 Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Middle East and Africa, Washington, D.C., 18 September
1980, E5.
1' Claudia Wright, Implications of the Iraq-Iran War, Foreign Affairs 59 (1980-81): 287.
IRAN-IRAQ WAR
409
the boundary reveals why Iraq might have gone to war over this issue. The
frontier between Iran and Iraq has been subject to dispute for nearly five
centuries. The first treaty addressing this frontier was concluded in 1535
between the Persian and Ottoman empires. Seventeen additional treaties
have been signed since then.12 The key treaties from the current perspective
were those of 1639, 1847, 1913, 1937, and 1975 (Fig. 2).
In 1639 the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia signed the first treaty to
define a border in the region. That treaty recognized Ottoman control over
what would become the modern state of Iraq and attempted to establish a
boundary between the opposing empires. As was then customary, the boundary was defined according to the loyalties of villages and nomadic tribes
rather than to geographical reference points. Thus a border zone, rather than
a precise boundary, was created between the Zagros Mountains on the east
and the Tigris and Shatt al-Arab waterways on the west.13 Though not
specifically mentioning the Shatt al-Arab, this treaty has provided the foundation for all subsequent boundary discussions.
The Treaty of Erzerum in 1847 directly addressed the issue of the Shatt
al-Arab. The United Kingdom and Russia were parties to this treaty. The
great powers wanted a more precise definition of the Ottoman-Persian
boundary to ease the expansion of their imperial interests in the region. The
United Kingdom planned to develop steamship navigation on the Tigris
River and the Shatt al-Arab, and Russia hoped to build a road linking its
southern territories with Baghdad.4 This treaty ostensibly allocated the Shatt
al-Arab to the Ottoman Empire; however, Iran received Abadan Island, other
small islands in the waterway, and former Ottoman territory on the eastern
bank of the Shatt al-Arab. Additionally Iran was granted right of free passage
on this waterway. The result was a significant territorialloss for the Ottoman
Empire and later for Iraq.
Subsequent treaties confirmed the provisions of the Treaty of Erzerum,
but an important modification appeared in 1913. That year a treaty granted
Iran a five-mile stretch of territorial waters in the Shatt al-Arab opposite
Khorramshahr. From a point approximately four miles above the mouth of
the Karun River to a point almost one mile below it, the boundary was
shifted to the middle of the Shatt al-Arab. The United Kingdom, aiming to
facilitate its oil industry, played a crucial role in effecting this change. Oil
had been discovered in southwestern Iran in 1908 by an agent of the predecessor of British Petroleum. Development of the deposits required a good
port to receive drilling and other heavy equipment. British ships had to
anchor in Turkish territorial waters off Khorramshahr to discharge the equip12 Vahe J. Sevian, The
Evolution of the Boundary between Iraq and Iran, in Essays in Political
Geography (edited by Charles A. Fisher; London: Methuen, 1968), 211-223; Daniel Pipes, A Border
Adrift: Origins of the Conflict, in The Iran-Iraq War, footnote 5 above, 13-20.
13 Alexander
Melamid, The Shatt al-'Arab Boundary Dispute, Middle East Journal 22 (1968): 351;
Ismael, footnote 4 above, 2.
14 Melamid, footnote 13
above, 351-353; Pipes, footnote 12 above, 13-14.
410
THE GEOGRAPHICAL
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IRAN-IRAQ WAR
411
Along a four-mile stretch of the Shatt al-Arab opposite Abadan, the boundary
was shifted to the thalweg, or the deepest part of the river. Again Iraq lost
territory.
The last important boundary change occurred in 1975. For reasons stated
previously, the entire Iran-Iraqboundary along the Shatt al-Arab was shifted
to the thalweg, and the rearrangement again came at the expense of Iraq.
Measured in square kilometers, the territorial loss was trifling. However, the
psychological effect was enormous. Iraq is almost entirely a landlocked country, and it regards the Shatt al-Arab as its primary connection to the outside
world as well as the raison d'etre of its claim to the status of a Persian Gulf
power.
In sum, in four different treaties Iraq suffered a significant loss of some
of the most important of its national territory. On each occasion, the loss
resulted from political coercion by external powers. Given this legacy and
the especially humiliating characterof the 1975 treaty, it is easy to understand
why Iraq might have gone to war in 1980 when it felt that power and
opportunity were in its favor. The evidence strongly supports this
interpretation.
Yet many observers assert that the boundary issue was only a pretext
and that the actual causes of the war were of a different nature.15 One analyst
has argued, "Anyone who believes that . . . the Shatt al-Arab is the heart of
the conflict ... will also be convinced that Israeli-Palestinian discord centers
on sharing the waters of the Jordan River.... The idea that past border
conflicts adequately explain the origin of the Iran-IraqWar is both an illusion
and a legalistic sham."16In this interpretation four nonterritorial factors are
the keys to understanding the conflict.
Firstly, the personal animosity between Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah Khomeini has become manifested in state policy. In 1978 Hussein, at
the behest of the shah, expelled Khomeini from the holy city of Najaf in
southern Iraq, where he had been living in exile for thirteen years. When
Khomeini came to power in Iran in 1979, he repeatedly called for the overthrow of Hussein. Since the outbreak of the war, the one condition for ending
it about which Iran had been inflexible was the banishment of Hussein from
power.
Secondly, the nearly five centuries of conflict over borders have commonly been viewed as a reflection of ethnic animosity between Arabs and
Persians, or the rivalry between Sunni and Shi'i Muslims. However, it is
most convincingly interpreted as a struggle for status as the dominant regional power. Before 1979, Iran, with strong support from the United States,
had emerged as the dominant military power in the Gulf region. In Iraq a
15 Richard W. Bulliet, Time, Perceptions and Conflict Resolution, in The Iran-Iraq War, footnote 5
above, 65-81; Jack S. Levy and Mike Froelich, Causes of the Iran-Iraq War, in Regionalization of
Warfare, footnote 7 above, 127-143.
16
Bulliet, footnote 15 above, 73-74.
412
goal of the Ba'th Party after 1968 was to make the country the great power
of the Gulf region, and Iraq sought to fill the power vacuum that was created
by the fall of the shah. Iraq also had aspiration to be the predominant Arab
power in the Middle East, and demonstration of its strength by invading an
enfeebled Iran and recapturing Arab territory advanced that goal. The taking
of western Khuzistan and other early Iraqi victories were proclaimed as the
greatest military triumphs of the Arabs over the Persians since the Battle of
Qadisiya in 636. One condition for withdrawal from Khuzistan was that Iran
relinquish three Arab islands in the lower Gulf that the shah's navy had
forcibly occupied in 1971.17 This condition was evidence that Iraq was posturing to become the leader of the Arab countries and the regional superpower. The latter interpretation was confirmed by a deputy prime minister
of Iraq who remarked that one of his country's objectives was "to prove in
battle that it is stronger than Iran and fully capable of defeating it."''8
Thirdly, the prevailing ideology of Iraq is Arab nationalism; in post-shah
Iran Islamic fundamentalism prevails. As practiced by the two countries,
these ideologies are in direct conflict. Arab nationalism is secular. With almost
60 percent of the Iraqi population consisting of Shi'i Muslims, the ruling
Sunni Muslims cannot emphasize religion. Instead they stress Arab unity
and socialism. Islamic fundamentalism in Iran plays on anti-Western, antimodernist sentiments and stresses a return to the true Islamic values of the
past. The war therefore represents a clash between two mutually exclusive
types of legitimacy, two different and opposing sets of values.
Fourthly, the rulers of Iraq fear a Shi'i rebellion. The Sunni Muslims are
clearly the minority in the country. In addition to the 60 percent of the
population that is Shi'i, 20 percent is Kurds who are Sunni but who zealously
retain their ethnic identity and have long been a secessionist group. The
ruling Sunni Arabs thus constitute only 20 percent of the population, and
the Islamic revolution in Iran, chiefly Shi'i in character, presented a threat
to this minority. Shi'i Muslims in both Iraq and Iran regard Khomeini as
their foremost political and religious leader. Since his advent to power in
1979, he has advocated not only the overthrow of the Hussein regime but
also the establishment of a true Islamic state in Iraq. The purpose of the
attack on Iran was to discredit Khomeini and his revolution. But if the
invasion was to bring about his downfall, the result has been the exact
opposite: it enabled the new clerical regime to consolidate its political control
and to rally the Iranian population against a common enemy.
The majority of analysts considers these nonterritorial factors to constitute
the true explanation of the Iran-Iraqwar. This explanation is perhaps more
convincing than the Shatt al-Arab boundary dispute by itself. However in
two ways at least, it fails to address adequately the origins of the war. Firstly,
Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Middle East and Africa, Washington, D.C., 29 September
1980, E3.
18 Cited in Abdulghani, footnote 3 above, 205.
17
IRAN-IRAQ WAR
413
it treats the Shatt al-Arab dispute as a pretext for the war, when in fact the
struggle represented significantly more. Secondly, like the Shatt al-Arab
explanation, it does not account for other crucial disputes between the two
countries. Both explanations are too limited and restrictive; even in combination they fall short. In contrast, a geopolitical explanation adequately encompasses virtually all relevant factors.
GEOPOLITICAL
ANALYSIS
The origins of the Iran-Iraqwar were geopolitical in two key ways. Firstly,
territorial issues were a direct cause of the war. Besides the Shatt al-Arab
boundary dispute, there were at least five other major territorial issues.
Secondly, Iraq went to war to capture or recapture territory for its symbolic
importance. In the first instance, acquiring or controlling territory or resources was an explicit political goal. In the second, territorial gain was a
means to achieve other political ends.
Analysts who have emphasized territorial issues as the cause of the war
have focused almost exclusively on the Shatt al-Arab. Other crucial territorial
problems either have been ignored or have been given insufficient attention.
The combined political weight of these problems far exceeded that of the
dispute over the Shatt al-Arab.
In the middle border region there was an intense dispute over the strategic
heights of Zain al-Qaws and Saif Saad south of Qasr-e Shirin, a total of
approximately 550 square kilometers of territory that Iran had forcibly annexed from Iraq. One of the conditions in the 1975 treaty was that Iran would
return this territory.'9 However, five years later it had not done so. To add
injury to insult, much of the prewar 1980 shelling of Iraqi towns and villages,
including the principal episode on 4 September, came from these heights.
In the Iraqi interpretation, this event started the war. One of the main
objectives of the September invasion of Iran was to recapture these heights.
Oil was also a part of this conflict. The border straddles a large oil-bearing
structure, already exploited by both countries, that underlies this disputed
area.20
414
divided in 1914 but without a specific mechanism for distributing its waters.21
The importance of this factor was established in the Iraqi proposal to end
the war in its early days: a key demand was increased Iraqi rights to the
waters of these streams.22
The third territorialissue involved the Kurds, whose role has been ignored
or misinterpreted by most analysts. From the Iraqi perspective, the concern
is for the territory and its resources. The Kurds are concentrated in northern
Iraq, the primary oil-producing region of the country. Kurdish nationalism
has long embodied a secessionist threat. In 1975 Iraq was forced to sign a
humiliating treaty to stop Iranian support of Kurdish rebels that threatened
Iraq's loss of northern territory.23The disdain of the Iraqi government for
the Kurds themselves has been expressed, in part, by strong military reprisals,
including gassing entire towns and villages.24By 1980the Iranian government
was again instigating Kurdish rebellion to jeopardize Iraqi sovereignty over
the northern oil-producing region. This issue, by itself, might have led to
war.
At the core of the government's fear of a Shi'i rebellion was a similar
territorial issue. Because Iraq has a significant Shi'i majority, the danger of
rebellion among the group is a vital concern to the ruling Sunni Arab
minority. However, the Shi'i are heavily concentrated in southern Iraq, a
counterbalance to the Kurdish concentration in the north. More likely than
Shi'i overthrow of the central government is loss of the Shi'i south either to
Iran or to a new state that would be closely allied with Iran.
Historically Iran long laid claim to southern Iraq. At Karbala and Najaf
are two of the holiest shrines in Shi'i Islam, and the region has the largest
concentration of Shi'i, including many Farsi speakers, outside Iran. To Iraq's
government, the export of the Islamic revolution by Iran into southern Iraq
was a thinly disguised attempt to exert old territorial claims. Khomeini was
a "turbanned shah," pursuing age-old Persian expansionist policies under
the guise of Islam.25Iraq countered with a preemptive invasion of Khuzistan,
which was perceived to be strategically significant because of its largely Arab
population. Iraqi capture of this province was an effective counterthreat to
dismember Iran.
Khuzistan indirectly was a final important territorial issue underlying
the Iraqi invasion of Iran. The status of Khuzistan has been a point of
contention between the two countries for more than sixty years. Under the
Ottoman Empire, western Khuzistan had been part of what would become
Iraq; however, after World War I, the United Kingdom ceded all of the
Pipes, footnote 12 above, 22.
Richard N. Schofield, Evolution of the Shatt al-'Arab Boundary Dispute (Wisbech, U.K.: Middle
East and North African Studies Press, 1986), 64; Turner, footnote 7 above, 154.
23 Renfrew, footnote 19 above, 100.
24
New York Times, 2 April 1988.
25
Ghassan Salameh, Checkmate in the Gulf War, MERIP Reports 125-126 (1984): 16; Al-Mukhtar,
footnote 19 above, 24.
21
22
IRAN-IRAQ WAR
415
Murray Gordon, Conflict in the Persian Gulf (New York: Facts on File, 1981), 157-159.
Moeini, footnote 2 above, 14.
Pipes, footnote 12 above, 23.
416