Neither is Putin Saddam, nor is Ukraine Iran. None of the opponents in the Iraqi-Iranian war had nuclear weapons and the political framework was different. Nevertheless, we should deal with this conflict – because it tells us a surprising amount about the current war.
Six months after the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, many historical comparisons are made. Looking at history helps to read the character of wars and to explain how they were fought or how they were ended. This historical knowledge is also useful when analyzing the current conflict. The Iraqi-Iranian war, which claimed more than 700,000 lives on both sides between 1980 and 1988, despite many differences to today’s situation, can provide some interesting clues as to a possible further course of the war in Ukraine.
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It was to be a short campaign. Saddam Hussein, the strongman in Baghdad since 1979, was convinced that the neighboring state was internally weak and that the new regime would quickly fall if attacked. Ayatollah Khomeini has been in power in Iran since 1979. His regime was isolated internationally, still holding hostages after the shah’s fall and the storming of the US embassy.
Tehran could therefore not expect international sympathy, let alone active support, in the event of an Iraqi attack. The war was intended to make Iraq the leading Arab power and stop Iranian influence on Shia forces in Iraq. The aim was therefore not to subjugate the country or annex territory, at most correcting the border at the Shatt al-Arab, but to secure regional dominance.
Iran was (and is) four times the size of Iraq, and in 1980 three times as populous. The armies were similarly powerful early in the war. Iran still had very effective F-14 and F-4 combat aircraft from the times of the Shah regime, while Iraq had outdated Soviet aircraft. The first wave of Iraqi attacks on September 22, 1980 therefore failed to destroy the Iranian Air Force on the ground. The operation was poorly planned.
The authorities responsible had received their orders just one day earlier and discovered miscalculations in good time: the bomb load was so heavy that the Iraqi planes could not have reached their home bases due to a lack of fuel. The advance on the ground also faltered.
Three attack wedges had penetrated the 1,500-kilometer border with Iran. However, they had no clear objectives, operated largely in isolation from one another and the tanks advancing without infantry protection were often easy to eliminate. The strategically important city of Khorramshahr could only be conquered with heavy losses. By the end of the year, Iraqi forces had advanced only 20 to 60 kilometers. Rain and cold hampered the conduct of operations.
Sönke Neitzel has been a professor of military and cultural history of violence at the University of Potsdam since 2015. Before that, he taught at the University of Glasgow and the London School of Economics, among others. Bastian Matteo Scianna is a research associate at the University of Potsdam and co-author of “Bloody Abstention. Germany’s Role in the Syrian War”.
Neither did Saddam’s political wishes. Unrest broke out in Tehran, but no revolution. Syria and Libya declared their support for Iran in October, while other Arab states declared themselves neutral. Iran rejected attempts at mediation by the UN, and half-hearted calls by western states to the warring parties to lay down their arms came to nothing. The war went on.
In January 1981, Iran struck back for the first time. It turned out that Kohomeini’s political purges had reduced the fighting power of the Iranian army. The advance got stuck in the mud. It was not until May 1982 that Khorramshahr was recaptured, which forced Iraq to withdraw its units behind the Shatt al-Arab and thus withdraw from Iranian territory. On other fronts, Iraq was able to defend more successfully thanks to improved defensive positions.
But the Iranians had taken the initiative and were now even less concerned with a ceasefire. After more than a year of intense fighting, Iraq had lost 30,000 men – and lost 20 percent of its artillery, 40 percent of its aircraft and 60 percent of its tanks. Iran also suffered considerable losses: 50,000 soldiers were killed and the subsequent summer offensive in July 1982 claimed the lives of 12,000 others.
In 1983 and 1984, fighting focused on the southern section of the contact line, and Iranian offensives aimed at capturing Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, which was the gateway to many Shia strongholds. But all attempts failed with enormous losses – also because the Iraqis were often able to disrupt Iranian supplies and simply had more artillery and tanks.
It quickly became apparent that neither side was able to achieve decisive operational breakthroughs. As early as October 1980, Iran announced general mobilization and, in addition to the regular army (Artesh), the Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) and the militias (Basij) were becoming increasingly powerful. However, this in no way led to an improvement in military effectiveness. Rather, attempts were made with ideological fanaticism to change the balance on the battlefield – also with so-called human waves, which led to particularly horrendous casualties.
Saddam shied away from a general mobilization for a long time, but from 1982 he had to set up a number of new units. Iraq was also able to compensate for its numerical inferiority by buying arms abroad: the Soviet Union and France in particular supplied modern tanks, artillery and aircraft, while Iran mainly received anti-tank weapons and outdated equipment from China and North Korea. Iraq was able to pay for these vital supplies because, despite collapsing oil export revenues, it received credit from Arab states—an option Iran didn’t have.
Bloody abstention: Germany’s role in the Syrian war
In addition, the arms purchases showed that Iraq was less affected by sanctions. Because there was officially still a US embargo on arms deliveries to Iran. Although the so-called Iran-Contra affair showed that this could also be circumvented, this explains the list of arms suppliers to Iran, since they did not fear American reactions.
Western Europeans opposed a UN arms embargo for the region because they feared a freeze on oil supplies, as they did in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War. In addition, many companies flouted the regulations of their governments. It was not until 1988 that the USA, Great Britain and France proposed a comprehensive arms embargo for both states in the UN Security Council – the Soviet Union and China vetoed it.
An additional consequence of the military stalemate was the intensification of internal repression. Saddam had tens of thousands of Shiites and Kurds forcibly resettled or murdered. He massively used poison gas, which was used more and more extensively from 1984 to defend against Iranian attacks and cost the lives of thousands of Iranians.
The war also escalated on the water and in the air. Mutual air and missile attacks on tankers, oil production infrastructure, economic and, increasingly, purely civilian targets increased. In January and February 1987 alone, the Iraqi Air Force flew 860 sorties against over fifty Iranian cities, killing up to 14,000 civilians. Iran then fired Scud missiles at Baghdad.
The stalemate did not break up until 1987 and 1988. The costly attacks by the Iranians were unsuccessful, while the Iraqi army became more and more professional. She planned targeted, limited offensives in which she exploited her superior firepower and, for example, in the spring of 1988 recaptured the Fao Peninsula.
The Iranian forces were exhausted and the Scud attacks on Tehran had also terrified the urban elite: What if Saddam were to mount poison gas warheads on the rockets? The enthusiasm for the war died down and Ayatollah Khomeini had to call for a ceasefire. Saddam agreed without pursuing the retreating Iranian troops. However, he had not broken away from the grandeur of the year 1980, but plunged his country into a new, fatal and criminal adventure with the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Neither is Putin Saddam, nor is Ukraine Iran. None of the opponents on the Shatt al-Arab had nuclear weapons and the political framework was different. But a historical perspective shows that an interstate war between similarly strong countries can last for a very long time. Success on the battlefield and the moral collapse of the Iranian army and parts of the population had decided the war – not negotiations.
Ultimately, victory in the Iran-Iraq war went to the side that professionalized its armed forces, learned militarily from mistakes, received strong financial and military aid from abroad, and, it should be remembered, ruthlessly used chemical weapons and bombed civilians.
In Ukraine, too, there is a risk of a long and bloody war, which could escalate further as a result of new attacks on economic and civilian centers. It almost seems too late for a quick end. The war threatens to continue until one side loses the political will, economic resources, or military capabilities to continue fighting.
The West cannot relieve Ukraine of the heavy sacrifices it has made in the fight for its freedom. But arms deliveries can – as the historical comparison also shows – decisively improve the military balance of power and financial aid alleviate the economic and social hardship of the population. Both also affect morale and can help Ukraine survive its struggle for survival, especially since it has fewer resources than Russia and large parts of its defense industry are in decline. And one thing should not be forgotten: the outcome of the battle is still open and Ukraine can still lose the war.
