(soft dramatic music) - One of the most important wars of the last 50 years is one
that we don't hear about much. When in 1980, two of the Middle East's most powerful countries, Iran and Iraq, waged eight years of
some of the worst trench and chemical warfare since World War I, leaving both countries devastated. This is the war that
fractured the Middle East into lines that still play out in nearly every conflict there today. It set the US and Iraq on a path that ultimately led to
the American invasion. And it defined Iran's
often hostile relationship with the wider world. This is the Iran-Iraq War. It's 1979, and Iran is in
the middle of a revolution. (crowd chanting) The country is coming off
of decades of being ruled by The Shah, a king that the US and UK had installed in the 50s
after covertly overthrowing Iran's democratically-elected leader. But after years of The Shah's
corrupt autocratic rule, a mass uprising violently overthrows him, creating what becomes an Islamic republic, headed by an ayatollah
named Ruhollah Khomeini. (soft dramatic music) Khomeini, and a group of
Shia religious scholars, want to impose fundamentalist
rule on the country and are hostile to both the Western powers and the neighboring Soviet Union. They establish a military force called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which is meant to protect
their hold on the revolution and to suppress the other groups who helped overthrow The Shah. The US is watching all of this in shock. Their biggest ally in the
region, and a major oil producer, has just turned from
friend to fierce enemy. But the biggest tremors of this revolution are felt in the rest of the Middle East. (soft dramatic music) Iran sends out radio
broadcasts to Arab countries like Saudi Arabia,
Lebanon, Kuwait, and Iraq, calling for people to
rise up and overthrow their own rulers. They're trying to export their
revolution to their neighbors to gain new allies in the region. Neighboring leaders, most
of them Sunni Muslim, don't like this. Saudi Arabia's king fears being overthrown just like The Shah was. And in Iraq, Saddam Hussein sees this Shia religious revolution
on his eastern border and worries that the Shia
majority that he rules over will rise up against him too. But he also sees this as an opportunity. Iran and Iraq have been fighting over this border territory for years. This waterway is a critical
access point to the Persian Gulf where both countries export their oil to the rest of the world. In a treaty between the two back in 1975, Saddam had to give up full
control of this waterway, as well as access to oil-rich
regions in what was now Iran. Saddam hates this treaty and is considering taking
the waterway back by force. The Iranian revolution
has left the country weak and fractured. Khomeini and his revolutionary
guard are still fighting other political factions for control. The Iranian military,
which used to be funded and trained by the United
States, is now weak, its leaders having been jailed or executed after the revolution. Iran's military would
normally be able to crush Iraq in an invasion, but maybe not anymore. Saddam sees this as an opportunity
to weaken a major rival. (soft dramatic music) Saddam is also riding on
a delusion that he himself is going to unify the Arab
world under his leadership. If he invades Iran, maybe the rest of the Middle
East will rally behind him against this new common enemy. He thinks it'll be a quick victory. So in September of 1980, he decides to prepare 10,000 Iraqi troops to cross the border to invade Iran. (soft dramatic music)
(engine rumbling) What's about to happen here isn't just the start of a new war. Saddam is kicking off a
dynamic that will dominate the Middle East for more than 40 years, the fight between revolutionary
change and status quo power. (soft dramatic music) Pausing the video to say
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supporter of the channel. Let's dive back into this story. The war officially
starts when Saddam sends his air force over the
border in a surprise attack on Iranian air bases.
(soft dramatic music) His 10,000 soldiers cross
from Basra into Southern Iran. Further north, Saddam opens a second front to seize strategically-located
border towns and put pressure on his enemy. These air attacks mostly fail, and Iran responds with
airstrikes of their own into Iraqi territory
hitting oil facilities. Iran still has sophisticated
jets that the United States had given the previous regime. This gives them an edge in the air. (bombs exploding) The war quickly sucks in
the rest of the region. Israel is among the first. It wants to keep these
two adversaries occupied, fighting with each other,
keeping both sides weak. So almost immediately, Israel
secretly sells supplies and parts to Iran. This helps the Iranian air
force keep planes in the air. Now, Iran and Israel are not friends, but Israel sees Iraq as
a greater threat here. So they're willing to support. Iran needs to get its military organized if they're gonna fight this war. So they release military officers that they had jailed
during the revolution. War tends to unify a nation, and in this case, the
fractured country of Iran is unifying around Iraq's invasion, creating this irony that Saddam is the one who actually cements
Khomeini's hold on power. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait also step in here, giving billions of dollars
to fund Iraq's war efforts. They want to weaken Iran and
turn back its revolution. The Middle East is now dividing between, on one side, Arab states
who are ruled by aging, Sunni monarchies and
strong men who fear change, and on the other side, a Shia Iran bent on revolution, on remaking
the region in its image. China is also watching this war. They say they will
maintain strict neutrality, but they take the
opportunity to sell weapons to both sides of the conflict. They eventually become Iran's
top supplier of weapons. (gentle music) For most of 1981, the two
armies are in a stalemate, with Iraq holding small but important stretches
of border territory. The global powers see this stalemate and try to negotiate a ceasefire, hoping that this conflict
that threatens so much of the global oil supply will end soon. What they don't know is that this is really just the beginning. Saddam agrees to the ceasefire,
but Khomeini does not. This war has become so
useful to his goals, unifying the country and
keeping the military occupied so that it doesn't become
a rival to his power. Khomeini needs the war to continue. So Iran demands that
Saddam Hussein step down. They say the war will continue
until his rule is ended. Saddam, of course, refuses. So Iran goes on the offensive. Their forces are now organized. Their officers have been freed from jail, and they're able to
recapture the territory that Saddam had taken,
even pushing into Iraq. Saddam's hopes of a quick victory and a gain of some valuable
territory are now dead. So he turns to the
United States for support and the US agrees to help. They hope to weaken Iran and its call for anti-American Islamic revolution across the region. So the US starts giving
Saddam intelligence and satellite imagery on
Iranian troop movement. (soft dramatic music) Iraq also gets another big
backer, the Soviet Union. The Soviets are at war in
neighboring Afghanistan trying to suppress another
religious uprising, but they also have allies in this region. So over the course of the war, the Soviets become a top
supplier of weapons to Iraq. Now remember the situation
between these two. It's a tense moment in the Cold War, and the United States and Soviet Union are suddenly supporting the same side of this Middle East conflict,
both backing the country that will support the status
quo, nothing changing, allowing their great power
struggle to continue as it has. But by the summer of 1982, Iran is now pushing into Iraqi territory, much of their campaign
focused on the city of Basra. If Iran can take Basra,
it will cut off Iraq from the Persian Gulf, preventing them from
shipping out their oil. Iraqi forces are outnumbered
here, so they start to dig in and build trenches, erecting
barbed wire barriers, planting landmines and
surrounding the city to stop Iran from taking it. The fighting starts to
resemble the brutal warfare of World War I, waves
of artillery strikes, and the Iranian military
resorting to human wave attacks where thousands of boys and
men charge over open fields leading to huge numbers of casualties. Iran is not successful in taking the city, but this attack does weaken Saddam, showing that he's vulnerable. And this is where we
need to look to the north to talk about the Kurds. (soft dramatic music) The Kurds are a minority
group in the north of Iraq. They've been long suppressed
by Saddam Hussein, and they see this moment as an opportunity to break away from Iraq
to make their own country. So Kurdish forces start
fighting with the Iraqi army, taking towns and villages. So now Saddam is fighting
two different armies, one of which lives in his own country. Iran starts sending support to the Kurds who have a presence in this mountainous, oil-rich part of Iraq. If the Kurds can hold it
and keep Saddam's regime away from all of this oil, it would have a major effect on this war. This is a big deal for Saddam,
and he switches tactics to make sure he can
control this northern area. He escalates by using chemical weapons against the Kurds as well as the Iranians. Shells filled with mustard gas, weapons that cause extreme
burning and blindness, a weapon that is illegal
under international law, but even still the global powers who are supporting him
mostly look the other way. The US starts sending
technology and money to Saddam, even restoring official
diplomatic ties with Iraq. This allows Iraq to buy
technology from the United States that helps them develop
their weapons programs, including the horrific
chemical and biological weapons that he will soon be
using on the battlefield. They need him to keep fighting
because this war has changed. It went from protecting
Saddam from revolution to now using Saddam to weaken Iran. So they keep supporting him, showing him that he can
use chemical weapons without being punished. The chemical attacks help
push back Iranian forces, and the war reaches a new stalemate. (soft dramatic music) 1984 is the year that the oil
war begins in this conflict. Iraq starts attacking Iranian oil tankers in the Persian Gulf using
new jets provided by France, a new entrant to this conflict. Saddam warns that he'll
also attack any ship going into Iranian ports. Iran retaliates by attacking oil tankers carrying Iraq's oil. The oil that the entire globe relies on is now at the center of this
increasingly brutal conflict. Hundreds of commercial ships
are attacked by both sides, resulting in the death of
over 400 civilian sailors. The US has to send in two frigates and a guided missile destroyer
into the Persian Gulf to escort US ships,
hoping that their presence will stop these attacks.
(soft dramatic music) Meanwhile, Iran is making
progress on the ground, slowly taking territory from Iraq and continuing attacks on
the vital port city of Basra. It's 1985 and Saddam is about
to escalate to a new extreme. (soft dramatic music) He starts shooting
missiles and dropping bombs on Iranian cities all over the country, including the capitol. This kills 16,000 people
and leaves many homeless. Iran responds, striking Iraqi cities, firing these massive missiles, primarily at the capital of Baghdad. These strikes hit civilian
targets like a school and a bus station with
hundreds of casualties. Civilians on both sides are
now caught in the crossfire of this brutally escalating war. Their cities and their homes
are not safe, so many flee. These events leave an
entire generation scarred by the trauma of war and a
disdain for the outside powers that have ripped their country apart. And speaking of outside powers, this is when the US starts double dealing. They start selling missiles to Iran, which gives Iran an edge
against Iraqi forces who the US is also supporting. Behind all this is
President Ronald Reagan, who wants to use the money from this deal to fund an anti-communist
militia group in Nicaragua. It's all supposed to be a secret, but will eventually come out and be known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Meanwhile, Kuwait is asking
the US to be more aggressive to protect their oil tankers. Iranian attacks on their ships
have started to take a toll. The US is getting more
involved in the war. Their presence in the
Persian Gulf is growing. They start putting American
flags on Kuwaiti tankers to deter Iran from attacking them. And then in March of 1988, Iran partners with the Kurdish fighters to take over the Iraqi town of Halabja. The Kurds know that this
is going to set Saddam off, and they brace themselves
for a brutal retaliation. But what comes next is worse than anyone could have prepared for. The Iraqi army drops
bombs in artillery shells containing deadly chemicals,
blanketing the entire town with a cloud of deadly
gas that sinks into homes and buildings and the underground shelters where many were hiding for protection. It's a brutal attack that
kills over 5,000 Iraqi Kurds, mostly unarmed civilians. And it was a part of a broader campaign that Saddam was now waging to wipe out the Kurdish people entirely. He now had what he believed
was a justification. So the Iraqi army starts
going village to village, dropping chemical weapons on civilians and executing any survivors. This resulted in an estimated
50 to 100,000 deaths in what has now been deemed as a genocide, one of the many war crimes
committed by Saddam Hussein. The US knows this is happening, and yet according to now-public documents, the official government line
was to turn a blind eye, to blame everything on Iran. Saddam's horrific war
crimes project a new fear onto the civilians in Iran
who now worry that a missile loaded with deadly gas
could land on their cities. Many flee to take
shelter in the mountains. And by now, after eight
years of devastating war, Iran's economy and social order is frayed. Their leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, is feeling the pressure to end this war. More than a million lives
have been lost in this war. All sides are looking for a way out. And the UN Security Council
is pressuring the parties to accept a ceasefire. Then in July of 1988, a US
ship in the Persian Gulf shoots down an Iranian passenger jet, (soft dramatic music) killing all 290 civilians on board. The US shakes it off as
an unfortunate accident, saying that they mistook the airliner for a hostile F-16 fighter jet. They pay compensation to
the victim's families, and President Reagan sends
a letter apologizing, but the government never
formally apologizes. And the captain of the ship who did this later received a medal which
fed a deep suspicion in Iran that this attack was deliberate, that it was a scheme to coerce
them into accepting peace. Fear of more American attacks, along with a new offensive by Iraq, pushes the Iranian forces to
withdraw from the country, and both sides finally accept a ceasefire. (gentle music) The war is finally over,
and after all of this, the borders were unchanged
from before the fighting. But in some ways, this was
really just the first round in a larger conflict that has
continued through to today, a war for the future of the Middle East, one that the United States
is deeply involved in but that most expresses
itself as a cold war between Saudi Arabia and
Iran, who now fuel civil wars around the region in
Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, backing their own proxy fighters and making these conflicts worse. But another major takeaway
here is that this war defined Iran's relationship
to the rest of the world, especially the United States. Iranian hardliners came to
feel confirmed in their belief that they could never
trust an outside world bent on Iran's destruction and seemingly unconstrained
in their violence, leading some leaders to conclude
that only nuclear weapons could stave off disaster from the outside. Saddam Hussein's Iraq
emerged battered by this war, humiliated by this failure against Iran. He faced growing internal
resistance from his people, which he suppressed with
more and more violence. He also came out of
this with huge war debts to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Angry that his allies had
billed him to fight a war on their behalf, a few years later, Saddam invades Kuwait seeking its oil, taking the spoils that
he felt he was owed. And this is when his one-time
backer, the United States, quickly turns against him,
expelling him from Kuwait and beating him back in
a swift 43-day victory, cutting him off from the world economy and turning him into a pariah, an enemy. A decade after Saddam had
gassed his own people, the US finally blamed him for it, turning it into a byword for his cruelty and the centerpiece for their
demand that he stepped down. A few years later, George W.
Bush would cite these weapons of mass destructions, the
ones that he would never find, as a reason to invade the
country to topple Saddam. Bush's war room was filled
with the same officials who had covered for
Saddam and his war crimes in the first place, and making
it so crystal clear that, even though this war between Iran and Iraq ended decades ago, the
Middle East we see today is built off of what happened during those eight brutal years.
