UAE | Media
From the Iranian Revoluition to the Iraq war
The Middle East has witnessed tumultuous events in the past 30 years - dealing with the decline of Arab nationalism, the rise of political Islam and several regional wars.
- By Layelle Saad, GCC/Middle EastDeputy Editor
- Published: 03:07 September 30, 2008
The Middle East has witnessed tumultuous events in the past 30 years - dealing with the decline of Arab nationalism, the rise of political Islam and several regional wars. Iran's role in the region became drastically different after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The Revolution changed the entire region as oppressed Shiites in Arab countries became empowered and the US lost its key ally in the region.
In 1980, Saddam Hussain invaded the Islamic Republic in his quest for regional domination. Huge miscalculations on both sides led to a gruelling eight-year war that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and shaped people's ideological perceptions for decades to come. Saddam assumed the Sunnis of Iran would stand with Iraq, while Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini thought Shiites of Iraq would revolt against Saddam. Both were wrong as nationalism won out over sectarianism.
However, many Kurds in Iraq defected to Iran's side under the auspices of an independent Kurdish state. This was also a deadly miscalculation for the Kurds as thousands were killed during Saddam's infamous Al Anfal campaign, using chemical weapons to punish them for treason.
Saddam would later regret this in 2003 when the US began building a criminal case against him as a pretext for invasion. The US, during the Iran-Iraq war, wanted neither side to emerge as a hegemonic power - thus when Iran was making significant gains during the war, the then US President, Ronald Reagan, decided to arm Saddam's regime to tip the power balance.
The end of the war saw no clear victor, but left both countries with huge debts. Saddam looked to annex the oil-rich province of Kuwait to solve his economic woes. In 1990, Saddam invaded and quickly defeated Kuwaiti forces, not thinking that the US would react militarily. Again, he was wrong. President George Bush - worried about Saudi Arabia's oil reserves - deployed troops to Saudi Arabia only five days after the invasion of Kuwait. Possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed during US aerial bombardment of Iraq during Operation Desert Shield.
In the years following the Gulf War, the US decided its interests were best protected by adopting the policy of dual containment, in which both Iran and Iraq would be contained. The United Nations, under US initiative, also upheld crippling economic sanctions imposed during the Gulf War, which aimed at toppling Saddam. The sanctions ravaged the civilian population well into the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations - possibly accounting for up to a million Iraqi deaths.
Another element of dual containment required stationing US troops in nearby "friendly" Saudi Arabia. The consequences of this became well-known after 9/11 when most of the hijackers turned out to be Saudis - citing the US presence in Muslim holy lands as one of the reasons for attacking the twin towers.
Pre-emptive strike
In 2003, the US launched its first-ever pre-emptive strike in the Middle East when it invaded Iraq. President George W. Bush managed to convince a terrified US public that Iraq was central to the war on terror. In fact, many in the US falsely believed Saddam was involved in 9/11.
The repercussions of the 2003 Iraq war clearly shaped the Middle East. Not only was Saddam - to many a symbol of Arab power - executed, but millions of Iraqis became refugees, pouring into neighbouring countries and changing the demographics of the Middle East.
Also, with a crippled Iraq, Iran has emerged as the hegemonic power in the region. Under the conservative administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran has openly threatened Israel, supported Hezbollah and Hamas, pressed on with its nuclear enrichment programme and contributed significantly to ongoing instability in Iraq.
Events in the Middle East do not occur in a vacuum. Each revolution, rebellion and war has been the result of a culmination of various forces and ideologies, which in turn influence and shape the events of the future. How will the next 30 years look like? Historians, for sure, will look back to the events of today when studying the future.
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