The Social Origins of the Iran-Iraq War
W. Thom Workman
Lynne Rienner
Workman explores the origins of the Iran-Iraq War in terms of the sweeping socioeconomic transformations in both countries as they were drawn into the global economy.
The intense struggles among social forces unleashed by these changes undergirded the slide to war in 1980. Also figuring prominently in the protracted war were the continuing sociopolitical struggles in both states, especially the process of revolutionary consolidation in Iran. In the end, Workman concludes, the Iran-Iraq War significantly strengthened the regimes in Baghdad and Tehran and did little to lessen the oppression of subaltern social constituencies in either country—thus tending to confirm Thomas Paine’s axiom that “all wars are the art of conquering at home.”
W. Thom Workman is associate director of York University’s Centre for International and Strategic Studies. | 
