Efraim Karsh > Quotes

“On 20 March 1982, on the occasion of the Iranian new year, Khomeini announced that ‘as a special favour’ schoolboys between the ages of 12 and 18 years would be allowed to join the Basij and to fight for their country. Consequently scores of youths volunteered for action and were hastily recruited and provided with ‘Passports to Paradise’, as the admission forms were called. They were then given rudimentary military training, of a week or so, by the Pasdaran, and sent to the front where many of them ‘martyred’ themselves.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“Thus ended the Iran-Iraq War, one of the longest, bloodiest and costliest Third World armed conflicts in the 20th century. After eight years of bitter fighting, untold casualties, and immeasurable suffering and dislocation, the two combatants were forced, out of sheer exhaustion and debilitation, to settle for the status quo ante existing in September 1980. Yet there was little doubt that neither of them viewed the ceasefire as the end of the conflict.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“If such a state is to be established, it can only be established over our dead bodies.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948

“The Arabs have taken into their own hands the final solution of the Jewish problem,”
― Efraim Karsh, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948

“Nevertheless, what saved Iran from a comprehensive defeat was not the ferocity of its military resistance but rather the limited objectives of the Iraqi invasion. Saddam’s decision to go to war was not taken easily or enthusiastically. He did not embark on war in pursuit of a premeditated ‘grand design’ but was pushed into it by his increasing anxiety about the threat to his own political survival. War was not his first choice but rather an act of last resort, adopted only after trying all other means for deflecting Iran’s pressure. It was a pre-emptive move, designed to exploit a temporary window of opportunity in order to forestall the Iranian threat to his regime. If Saddam entertained hopes or aspirations beyond the containment of the Iranian danger – as he may have done – these were not the reasons for launching the war but were incidental to it. The reluctant nature of Saddam’s decision to invade Iran was clearly reflected in his war strategy. Instead of attempting to deal a mortal blow to the Iranian army and trying to topple the revolutionary regime in Tehran, he sought to confine the war by restricting his army’s goals, means and targets. The invasion was carried out by half of the Iraqi army – six of 12 divisions. Saddam’s initial strategy also avoided targets of civilian and economic value in favour of attacks almost exclusively on military targets. Only after the Iranians struck non-military targets did the Iraqis respond in kind.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“Yet, despite their overwhelming superiority in firepower and their resort to chemical weapons, the Iraqi forces failed to retake Fao, with some 10,000 Iraqis (and 30,000 Iranians) killed in a fortnight. Four years later, during his famous meeting with the US Ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, and shortly before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Saddam would turn this humiliating defeat into a shining achievement. ‘Yours is a nation that cannot afford to lose 10,000 men in one battle’, he boasted in front of the startled ambassador.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“Nor was Iraq’s combat experience in the October War any more impressive: the armoured division that arrived at the Golan front ten days after the war began was ambushed by Israeli forces and lost some 100 tanks within a few hours.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“The implications of this speech were not long in coming. On 22 September, emulating the brilliant Israeli gambit of the Six Day War in 1967, Iraqi aircraft pounded ten airfields in Iran in an attempt to destroy the Iranian air force on the ground. This failed, but the next day Iraqi forces crossed the border in strength and advanced into Iran in three simultaneous thrusts along a front of some 400 miles (644 km).”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“Khomeini espoused a militant religious doctrine rejecting not only the Middle Eastern political order, but also the contemporary international system since both perpetuated an unjust order imposed on the ‘oppressed’ Muslims by the ‘oppressive’ great powers. It was bound to be replaced by an Islamic world order in which the territorial nation-state would be transcended by the broader entity of the umma (or the universal Muslim community); and since Iran was the only country where the ‘Government of God’ had been established, it had the sacred obligation to serve as the core of the umma and a springboard for the worldwide dissemination of Islam’s holy message. As he put it: ‘We will export our revolution throughout the world … until the calls “there is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God” are echoed all over the world.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“In all these operations Iraq made extensive use of chemical weapons which, apart from Saddam’s determination to get the Iranians off Iraqi territory at all costs, reflected the generals’ lax attitude towards this operational mode. For all his lack of moral inhibitions and respect for international norms, Saddam’s overwhelming preoccupation with his political survival injected a strong element of restraint into his behaviour, which his generals lacked completely. For them chemical weapons were yet another category of armament whose use depended purely on their military value in the relevant circumstances. As Abd al-Rashid put it, ‘If you gave me a pesticide to throw at these swarms of insects to make them breathe and become exterminated, I would use it.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“It was 2 pm on 20 July, and even though President Khameini had announced Iran’s acceptance of the ceasefire resolution three days earlier, Khomeini’s message still came as a shock to the Iranian people. ‘Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom’, ran the ayatollah’s statement. ‘Unhappy am I that I still survive … Taking this decision is more deadly than drinking from a poisoned chalice. I submitted myself to Allah’s will and took this drink for His satisfaction.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“The military was supported by a number of prominent moderate politicians, notably President Ali Khameini, Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mussavi, and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who opposed the invasion on the grounds of its exorbitant human, material and political costs. They were confronted by a powerful hardline group, including the mullahs on the Supreme Defence Council, headed by the influential Speaker of the parliament, Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who urged the acceleration of the military operations at all costs, so as to prevent the Arab world and the international community from rallying behind Iraq.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“Secondly, given Iraq’s position as the largest and most powerful Arab state in the Gulf, it was viewed by the revolutionary regime as the main obstacle to Iran’s quest for regional hegemony. In the words of the influential member of the Iranian leadership, Hujjat al-Islam Sadeq Khalkhali: ‘We have taken the path of true Islam and our aim in defeating Saddam Hussein lies in the fact that we consider him the main obstacle to the advance of Islam in the region.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“It was essentially a civil war, conducted under the watchful eye and occasional intervention of the British Mandatory authorities, in which the Palestinian Arab community, assisted by a sizeable pan-Arab irregular force, sought to prevent its Jewish counterpart from laying the foundation of statehood in line with the UN resolution.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948

“It was to be divided into two distinct phases. The first began on 30 November 1947, the day after the adoption of the Partition Resolution, and ended on 14 May 1948 with the termination of the British Mandate.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948

“Never forgetting the involvement of military officers in the 1953 attempt to force him from his throne, the Shah took great pains to keep the three services well apart so that they were incapable of mounting a coup or undermining his regime. There was no joint chiefs-of-staff organisation, nor were the three services linked in any way except through the Shah, who was the Commander-in-Chief. Every officer above the rank of colonel (or equivalent) was personally appointed by the Shah, and all flying cadets were vetted by him. Finally, he used four different intelligence services to maintain surveillance of the officer corps. These precautionary measures were mirrored on the Iraqi side. Keenly aware that in non-democratic societies force constituted the main agent of political change, Saddam spared no effort to ensure the loyalty of the military to his personal rule. Scores of party commissars had been deployed within the armed forces down to the battalion level. Organised political activity had been banned; ‘unreliable’ elements had been forced to retire, or else purged and often executed; senior officers had constantly been reshuffled to prevent the creation of power bases. The social composition of the Republican Guard, the regime’s praetorian guard, had been fundamentally transformed to draw heavily on conscripts from Saddam’s home town of Tikrit and the surrounding region.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“This mixture of political and geographical considerations compounded Saddam’s failure to grasp the operational requirements of such a campaign. Rather than allowing his forces to advance until their momentum was exhausted, he voluntarily halted their advance within a week of the onset of hostilities and then announced his willingness to negotiate a settlement. This decision not to capitalise on Iraq’s early military successes by applying increased pressure had a number of dire consequences which, in turn, led to the reversal of the course of the war. It saved the Iranian army from a decisive defeat and gave Tehran precious time to re-organise and regroup; and it had a devastating impact on the morale of the Iraqi army and hence on its combat performance. Above all, the limited Iraqi invasion did nothing to endanger the revolutionary regime, nor to drive Ayatollah Khomeini towards moderation.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988

“The problem will be solved only in blood and fire. The Jews will soon be driven out.”
― Efraim Karsh, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948