Opinions | Columnists
Causes of regional predicament
On the anniversary of the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the region is again bleeding and wasting valuable financial and other resources.
- By Dr Abdul-Hadi Al-Timimi, Abu Dhabi Editor
- Published: 23:59 August 7, 2008
The Iran-Iraq war was an inevitable and tragic conflict of will and ideology. Since its outbreak in September 1980, its aftermath had shattered the future of the whole region that sits on the largest proven reserves of oil and contributes over 30 per cent to the world economy and finance. The regional predicament had deepened ever since and that war had bred others and undermined the future of several nations.
While accepting the UN Security Council resolution to end the war on August 8, 1988, which he stated as "drinking poison", Iran's leader Ayatollah Khomeini failed to put an end to the suffering and destruction in the region. Neither the US-UK invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003, nor the execution of Saddam Hussain, in December 2006, had eased the undermining pressures or drain on the region's resources.
Saddam and Khomeini had ideological and regional ambitions which were conflicting and polarising in various aspects and forms. Their mutual dislike and enmity started as far back as 1975, when the Iraqi leader, then vice-president, was able to strike a deal with the Shah of Iran to demarcate the water borders in the Shatt Al Arab waterway at the tip of the Gulf. That deal included Iran withdrawing support and facilities to the Kurdish insurgency in Northern Iraq and Iraq's support to the Shiite clergy opposition against the Shah regime. The climax was reached by the departure of Khomeini from his Iraqi residence in the holy city of Najaf to Paris and his accession to power in Tehran in 1979.
Khomeini and the Mullas' accession to power was not seen as a threat to the secular regime in Iraq only, but also as a destabilising factor to the strategic and immediate security and development in the Gulf and the Middle East regions. There was an attempt to destabilise the security of Bahrain which culminated in the Hadi Mudarrisi case. The late Emir of Kuwait was also targeted and an assassination attempt was made against him in 1985. The new Iranian regime was implicated for these acts.
For those considerations, the countries of the region joined forces, in one way or another, and contributed to the Iraqi war machine. However, the Iraqis did the fighting along the borders with Iran and tolerated the brunt of Iranian long range missiles which started in 1985 to indiscriminately blast the Iraqi capital.
An estimated one million people were killed and two billion dollars of worth of development value and assets were lost. And the tally is inexhaustible.
The warring countries of Iraq and Iran, irrespective of who has won the battle, emerged from the fighting highly bruised and their development, at all levels, greatly impaired.
However Iraq, which received, during the eight-year war, billions of dollars worth of assistance from Gulf countries, particularly, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, encountered huge structural, economic, security and development nightmares. Over a million men had to be released from military service and returned to civilian life where the majority did not find jobs or sustainable family life. The government was unable to devise any solutions and no more injections of cash coming from the war-time bankers.
To consolidate bilateral relations with his war financiers, Saddam concluded a security and economic bilateral cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia during King Fahd's visit to Baghdad in 1989. Similarly, he tried to reach an understanding with Kuwaiti Emir Shaikh Jaber Al Sabah during his visit to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.
Unfortunately, the issue of oil prices - which retreated due to increased production and sales by some Gulf countries, particularly Kuwait - made the Iraqi regime paranoid and pushed the leadership to suspect that there was a "conspiracy" against Iraq. Being unable to generate the necessary cash for post-war reconstruction and economic development, and lacking the political ingenuity to competently deal with pressing domestic issues, the Iraqi government decided to "export" its predicament through another war; this time by invading Kuwait in August 1990.
The ensuing war, led by the US forces, to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait in January 1991, bled the region of billions of much-needed oil revenues for development and stability. Destruction had been widespread and undermining, particularly to Iraq and its people who were "bombed back to the stone ages," according to the then US Secretary of State James Baker.
The same war had sown the seeds for another highly damaging and destabilising war, 12 years later, through which the US and British forces invaded and occupied Iraq.
The region is again bleeding and wasting valuable financial and other resources. What is more scarier is that another war, that can be nuclear-based, can break out. This time with Iran. This is because of Tehran's determination to continue with its nuclear programme. And the poison is still seeping through for others to swallow.
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