Iran iraq war
Iran iraq warBy: beth
E-mail: [email protected]
"Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator is a ruthless despot who has brought enormous misery on his own people. It is a pity he remains in power..." (Finley ). The tension between Iran and Iraq had deep roots. Long-standing major problems included rivalries between the minority Sunni Muslims who dominated Iraq and the majority Shiites and disputes over borders that confined Iraq to its narrow access to the Persian Gulf by way of the Shatt al Arab waterway. In 1969, when Britain announced its intent to withdraw from the Gulf, Iran and Iraq already seemed ready for war. That year there was a small confrontation over the boundary along the Gulf, and disputes flared in the 1970s as well, once when Iran occupied three Gulf islands in 1971 and several times later over the border. Most of those differences appeared to have been put to rest by the Algiers Treaty in 1975. This agreement settled the border dispute over the Shatt al Arab waterway in Iran's favor. At the same time, Iraq renounced a long-standing claim to the southwestern portion of Iran; an area called Arabistan by Iraq and Khuzestan by Iran, and recognized Iranian control of the disputed Gulf Islands. Saddam Hussein took over the presidency in 1979. When the Iranian monarchy was overthrown, Iraq denounced the Algiers Treaty and demanded restoration of the eastern bank of the Shatt al Arab as the border. After a period of mutual sporadic border violations and skirmishes, Iraq attacked its neighbor in the summer of 1980. Iran appeared weak and disorganized and the Iraqi president thought he could easily win. The Ronald W Reagan administration took office in 1981 when the war between Iran and Iraq was only a few months old and it built on the Carter Doctrine. Regan indicated his readiness to keep open the Strait of Hormuz in the event that Iran tried to close the Persian Gulf to shipping Reagan's military plans for Gulf security were more ambitious than those of his predecessor. The Reagan administration regarded the lack of an actual American military presence as a tacit invitation to Soviet intervention. The refusal of the Persian Gulf States to accept American military forces frustrated the Reagan government, so the new administration strengthened the rapid deployment concept with significant expenditures for military construction in the Middle East and nearby areas. In the first Reagan administration, the United States spent nearly $1 billion on construction and support facilities, in Morocco, at Lajes Field in the Azores, and on the Indian Ocean Island base of Diego Garcia. Reagan also made the first official assignment of forces to the rapid deployment force on the 24th April 1981 and gave it a prominent place in the defense establishment. While the Carter administration had buried the rapid deployment force within the U.S. Army Readiness Command, Reagan gave it visibility and prominence. In October 1981, the connection to the Readiness Command ended, and the task force became a...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.