| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In 1988, a number of Iranian universities and research centers sponsored The International Conference on Aggression and Defense. I owe a great deal to many people who contributed both in organizing the conference and later in preparing the book. Dr. Kamal Kharazi, a professor at Tehran University and the conference chair, maintained his enthusiasm and encouragement throughout the book’s preparation. Walda Metcalf and the staff at the University Press of Florida deserve special thanks not only for their competent work but for keeping the lines of communication open with me overseas. The contributors were thoughtful, generous, and forthcoming. The staff who helped translate some of the papers from Persian into English and those who helped in typing were kind and helpful. The comments of the anonymous readers of the manuscript were welcomed and are hereby acknowledged.
Introduction
Farhang Rajaee
The Iraqi army crossed the border of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and occupied the capital city of this small oil-rich state on the southern edge of the Persian Gulf. The occupation lasted a few months and ended on February 28, 1991, after an offensive launched by a conglomeration of forces basically from Western powers and in accordance with the general guidelines of United Nations resolutions.
This event was not the first in recent years in which the Iraqi army had committed an act of aggression, one not only against the principle of good neighborly relations but also against the principles of international law. The same army crossed the border of Iran on September 22, 1980, and started a war with the newly established revolutionary regime in that country. For social, economic, political, and historical reasons, and specifically as a reaction to the revived Islamic revolutionary ideology, this war lasted almost a decade with both sides spending about $350 billion. It ended in August 1987 when Iran formally accepted Security Council Resolution 598 on July 18, 1988, which called for a cease-fire. Neither side could claim victory—although, interestingly, Saddam Hussein did so in a speech on the anniversary of the Ba’ath party's accession to power on July 17, 1991—but the war left its mark on relations between the two countries, on the region’s political configuration, and on international political alignments.
Considering Clausewitz’s famous maxim that “war is a mere continuation of policy by other means,” exactly what type of policy has the Iraqi government been pursuing?1 And considering that the strategists of any war argue that they are pursuing peace and that the war is “to end all wars,”2 and granting that the Iraqi regime had a clear policy objective in mind, what kind of “desired order” had they intended for the region? It seems that these questions lie at the heart of the wars that have occurred in the Middle East during the last decade. This collection of essays addresses these questions in a detailed, thorough, and comprehensive way, but within the context of the Iraqi war with Iran.
Since Iraq emerged as a relatively powerful state in the Middle East after the Ba’ath party seized power in 1968, the Iraqis have dreamed about assuming the leadership of the Arab world and becoming the dominant power in the region. During the rule of the monarchy, set up in Iraq by the British in 1920, the central government was involved in maintaining order and pursuing economic development but with little success. The repressive and violent nature of the Ba’ath regime notwithstanding, its ruling elite has not only been successful in establishing security and order; with the phenomenal rise in oil prices between 1973 and 1980, it has been able to implement impressive economic development to a point that seems to have made its repression bearable. Iraq also instituted an active regional policy and, coming out of a long period of isolation, established strong ties with the Soviet Union. In terms of its broader political objective of becoming a leading nation in the area, Iraq cast itself as the defender of the Arab cause. During the 1970s, it utilized “anti-Western” and “anti-Zionist” postures and, during the 1980s, took one of “rejectionist front, anti-Iran, and anti-revolution.”
Two regional developments gave new impetus to the leaders of the Iraqi regime. The first relates to internal Arab politics. While Nasser of Egypt was alive, the new elite in Iraq did not think of competing with him for leadership of the Arab world. But his death, coupled with the emergence of Saddam Hussein as the powerful deputy in charge of internal security during the presidency of his relative, Ahmad Hussan al-Bakr, marked a new beginning in Iraq’s foreign policy. Second, the British withdrawal from the region in 1971 provided an opportunity for the Iraqis to think of themselves as a major regional power. The “golden age of British paramountcy”—in Chubin’s words, the period during which domestic disruptions, regional wars, and interference of other outside powers were prevented—disappeared from the region.3 The policy of regional security had come on the scene, and the political and economic powers of Iran and Saudi Arabia entered into informal cooperation (the “twin pillar” policy) and assumed the responsibility of preserving regional order. In effect, this new arrangement pushed the Iraqi elite’s dream for dominance to the background, even though they played on the anti-Western and anticonservative postures. At the same time, as part of their economic development plan, they maintained their military build-up.
The Islamic revolution and the assumption of power by an Islamic elite which had been trying to establish an Islamic order not only took everyone by surprise but drastically affected the region’s political configuration. The departure of the shah from Iran on January 17, 1979, removed the greatest hindrance for the Baghdad regime. In fact, Saddam saw himself—in the 1970s as vice-president of Iraq and later as its president when he assumed that responsibility on July 16, 1979—as a competitor of the shah. In late October 1979, Saddam Hussein demanded a revision of the 1975 Algiers agreement. This treaty was intended to put an end to a dispute that had begun centuries before Iraq emerged as a state. None of the treaties or protocols—from the agreements of 1639, the treaty of 1847, the protocol of 1913, to the accord of 1937—were satisfactory for long. And the Iraqis saw the 1975 treaty as imposing the power of the shah on them. When Saddam Hussein tore up the treaty on September 17, 1979, he justified his action by claiming to be the defender of the Arab lands: “We have taken the decision to recover all our territories. The waters of Shatt al-Arab must return to their former Iraqi and Arab rule and be placed entirely under Iraqi sovereignty.”4
These declarations were only a pretext for the Ba’ath regime in Iraq to follow its objective of becoming the leader of the Arab world and of emerging as the strongest power in the region. Egypt’s isolation in the aftermath of the Camp David Accords gave Saddam Hussein the opportunity to lead “the rejectionist front” and cast himself as the champion of the Palestinian cause. The revolutionary situation in Iran and the presumed weakness of the revolutionary state seemed to be the opportunity Saddam had been awaiting. Thus, destruction of the revolutionary regime became a pillar of Iraq’s strategy. Months before its actual invasion of Iran, Iraq had shown its disapproval and dislike of the Islamic regime, particularly its strong Shi’i zeal. In April 1979, many Iraqis were forced out of their country for their Shi’i background and, as one scholar puts it, for their roles as “potential revolutionaries.”5 Now it seemed that Baghdad’s “rejectionist” and “antirevolutionary” postures would be more effective in Saddam’s pursuit of dominance.
Interestingly enough, Saddam’s policy converged with a tendency gradually taking shape in the West: to contain the revolution within Iranian boundaries. Washington viewed the revolutionary Iran as the bigger threat to U.S. interests in the region. Politics do make strange bedfellows, and gradually the interests of Saddam’s Iraq and those of the West—at least their short-term interests—coincided. When Iran cast the United States as “the great Satan” and seized its embassy in Tehran a new element was introduced, a less rational factor, and everyone forgot the real intention of Saddam Hussein and his anti-Western postures and sentiments during the preceding decade. It took Saddam’s second invasion, this time of Kuwait, for the world to think more soberly about him.
By then, however, the Iraq-Iran war had taken many turns and had in fact become regional as well as international. Regional politics, the politics of oil, economic competition for cheaper energy, the struggle of status quo versus revolutionary zeal, and family dramas concerning the fate of the U.S. hostages had all intermingled to make it harder to comprehend political developments and trends. What exacerbated the situation was the fact that, on the one hand, the war had gone beyond the bounds of international norms with, for example, the use of chemical warfare and attacks on cities. On the other hand, the usual channels of political and diplomatic discourse were replaced by public media, and the whole political development of the region was undermined by sentiments about the hostage issue. Thus, it became harder to distinguish fact from figure or reality from image. Understanding the reality of the situation not only helps unravel the complex regional politics, if a workable regional order should take effect and be accepted; it also sheds light on more pertinent questions related to human affairs in the course of revolution and war.
To that end, these essays have emerged from among more than fifty papers presented at the International Conference on Aggression and Defense held in Tehran in the summer of 1988. A number of Iranian universities and research centers sponsored the conference, with the aim of studying and evaluating this longest conventional war in recent history. University teachers, lawyers, prominent religious leaders, and scholars from the Islamic world and other faiths and regions participated.
Conference organizers began with a set of questions in mind. What were the underlying issues involved in this war? Who was really the aggressor, and what were the objectives? Was it a border dispute? Were issues related to or rooted in historical difficulties? Or was it a means to stop a revolution that had upset the regional status quo and seemed to be on the verge of upsetting the existing world order and balance of power? Was the war imposed on Iran because, contrary to many people’s expectations, the revolution there did not stop at its boundaries? While the conference organizers hoped that such questions would be addressed, greater hope was put on more practical matters such as analyzing the attitudes, intentions, and behaviors of the belligerents, particularly those of Iraq, throughout the various stages of the war.
Many participants dealt with these questions and, by doing so, contributed to our understanding of the nature of war, revolution, order, law, and political behavior. The underlying problems of the Iraq-Iran war that stood out were those of aggression and defense. The Iranians were forced to defend their national integrity and their newly formed revolutionary government. Like other human affairs, the war became complicated and touched on a great number of issues relating to regional and international politics. For example, it had global ramifications for the international oil trade. Relating to Iranian domestic affairs and the unfolding of the revolution, a number of participants addressed ideological justifications or theological exposition for the war, its necessity, continuation, and termination. Each raised many questions and concerns and stimulated intensive debate.
This book, however, cannot include all the papers presented at the conference. Some were too theoretical and academic in nature, and focusing on them here would divert attention from the real problem. The book addresses some concrete issues directly related to the war so as to facilitate our comprehension. For example, because of the proximity of the Persian Gulf to the war zone and because of the strategic and economic import of this international water, the war was bound to affect the region and involve some of the smaller states of the area. Thus, while it was appealing to include papers that dealt with regional issues, this was avoided intentionally. Then the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait outdated some issues altogether. The approach taken here, then, was to concentrate on the more immediate problem, namely the border dispute over Shatt al-Arab. Therefore, only chapters that contribute to the understanding of the conflict—its development, its implications, regional and international involvement, and its significance—were included.
A few words should be added about the revision of the papers and the editorial work. The chapters included reflect the contemporary thoughts of the contributors on the issues related to the war that they were asked to address, as well as the way in which the war was perceived at the time. The changes that have occurred in the region—the peace between Iran and Iraq, the death of the Ayatollah Imam Khomeini in June 1989, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the impact of the changes in the former Soviet Union—and the amount of information available to scholars, resulting from concerted efforts by all sides to reveal prewar alignments and dealings, no doubt would influence the analysis of the participants had they been asked to revise their papers. Thus, it was decided to preserve them as they were presented, except for turning them into essays for a book.
One important aspect of the statistics presented in some chapters, particularly in chapter 4, must be mentioned. Details of Iraqi attacks on Iranian cities or Iraq’s destruction of historical sites, as well as Iraq’s use of chemical weapons, were taken from the data bank and publication? of what is now called the Center for Documents of the Imposed War. To verify the validity of the assertions in these chapters, I visited the center. Established after the war, it used to be called War Information Headquarters as part of the Joint Chief of Staff of the Iranian armed forces. It is a computerized document center collecting data on all aspects of the war. I was told that this center, on written request, provides information to any scholar or research institute interested in war-related issues. The address given in their bulletin is Center for Documents of the Imposed War, No. 4 Mir-Emad Street, Mutahari Ave., P.O. Box 15875/1615, Tehran. Details of the attacks of the Iraqis from the beginning to the end of the war are being processed and published.
Part I of this book deals with why the war happened, how it began and unfolded, and how it came to a halt. It examines, in detail, the areas in which the Iraqis have inflicted damage not only on Iranian people but on many of their neighbors and allies as well. It analyzes the “war of the cities,” chemical warfare, and damage to cultural treasures, in general the way in which the war left its mark on Iran, Iraq, and their respective heritages. Part II looks beyond Iran and Iraq to the effect of the war on the region and on the powers outside the region, analyzing how others saw, interpreted, and reacted to the war. Part III is an attempt to make sense of the war (if sense can be made out of the deaths of tens of thousands on both sides and physical and psychological mass destruction) and what it might mean in terms of international law, Islamic jurisprudence, international relations theory, and historical perspective. It also introduces those aspects of the war that constitute new developments in international laws of war and suggests ways in which these laws could be improved.
Notes
1. Clausewitz wrote, “War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means"; see Claus von Clausewitz, On tVar, ed. Anatole Rapoport (Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin Books, reprint 1974), 119.
2. The general tendency is to cast a war as the means to bring about peace. World War I was always portrayed as “the war to end all wars.”
3. Sharam Chubin, “Post-Gulf Security,” Survival 33, no. 2 (March-April 1991): 142.
4. Cited in John Bulloch and Harvey Monies, The Gulf War (London: Methuen London Co, 1989), 38.
5. Ibid., 21.
Part I
Genesis, Development, and Implication
Iraqi Attitudes and Interpretation of the 1975 Agreement
Ibrahim Anvari Tehrani
On September 22, 1980, Iraq initiated an all-out premeditated war against Iran, aiming to subvert the Islamic Republic of Iran.1 Iraqi armed forces managed to bring large areas in western Iran under their occupation. My purpose here is to demonstrate the ill will of Iraqi leaders and the obstructions put in the way of implementing the treaties existing between the two countries.
After Abdol Karim Qasim’s coup d’état in July 1958, disputes between Iran and Iraq intensified. From the earliest days of the coup, the Iraqi press published articles against Iran and Radio Baghdad broadcast anti-Iran programs. Iraqi officials began to mistreat Iranians residing in Iraq and to harass Iranian nationals in border regions. The government of Iran showed tolerance and resilience and seized every opportunity to ameliorate the situation. In the latter part of October 1958, Iranian leaders expressed hope that the government of Iraq would participate in the session of the special commission charged with settling boundary problems and questions relating to the Shatt al-Arab waterway by November 6, 1958, so that problems relating to demarcation of frontiers and the arrangements for the administration of the river could be totally settled. The Iraqi government not only showed reluctance to fulfill agreements existing between the two countries but also created new difficulties for Iran in Shatt.al-Arab. The rich provice … |
